Chapter 1 - The beginning of everything

Hello mysterious stranger,just a heads up this is a slow updating story because you know life, anyway enough of me and onto this chapter. And by the way three people are writing this thing and it's our first go at it, so i hope its alright, please review if you can :P

Disclaimer- Like we could own something like Dangan Ronpa.

"Talking"

'thoughts'

Exaggeration

Naegi's POV

The light of the opened door was so bright – far brighter than any of the surviving students of Hope's Peak 78th Class had expected, as you and all the others all shielded your eyes from the blinding white light, and it took your group a moment for your eyes to adjust. Or at least that's what you thought was happening; alas, the light was seemingly artificial, and once you could see outside, you noticed that it was… the dead of night. The moon was clearly visible in the dark sky, and some of the stars could be seen twinkling their way through the deep grey clouds – it was far later than you'd thought. You were at least hoping it might be somewhat light out. It looked like it was midnight to one at the earliest.

Of course, the fact that it was dark out soon became a rather minuscule fact once you noticed what exactly was waiting for you outside the gates of the academy. You should have known that despair would always follow those who had hope, chasing them like prey, waiting to strike; and the followers of despair's queen would wait for the survivors of hope, to plot revenge for their fallen leader – but at the moment they seemed to be fixated on one person in particular.

You.

Crazed followers wearing Monobear masks, or Monobear insignia, were gathered outside the gates of Hope's Peak Academy. They looked eager, like they wanted your blood to be spilled, they wanted to paint the town with your red in her honour – hell, they looked antsy to get started with it. Their weapons were in clear sight, ranging from baseballs and bats to beaten up shotguns, a colourful array of potential deaths was laid out in front of everyone as if they could just line up and take a choice. Some of the members of Despair were seated on a few crates and bits of old building lying around that had told you they'd been happily anticipating for everyone for quite a while. Others had taken to standing, some of their heads cocked to the side, as if examining everyone – mostly you, but certainly everyone.

Then they started advancing.

All of you were showing obvious signs of fear, whether you liked it or not – even Kirigiri and Togami were failing to keep their stoic masks on. You had no idea what to expect, as they got closer, closer, and you had only backed away very slowly in comparison. You were surprised none of the gun wielders had fired at any of you yet, but you didn't want to jinx yourself and get shot in the leg or something. Before you could fully register what was happening, a hand had reached out faster than any of you had expected – and before anybody could react accordingly, somebody had grabbed Fukawa by the throat and dragged her forward.

"H-Hey!" she screamed, already trying to squirm out of the person's grasp. "L-let me go, you bear w-worshiping freaks!" Her outburst only caused them to tighten their grip around her throat – enough to shut her up, but not enough to cause too much pain. At least, causing her pain wasn't their intention just yet.

"Now, now, calm down, my children," another person in a Monobear mask laughed in a mocking tone, coming up to stand next to the one holding Fukawa. "We won't hurt you just yet. Especially not you, my darling author. Of course, on one condition – we will gladly leave you all alone."

You heard Fukawa mutter "D-don't call m-me 'darling'…" under her breath.

'A condition…?' you thought. You knew nothing good was actually going to come out of this – saying you had a 'bad feeling' about it would practically be an understatement. The faint butterflies in your stomach were starting to hurt now.

"What's- What's the condition?" Kirigiri inquired, her voice strangely hesitant.

"Just give us the Ultimate Hope! Then the rest of you can all go free."

Maniacal laughter broke out among them.

You all looked around at each other, seeing concern visibly crossing everybody's faces. Almost all eyes were on you, and it was just adding some kind of stage terror to your current fear for your safety and your life. Nobody even whispered a word, but just as the silence had started to become tense, dangerous; Kirigiri had bravely stepped forward. She looked like she wanted to say something, possibly in your defense, possibly in anger towards the members of Despair, or possibly to convince them to let Fukawa go – but it was clear that the words were dying in her throat. This is the first time you've ever seen her at a desperate loss, and it felt like the most dangerous situation possible for her to be rendered almost completely speechless, seeing her mouth opening to speak but closing right afterwards without a sound. But despite all of that, she'd still managed to give them a stern look of warning.

If you were honest, you kind of wanted to give yourself over. If it'd protect Fukawa, if it'd protect all of your friends and potentially even anyone related to them by extension, you'd gladly sacrifice yourself – better you than them, right? Yet you were being held back, and who knew you could trust them to keep their word? Would they really leave Fukawa and all the others alone if you let them have you, or was it just a trick on how they knew you were almost like a sacrificial lamb? If you mentioned that you were willing to take the risk, your friends wouldn't even let you try to step forward. You were at least glad you weren't being put into a position of leadership just yet and that Kirigiri was taking that role herself, since if you were leading right now you weren't entirely sure if you'd know how to bring this to its best outcome. You didn't feel ready to be the Ultimate Hope, not yet. You needed time.

