Hello to all readers! This is my new story La Esperanza, which is obviously about Danganronpa. As I love the series and all the characters (with a few expections), I hope that you all like this story!
Well then, on to Chapter 1!
Ultimate Despair. The name that everyone feared.
The group that had left a brand in the whole world, leaving only death and destruction in its wake. Its only goal was to spread despair, and completely erase hope. They had basically suceeded: all the major resistance groups had been crushed. There was still some rebelling, but the rebels knew that they were fighting a lost cause.
The leader of Ultimate Despair was unknown to most people living on Earth, and most of the ones who knew were loyal and devoted followers. When thinking of her, most peasants imagined her living in a huge, fancy castle, full of black and filled with guards and awful traps that would horribly kill anybody foolish enough to come in. A huge imposing wall all around it, with towers where archers and mages could easily snipe attackers. The surrounding area devoid of life, all just a husk, a burnt wasteland.
The truth, while in some ways similar, was also very different.
For example, while the castle was very lethal, it actually looked kind of harmless. It was an eyesore, not to mention ridiculous-looking. The building itself was well constructed, in a strategic position, but it looked like it had been painted by a one-year old. Colours clashed everywhere: a very light yellow dulled your eyes before a bright red made them burn and black splotches were all over the walls as if a black pen had leaked over a first-grader's Art project.
Mukuro Ikusaba, Commander of Ultimate Despair, did not know why her sister had painted it like that, but could think of two reasons.
1. It could have a strategy purpose. The bright colours mixing together could disorient the enemy, or they could be blinded by the huge contrasts. However, even though her sister was very intelligent and a skilled fighter, she did not like strategy, prefering to make things up as they went along.
2. It could be to give her despair. That was probably it: it sounded foolish, but her sister would do anything to get despair, even if it was for despair. In fact, she was addicted to despair and craved it every second she lived. Even painting her castle like that would give her the despair of having an awful-looking castle, and that was good enough for her.
The wall, probably for the same reason, looked like a bunch of clouds in a circle, with spikes sticking out of them from the side and tall towers sticking out of them from the top. It still had top-class fighters ready to die for their leader.
The surrounding area was full of life too, just a different kind of life. Sure, there were trees and flowers and there was even a small river but the plants were poisonous and the river's water was lethal. Not to mention the horrifying chimeras that had no mind of their own, but would ravage and tear into any intruders that weren't part of Ultimate Despair. Mukuro wondered how they identified who was and wasn't in the group. They had probably been implanted with the same program that controlled their robots, the Monokumas.
Mukuro snapped out of her thoughts as she heard footsteps echoing in the hall outside. A messenger with an urgent message, probably. Then again, who else would come here? She didn't have any friends: the whole concept was unknown for her. While her sister had befriended and manipulated countless people, she'd been her shadow and protection. And what did she get in return? A room the size of her sister's closet, with space for an uncomfortable bed, a tiny set of drawers and her most essential weapons that she liked to keep with her. The rest had to go to a special section in the weapon storage room.
Sometimes she wondered if her sister hated her, and that was probably true. Her sister always abused her, both physically (she still had bruises from the last time she was beat up by her) and mentally ("To put it simply, you're trash" was one of the least hurtful things she was often told). But then, why did she stay by her sister's side? The answer was simple: there was nowhere else for her to go. It was too late for her to rebel against Ultimate Despair (even though she wouldn't do that anyway) but she didn't want to end her life.
She didn't want to admit this either, but she stayed because she needed attention. Even as Commander, she didn't have any relationships with her soldiers. She was simply their leader, who gave them orders and fought alongside them. And of course, being friends with people outside Ultimate Despair was out of the question, which is why her only choice was to stay with her sister and receive what she chose to interpret as affection.
Suddenly, three soldiers came into the room; she instantly analyzed them, in instinct. They had the standard grey uniform, which meant that they were merely common soldiers. Their only weapons were the standard gun and taser. The black helmet offered quite a lot of protection, as did the bulletproof vest. The thing that worried her, however, was the scared look in their faces.
Something bad was going on.
Her fears were confirmed when one of the soldiers looked at her, and she saw fear in his eyes. Choking back saliva and tears, the soldiers managed to stammer out a sentence that made Mukuro run out of the room.
