-Hinata, it is you... isn't it?
-Are you referring to who I was before?
There was nothing exciting in this world.
Everyday followed the same routine: Waking up at 8 AM and being brought a small breakfast by them... Then, they would take a few medical tests. Poke him with a few needles, take a few vials of blood. Hook him up to a few machines. Bring him a small lunch. Do a few mental tests with him to test his brain capacity. And then leave him to his own being for the rest of the day until he slept at 10 PM.
Everything in this world was predictable. He saw everything before it happened, possessing the talents of the Super High School Level Seer, Super High School Level Fortune Teller, the Super High School Level Visionary, and the Super High School Level Analyst.
However, according to his artificial talents, Junko Enoshima's plan to plunge the world into despair starting with Hope's Peak Academy should have failed. The student council, the victims of the first mutual killing event, should have seen through Junko and Mukuro's bluff and no one should have died. And judging by Junko's ecstatic reaction, she saw it too, but perhaps that was made it so exciting.
Against all odds, the fashionista's arrangements came through: Mikan Tsumiki's brainwash, Chisa Yukizome's capture…
Junko had been adamant to him about despair being the one thing in the world that no one - including either of them - could ever predict… the one thing that was ever changing, the one thing they could truly gamble on together.
But that wasn't true.
It would have been a lie if Izuru claimed he didn't feel shock and a small thrill when the last standing member of the council through a knife at him and it sliced cleanly just under his eye… or when a classmate of Mikan's nearly ruined her plans, drawing a gun on them. They were unpredictable actions, a result of people acting out in despair.
Though if despair was truly the only thing that could not be foreseen in the world, why was he surprised, feeling a stream of tears run down his face as he watched Chiaki Nanami take her last breath? Why did a strong pit of regret and guilt fill his stomach as she cried, calling out to his past identity, and slowly letting go of hope?
Izuru had been told multiple times before that the being he had been before he had taken on his present one was gone. His memories, his personality… all had been erased and impossible to ever recover. But she was a girl he knew nothing about and had no care for. He shouldn't have felt such a deep sadness, watching her struggle to pull herself to her feet and failing, slipping in her own blood and then dying at his feet.
Junko had told him that the only unpredictable thing in the world was despair and he had believed it. She charged him with a knife with intent to kill even though she knew he would take her down with no problem. She longed to feel a pit of dread in her stomach as she fell to his mercy, putting her life into his hands, because she was willing to take that gamble.
But maybe there was something that rivaled the feeling of despair? The uncontrollable, despairingly, uncertain, sinking sentiment of watching humanity plummet at her hand...
"I guess... I really can't do anything... to help you..."
Perhaps Junko Enoshima... was wrong.
He thought he knew everything in the world: every movement, every cause and effect... But Chiaki should have been crushed and broken, having being betrayed by her beloved teacher and her class. Being tortured and bruised as her classmates watched. Every trick Junko set up, every glimmer of hope that had peaked in her maze ended in punishment, in despair.
He thought she would have died weeping and wondering why she was left to die, why her teacher stabbed her in the back, why her classmates never came... But she regarded him sadly and wept, but not for herself - Not for own injuries or her own demise. But for him and her classmates and friends. Even during death, she shown of a feeling that Junko had assumed she had cleaned from the school. And it was the one thing that Izuru Kamukura couldn't predict.
Hope.