Irritated by the elongated, fearful silence, the person gripping Fukawa pulled a small, rugged dagger on her and placed the blade gently onto her throat. She stopped moving, getting the message clear as day – as did Kirigiri, seeing as her face fell and she took another tentative step backwards. She rejoined your group, once again standing in line with you – and you noticed both her and Asahina, whom were on either side of you, nervously move their arms as if to put them in front of you in a protective manner; although they seemed nervous to as it was a mystery whether or not such an action would agitate the group even more. You'd still stumbled back a bit in reaction, not exactly expecting them to do that. The situation was extremely bleak, but you would all try your best to get out of this with no casualties. They were not letting Fukawa die, and there was no way they were going to sacrifice your life for anything, not even a group of crazed Junko worshippers. Not even if you asked them to let you go.

After everything, though, you felt as if there wasn't anything you could really do to in order to help out. The situation was all on you, and you were powerless in the faces of Despair. Some Ultimate Hope you are.

'Come on, I have to do something, I can't just stand here! This is all my fault, after all… I can't let them hurt Fukawa-san because of me…! Think, Makoto, think!' Your mind was racing with fear and the desperate rush of adrenaline to hopefully get you, Fukawa, and the other four out of here as safe as can be. Fukawa had still attempted once again to slowly worm her way out of the Despair's grip through all of this, but it was to no avail.

"L-Let go of Fukawa-chan! We haven't even done anything to you!" Asahina suddenly yelled at them, breaking the silence that had begun to rebuild itself, as she was the only one who didn't take her eyes off Fukawa's continued struggle to escape. The despair holding her was offended by this remark, and pressed the knife against her throat just a tiny bit; letting a single drop of blood flow down her neck. The poor girl looked just about ready to faint, but she was barely still keeping strong, keeping herself together – if only for the lot of you. Asahina mouthed a rushed apology to her, knowing it was her fault that they'd done that. Fukawa didn't seem to care that she was at fault though; she appeared happy that she'd tried, oddly enough.

Togami and Kirigiri were the only ones not to show their reaction, Togami especially being strangely quiet through the whole ordeal. The final piece of despair finally settled in among the lot of you as you finally now knew full well just what you were up against.

"Quite the contrary, little ones," the smug sounding Despair informed us, still standing tall and proud. "You took our Queen from us, so it's only fair that we get revenge. If you give us your saviour of hope, everything will be equal and right again, correct?" One thing that stuck out about this guy is that he looked older than what Enoshima would have been, so it was… off putting, how he spoke about her.

"What makes you believe we'd even think about handing him over to disgusting heretics like you?" Togami finally spoke up, not about to back down.

Kirigiri shifted herself back into a defensive, confident stance in response, and simply stated that "You'll have to go through us if you want to get him."

The others all nodded in agreement and stepped in front of you; judging from how and where Kirigiri and Togami were currently standing, they were going to use this time, this distraction, to free Fukawa as well.

The smug Despair laughed.

"Ah ha ha, my children… then I suppose we're taking the Ultimate Hope by force, whether you like it or not…" He snapped his fingers – the Despair holding Fukawa dropped her, likely to focus on you, and she scuttled away, practically hitting the ground running and dashing around them till she was behind Togami – as all of the other Despairs around you once again started to slowly advance. But a sudden, commanding shout of 'GET THEM!' put them in full force, full speed, and they aimed to kill.

Kirigiri, Togami and Hagakure had clear enough minds to start trying to find something they could defend you, Asahina, Fukawa and themselves with – Hagakure had settled for a metal pipe, Togami had managed to dig out an axe ('Was that sitting there the whole time?' you asked yourself), and Kirigiri had found something much smaller that you hadn't seen in time; either a gun of some kind or a large shard of glass, for all you knew.

'There's too many of them! We're not going to make it at this rate! Especially if they're going after-!' Your racing thoughts began, but you cut off your own sentence, afraid to finish it. Everybody here was defending themselves from their assailants – there were fights and scraps around you, some pools of blood were forming already, and you swore some Despairs had confusedly started fighting each other – and all you were doing was standing there, shuffling to and fro as you tried to decide just what in the world you were supposed to do. At this point you were the only one who wasn't trying to fight somehow, and you just watched everything unfold before you, too frightened and shellshocked to even move.