"Commander! Prisoner 10 has vanished from Jabberwock Prison!"
The Prisoner 10 in question was a few kilometers away from the prison, stumbling away and clutching an injured arm. She winced; the injury wasn't recent but there were still bruises and it hurt to move it. Her capturers had beat her quite badly in trying to get information from her.
But she didn't tell them anything, because she couldn't.
Her first memory had been waking up in her cell, scared, hungry and dehydrated. She didn't know who she was, or where she had come from: not even her father or mother. She had been badly surprised when she'd taken her gloves off in her first night in the cell. Hideous burn scars marred her hands, and they looked quite old. She wondered whether they would ever fade.
Her captors, however, thought very differently. Taking information out of them had been surprisingly easy. A few well-placed questions, mixed in with flattery and a great deal of acting, went a long way.
Apparently, she was Kyoko Kirigiri, one of the most prominent members of the resistance against Ultimate Despair who'd suddenly gone missing. While good with a sword, supposedly her magic was known throughout the whole ravaged world. Or at least, what was left of it.
At first, she couldn't believe that the whole world had been destroyed by Ultimate Despair, but that seemed to be the case. While on other countries the impact had been less severe, the territories near Ultimate Despair's heart had been completely put under control, or so she thought.
However, hope wasn't lost. The guards had let slip that Ultimate Despair was losing ground, and some territories had been completely liberated. Maybe the same could happen in this case... if the country that housed the base of Ultimate Despair was freed, then Ultimate Despair would be defeated.
But she couldn't think about this now. Instead, she had to run as far as possible from that hellish prison, where jailers did things that would horrify anybody to force out information from the unfortunate victims.
Escaping had been easy. She'd waited until most of the staff had gone to reinforce the group in a battle in a major city against the Resistance, and only the least capable jailers were left. With wits and manipulation, she'd managed to persuade the weak jailer to give her the key, then lunged at him. After kicking him in the shin, she took his gun from the holster, turned the safety off and shot him in the leg; she'd take the non-lethal option every time it existed.
From then on, it was easy. The jailer had inmediately spilled the beans about where her possessions were and gave her the key. She felt bad for him: he was almost certainly going to be killed for failing to contain her, so she'd knocked him out by pistol-whipping him once in the head to at least spare him the pain of the bullet that was lodged in his leg.
The entrance of the prison was surprisingly deserted, with only a few guards that were too drunk to even pay attention to their surroundings. Sneaking around them was easy, and son enough she'd obtained her belongings from the storage room.
The sword handle fit perfectly in her hand, and the blade was as beautiful as diamond and as sharp as one too. The ornate sword holder hung around her waist like a custom-made belt. An big, old book full of mysterious handwriting which described all manner of magic was in her hand, and the talisman that was needed to cast magic was attached to a cord and put on her neck like a necklace.
The talisman was the item which caught the most attention from her. It looked like an orb, with a gold outline and all the colours that she could think of mixing together inside it in perfect harmony. But even without her memories, looking at the talisman made her smile and have warm thoughts.
Running was difficult: Jabberwock Prison was in the middle of a desert, and her boots sunk in the sand wherever she stepped. She knew that there could be dangerous animals or Ultimate Despair chimeras in the sand, but she couldn't remember how to use magic.
Where could she go? Going back to the prison was suicide, but running away wouldn't do much good. She'd either get captured and killed, or die of starvation.
She could only keep running and hope for the best.
She didn't know how much time had passed when she started to hear the loud whine of a chopper.
Eyes widening in fear, she turned around to see a small pursuit helicopter quickly go in her direction, searching for her.
Her mind raced at a speed that surprised her, thinking up of possible plans and discarting them almost just as quickly. Hiding wouldn't do much good: the NKA 17 Pursuit helicopter had thousands of different radars installed that would find her in a flash. They had found her already.
Wait... since when did she know that?
Her mind left her in the dust, as it moved on. Running wouldn't work either, as the helicopter could easily reach 400 kilometers per hour without any damage to the structure.
She hadn't heard that from the jailers either. How...?
Information about that particular helicopter came to her at a speed that almost overwhelmed her. Her brain felt like it was going to burst from all the new information she was receiving. Designed by the famous mechanic Kazuichi Souda (why did she feel so much hatred associated with the name?), the NKA 17 Pursuit could carry 10 passangers, and had two machine guns installed in each side, light enough to not affect the helicopter's flight capacity but powerful enough to break rock and pierce cheap bulletproof vests.
The weakness was the tail of the helicopter. It was fragile, but needed for flight and stabilizing the computer in mid-air. Normally the tail was protected by a strong energy shield, but bad weather conditions such as sandstorms or hail messed with the generator of the shield and broke it, leaving the tail without any further protection.
That was the only chance she had, and she would seize it with all her strength.
She opened her eyes, only to see two machine guns fixed on her. She could see the pilot smirking from the cockpit, pressing the button that spelled death for her. The bullets flew out of the guns like rockets, leaving white trails in their wake and spinning towards her direction, tracking her down.
Running away was useless. The bullets would destroy any cover. She wouldn't be able to do anything!
And then she felt something inside her. Something inside her heart, a tug that pulled at her very soul. Something that was inside her wanted to break out.
Time stopped. Bullets froze in mid-air. The helicopter floated there, without any of its blades rotating. The wind stopped blowing the sands around.
Then, it happened.
She let out a painful scream and collapsed in the sand as a white orb slowly came out of her chest. It was like a part of her soul was getting ripped out of her body. The white orb then floated in mid-air, making no movements or threatening actions.
Grimacing, she managed to pull herself up from the sand and dust her clothes off. The sharp pain was quickly fading, but it had hurt quite a lot. She then looked at the orb and gasped, her eyes starting to glow white.
In a trance, she walked up to the orb, and touched it. Instantly, the orb exploded into a white light that blinded her, and all the light seemed to come back into her own body. In that instant, she felt two things.
Protection. Selflessly shielding others from attacks, sacrificing your energy to save them and yourself.
Air. A free element, peaceful and helpful when calm, an unstoppable juggernaut when furious.
She also felt something else: something almost unnoticeable, but with unmeasurable power. Her foggy mind cleared, and another power awoke within.
Time returned to normal. She could see the helicopter pilot frown in confusion, and the bullets resuming their trajectory, tracking her down so that they could take her life.
Of course, that was not going to happen.
She closed her eyes and spread her palms out. When she opened them, a spherical green shield had formed around her.
The bullets exploded against the shield, blowing sand, dust and smoke everywhere, but inside the protective bubble the air was cleaner than ever before.
Winded, Kyoko took a long breath, then shook her head to clear her mind. She didn't know where she'd learned that shields normally took lots of energy out of the user, but it seemed like Protection was easier for her than normal.
She resisted the urge to smirk when the smoke dissipated enough to see the pilot's shocked and furious face; he looked like a kid who was having a tantrum.
But she couldn't be distracted: the second step of her plan was already in motion.
With a sweeping motion, a light breeze started to blow in the area. The wind quickly built up power, until it became a monstrous gust. The wind started to shake the helicopter around, making it harder to aim, but that was only a bonus.
The real point of the wind was to blow around the sand. Quickly the wind became a huge tornado, and Kyoko was in the eye of it.
She felt exhausted, but she only had two options: continue or die. So she kept going.
Finally, she achieved her goal: the green energy shield suddenly disappeared, the sand making it impossible to function.
The tail of the helicopter snapped soon after.
Kyoko caught the final, horrified look of the pilot as the tornado flung the helicopter up in the air, then enveloped it in an air cocoon. But instead of a butterfly, all that came out was metal scraps and a broken helicopter blade. The pieces fell to the ground with a final thud. The tornado disappeared, her magic no longer keeping it alive.
She'd done it. She'd fended off the helicopter, and with her new powers, she might actually stand a chance at getting out of the hellish place.
At least, that's what she thought until she collapsed to the ground, adrenaline gone.
Just before the world turned black, she saw a hand extending towards her. With the last of her strength, she took it.
And they vanished.
Aaaaand that's it!
Thanks for reading this chapter! In the next one magic will be explained, so don't worry if you're confused.
You can ask about anything in the reviews and I'll PM you with answers, unless you don't want spoilers. No flames please, but reviews, criticism and pointing out spelling mistakes are very appreciated!
Have a good day, and R&R!