Kirigiri's and Asahina's shouting voices, ever the protective ones right now it seemed, had barely reached you in your terrified state.

Asahina's voice, although closer to you, was still being drowned out by the battle cries of the Despair; her words almost lost in the bloodshed – "You have to run, Naegi-kun! They're not going to stop until they get you!"

"Get out of here, Naegi-kun!" the detective had yelled in turn, her voice further away, barely registering in your ears. "You have to escape while they're still focused on us! GO!"

"B-But I can't just leave you guys!" You shouted back to neither in particular, the fear and pressure evident in your shaky, desperate voice as you tried to convince them to let you stay to fight alongside them like you should have been this whole time.

"Just go already, man! We'll meet up with you later!" Hagakure argued, adding to the noise that was growing harder and harder for you to hear. You watched him give you a shaky thumbs up in the middle of the fray as he continued, "It'll be fine, Naegicchi! Save yourself!"

In the end you couldn't really bring yourself to argue any further; it was probably for the best that you ran away. After all, a lot of the brawl that was unfolding in front of you was only happening because of your presence and your actions. Maybe if you weren't around, nobody would be in danger… Maybe if you weren't-

You shook those thoughts out of your head, you had no time to feel bad about yourself or have thoughts about disappearing from the world that had come out of nowhere (thoughts you honestly don't even remember having before). In the distraction, you found yourself a clear path – it looked like Togami, Asahina and Hagakure were holding a few back so they didn't get in your way – and just bolted into it, not even trying to be subtle about it anymore, since there was always somebody looking at you at this point anyway. Just before you could think you might have gotten away successfully, you heard another commanding bellow, from the same, smug asshole who was probably their leader, echoing the words "DON'T LET HIM GET AWAY!" into the night sky, the stars twinkling as brightly as ever and serving as your guides. (How poetic.)

The loud voice immediately tripled the fear within you, your hands shaking and sweating and your pace hardly slowing as you tried so, so hard to get out with your life like they'd wanted you to, and trying your best not to stumble along the way. You wished you could hear the bloodshed behind you get quieter, but the mob following you – consisting of about six or seven people, seeing as a good number of them probably stayed back to keep your friends at bay – were bringing the sounds of the fight with them. All you could think, desperately, was that you had to lose them; the only thing you could do right now was lose them.

You were hardly even looking were you were going anymore, if you were honest; you were paying more attention to where you should be going rather than were you were at that very moment. After what had felt like hours of running (likely only a few very stressful minutes) you finally spotted an opened building, one whose only defining feature to you right now in your adrenaline-laced mind was that it was a building and it was open – everything else around you that could have been usable was boarded up, this was not what you needed right now – so you swiftly you made your way into the decrepit building, slamming the door behind you, not even pausing to sigh in relief as you were trying your best to think on your feet and live on before you'd stop to rest in any way.

You noticed that it was even darker in here than it was out there, and that was certainly not helping your situation right now. In fact, it was practically pitch black, you couldn't recognize many of the objects and furniture within the room, as you tried not to trip over anything that may have been lying about in the dimly lit – was this somebody's house? – room, since the only light coming in was some moonlight from a window nearby. It was visibly broken in the center, cracked and shattered and covered in cobwebs, bits of glass here and there on the floor underneath it, and the window – a window! It finally clicked in your mind that you could probably use this to trick them out. Rushing over to it and opening it up – thank your luck for once, it's unlocked – you climbed out of it in a frantic, rushed fashion, managing to land on the ground below without tripping up too much. You glanced around for something to possibly help you out, before settling your sights on a broken chunk of – brick, you thought? – some stony thing that you hastily hurled into the room, crashing around the stairs and knocking something over that you couldn't see, making it look like you scrambled up the stairs. You closed the window as quietly as you could, backed up against the intact bricks of the building's wall, and waited.

And waited.

You braced yourself in the unforgiving darkness, finally noticing how cold the brick wall was against your trembling body. All you heard was nothing your heartbeat rapidly and loudly pounding in your ears, and it almost distracted you from why you got stuck in this position in the first place. You knew this was the only shot you had at surviving right now, your only chance to go on; you hoped desperately to whatever deities you could think of that you'd get out of this alive. You couldn't die now; you refused to. You've already come so far, and you're not going to give up just yet. You can't, you just can't. It would go against everything you stood up for until now. You reminded yourself of that over and over again like it was some kind of mantra that would at least keep your spirits up a little bit.

'I can't give up yet. I can't give up yet. I can't give up yet. I can't give up yet. They're all waiting for me. I'm still here because of them. I can't give up yet.'

A stampede of frantic footsteps suddenly came rushing in and you flinched, both from being startled by the sudden noise and the rush of pure fear in anticipation of your inevitable death, squeezing your eyes shut and clenching your fists. You had to expect the worst, especially after seeing what had been waiting for everybody outside the academy upon your escape. You knew they would throw that window open, and you knew they would find you, while you're trembling fiercely, almost completely out of breath, holding back tears and covered in beads of sweat, hugging yourself out of fear, and if they did come across you then your life would no doubt be over right then and there. But you were bracing for an impact that never seemed to come, as you heard various loud bangs and crashes that almost seemed to shake the building, which were likely the members of Despair tearing the room apart looking for you, before words you couldn't make out properly were yelled very angrily and the mob ran up another floor.

Tentatively opening one of your eyes, you shuffled over and risked everything by peeking into the cracked glass. It was incredibly hard to see into the building due to the dark of the night, but judging from the lack of movement in there, they had definitely gone looking for you on a higher floor. Which meant that, for now, you had won.

You took a moment to breathe a (quiet) sigh of relief and wiped the sweat off your brow as you silently praised your extremely impulsive escape plan - which you're surprised you even managed to come up with so quickly in the first place, especially in the wave of desperation that had overtaken you. But you couldn't revel in your success for very long, as you realised that you not only probably had to stay on the move, but the fact that you had survived only raised another question that hadn't really crossed your mind until now.

Were the others still okay?

Slowly making your way out of the dark, moonlit alleyway, making extra sure that your footsteps against the destroyed, crumbling asphalt beneath you were as quiet as possible, you decided you should at least try and find out if maybe somebody else had survived the attack. Poking your little head out, you looked one way, and then the other, acting as if you simply planned to cross a busy everyday road; the coast was clear, but also frighteningly open. It was a rather large area, since a few of the buildings had, erm, been cleared out, making the street much more open than you once remembered it. But it was eerily quiet; you had no idea what could possibly be out there among the cracked roads and fallen buildings of the destroyed, despairing world before you. There could be snipers here for all you knew, waiting for you to come out, come out wherever you are so they could kill you before you would even see it coming.

Deciding very stupidly that you should take the risk anyway - you get out alive once, you get out alive twice, right - you checked both ways again just to be sure, and stepped out into the open street, quickly making your way in the direction you're pretty sure you came from. You'd realised by doing so that you'd escaped into a building on a corner, seeing as you didn't quite have an eye for detail while you were running for your life. Making your way past it and leaving your near-death behind you, you soon noticed the tall building of the now ruined Academy sticking out like a sore thumb, since you hadn't run all that far before your impulsive plan had kicked in. It was now or never you decided, and you made your way there between alleyways to various things you found that you could hide yourself behind, traveling back to Hope's Peak Academy the safest way an extremely wanted person like you could think of in the heat and desperation of the moment.

When you arrived, you had to take a moment to bend over, hands on your knees and catch your breath as sweat continued dripping down your face – not only are you more fatigued than you'd initially thought, but it seemed to be resulting from your fear as well, as you noticed that your hands just wouldn't stop shaking. But the moment you finally lifted your head to look up and saw the front gates of the school, everything around you just seemed to stop. Something was wrong.

So very, very wrong.

For starters, you were the only person here. Strangely enough, you hadn't seen a single sign of life around here since your angry mob disappeared upstairs; not even one person was around, let alone your five friends and fellow survivors. The whole world seemed to be deserted, and so far you felt as if you could have been the sole person still living on it if not for the people who relentlessly attacked you and chased you down, as well as your missing friends. But now that you've come back here, you've returned to find the school's gates just as empty and sombre as the ripped up streets that rest behind you.

Yet what was worrying you most were the massive splotches of darkened blood that lay here and there, and even some trails that indicated that somebody could have been beaten and forcefully dragged away, if only for a moment as they didn't go very far. (You kind of regretted trying to follow the longest one there; it didn't even lead anywhere, so you slowly trudged back in the opposite direction again.) There wasn't even any way for you to discern whose blood they were made up of - the others could have beaten the Despairs somehow and, for whatever reason, decided to drag them along the ground… or your friends had all lost, died or at least gotten seriously injured trying to protect you, and they don't even know if you survived… they have no idea if they died in vain or not.

You could be the only living member of Hope's Peak 78th Class now, for all you knew. You had nowhere to go now, and you probably didn't even have friends to go back to anymore. Everything was looking worse that any of you imagined it could have gotten now - at the worst, you all hoped that maybe you were just the last six people on the planet, maybe. At the very least, that would be okay. But no, you were ambushed by people who worshipped the harbinger of destruction, and all of your lives have been ruined.

You were at a complete loss as to where you should go from here.

Should you stick around the academy? No, here would probably be a popular spot to search for you. This was the academy the killing games took place in, the place you just walked out of alive – you wouldn't be surprised if it turned out these members of despair had more things in mind to do with the place, let alone wait for you here. Staying here would be more trouble than it's worth.

Should you go back to the building you escaped into before? No, the Despairs are likely still within its vicinity. They would be ecstatic to know that you crawled back to them, practically handing your severed head to them on a silver platter with a warm, defeated smile upon your face. Going there would be suicide.

Could you wander about in search of a place to stick close by until you ran into one of your friends? No, that's also a bad idea; that would leave you pretty open. You still hadn't confirmed whether or not Despair had snipers lurking about and waiting for your little self to peek out so they could nail you right in the head, and you were a little afraid to find out whether or not your theory was correct.

Then what could you do? You didn't exactly have any other options, not that you could think of right now.

You fidgeted about, glancing around, slowly taking steps backward to at least conceal yourself in the darkness while you tried to think about where in the world you could hide away in the middle of this disaster. If there was some place you could at least stay in until the sun rose (which was likely only in a few hours), that would be good enough, right? It was less likely you'd be snuck up on and attacked in broad daylight, right? That is, if there's still such a thing as broad daylight. Enoshima's claim about the whole air pollution thing didn't seem to be true anymore, but who knew what else could have happened while you'd all locked yourselves in the school.

You were at a complete loss.

Well, there at least have to be more houses around. Some of them have to be within close walking distance of the academy, surely. Destroyed as they are, they'd at least work as a temporary place for you to rest in until it got brighter out. It's the best you've got right now, you supposed, even if it was risky. You'd already told yourself how dangerous just wandering around will be, but at least you knew you had some kind of destination in mind. Deciding it was your only reliable course of actions, you fled into the nearest street around the school, shuffling your way down the road and avoiding any street lights around that were somehow still operational.

Not many of the houses were in a good condition; a lot of them had a lot of rubble and all-around dangerous things around them that you didn't want any Despairs who managed to sniff you out to use against you. Your search for a suitable temporary home – and your friends, if they happened to be in the same area – took longer than you wanted to, but soon enough you miraculously found a place that seemed usable enough. You couldn't tell if your usual bad luck was giving you a break, or that this choice would lead to something even worse happening, but at this point you knew you had little else you could try.

So in the end you entered the house (the door was wiiiide open) as respectfully as you could, hoping maybe its previous owners were just alive elsewhere, as you silently shut the door behind you and tiptoed down its halls hoping there were no landmines or – god forbid – squeaky floorboards. The mild paranoia that had been following you ever since you escaped the school had dissipated a little as you found the house wasn't rigged with Despair traps, was thankfully unoccupied, and was out of the way enough that you could hopefully stay here until morning unharmed. You'd probably move away in the morning anyway; it's not safe for you to hang around one place for too long considering the situation and social status you've gotten yourself into.

This place, sadly enough, felt familiar enough to remind you of your childhood home. It may have been a bit too dark to see everything, but something about the muted colours, the vaguely familiar scent (which you could not place what it was, but was more pleasant than you'd expected seeing as you were caught in the apocalypse – although it was still a scent you didn't want to have to put up with for too long) and the knowledge that surely, a happy family must have lived here only made you think of your own happy family that you grew up with. The broken, barely recognizable portraits laying on one of the cabinets made you feel kind of bad about essentially breaking in. As you slowly entered a bedroom, you silently hoped that your own family were safe elsewhere, successfully evacuated, waiting for you to come home.

You immediately suppressed that thought. You didn't have time to start crying about the people you've probably lost by now. The house's vague familiarity was not helping you at all. You seated yourself on the edge of the bed and tried to plan out what you might do from here on out, but thoughts of your likely deceased companions and fellow survivors would not stop invading your mind. All you wanted was to make sure they were all okay – that was it. You could probably live with dying soon enough if it meant the others would all get to live on.

Your depressing thought process was just tiring you out even more. Deciding to leave it until morning (or until a Despair found you and attacked), you laid down, leaving the covers underneath you, and closed your eyes. After what felt like hours – likely only fifteen, maybe twenty minutes in reality – you drifted off into a short sleep, merely awaiting the first few rays of the sun.

It was only night one of your slow spiral downward into a situation, a role, a fate far worse than you'd ever imagine.

Woo, wasn't that an adventure

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