I could have left.
The thought kept repeating over and over in my head. I couldn't focus on the man in the room, nor did I register anything he said.
I kept staring behind him. My mind simply kept repeating itself. I could have left.
For days I had tried to overcome my fears whenever my hand would touch the handle of the door.
After each failure to even attempt to open the way, I had consoled myself that it didn't matter.
The door was closed. To even do as much as I did showed that I was fighting.
It proved to me that I hadn't given up.
A single action had shattered everything that I had come to believe in during my time here.
The door had never been locked or obstructed in any way. The man in front of me had shown me as much when he had entered the room.
He had opened the door as easily as I passed through the door to the bathroom. Nothing had ever stopped me from escaping.
I could have left.
But I had stayed.
I hadn't even tried.
Why did I stay here?
Why couldn't I bring myself to escape?
"Komaru Naegi," when I heard my name I snapped out of it and quickly focused on the man before me.
"I know that I am not terribly good at making conversation, but I would really appreciate it, if you could at least listen to me when I speak."
I managed a small nod and waited for him to continue. When he saw that he had finally managed to gain my attention, he continued.
"Thank you. As I said, we have some things that we must discuss."
"Like what?" My voice was soft, subdued and I immediately resolved myself to act more assertive, this guy had shown himself to be an enemy after all.
"Several things really, but I suppose we should start with your performance. Specifically, at the end of your story."
"Performance?" My voice naturally raised as my temper flared. "How can you call that a performance? Did you even see what happened?"
His carefree smile grated on my nerves as he spoke.
"Naturally. And so did all of the adults in Towa City, as well as everyone who happened to watch the worldwide broadcast that was transmitted at the time."
I froze up, somehow I had completely forgotten that detail.
Right. The whole world had seen me at the end, but... What had they seen exactly?
I needed to know. If they had been shown everything, wouldn't everyone understand that I was just a victim in all this?
With as much force behind my words as I could muster, I demanded answers.
"How much did they see exactly? What did they see?"
A small chuckle preceded his answer. "Nothing particularly noteworthy, besides your declaration that you were going to assume the position of Ultimate Despair." What?
"I never said anything like that!" His frown gave me pause. "But you did. Everyone saw how Monaca gave you your options. Let a single town of rabid adults suffer, or kill helpless, brainwashed children and start a war in the name of Despair. It was quite captivating to watch honestly. It was a true test. Would our young heroine prevail or would she fall into the depths of despair?" He paused dramatically for a moment, before continuing.
"Well, when you screamed "I don't care anymore!", everyone knew what your choice was obviously."
I clenched my hands tight, but I couldn't stop myself from screaming.
"I didn't choose anything! I never wanted any of this! That's not even how it happened! I didn't break the controller because I wanted to start a war or kill the children! Monaca just kept goading me with worse and worse stuff and then she showed me my dead parents I just couldn't take it anymore!" At some point I had started crying, but it felt surprisingly good to finally get all of this off my chest. A sigh was all that escaped the man at first before he continued speaking in an almost bored manner.
"Well first of all, you didn't see your dead parents then." I could only gasp in shock and I waited for him to continue. Did he truly mean that?
"I know, truly shocking isn't it? A simple fabrication like that was all it took to rob you of your hope. I truly expected more of you after I went to all the trouble to help you grow, I thought you would be able to resist such pathetic manipulations. Ahh...perhaps I misjudged your potential to become a shining beacon of hope after all. Despite all that you went through, you are still just a normal high-school girl who can't do anything right."
The insult barely even registered in my mind, as I was still reeling from the unexpected revelation."Those really weren't my parents? So they are still alive?"
I got a raised eyebrow in response. "I never said that." The relief I had felt abruptly vanished. What the heck is that supposed to mean?
Seeing my confusion, he continued. "I merely said that you didn't see your dead parents when you thought you did. Whether your parents are actually alive or not doesn't really matter anyways." Immediately furious once more, I began shouting in his face. "Of course it matters! They are my parents! I have to know if they are safe! I want to know where they are!"
Suddenly his tone became more serious, despite that he continued to smile cheerfully.
"And that just proves that you are unable to be a true beacon of hope. If you truly were like your brother, you would be able to belief that your parents were alright without ever learning anything that might support that belief. Unfortunately you seem to be unable to do even that much. In the end it all comes down to one simple truth.
You aren't Makoto Naegi the Ultimate Hope. You are Komaru Naegi the fledgling Ultimate Despair. That's all there is to it."
This guy is crazy! That's all I really seemed to learn from to listening to these ramblings. But one thing was definitely certain. I can't let this stand!
After taking a short breath, I prepared myself to give him a piece of my mind.
"I am NOT Ultimate Despair! I tried to help the people of Towa City! I tried to save the children! I wanted to be like my brother!
Failing in the end doesn't make me some living incarnation of despair!" I never gave up on any of that. He has to see that, doesn't he?
As I spoke his smile became strained and his eyes seemed to shift and warp in a way that made Genocide Jack's intense eyes look tame and controlled. I couldn't help but shiver.
Something is really wrong with this guy. He took a step closer, forcing me to back up towards the window instinctively. His unnerving grin started to give me serious goosebumps.
"Exactly!" My stunned silence only seemed to make him eager to explain. "You didn't become Ultimate Despair because you ended up killing the children.
Even if that does start a war, it doesn't matter! Did I perhaps not explain it properly before? The greater the despair, the greater the hope that is born by overcoming it!
You broke the controller just like you were supposed to, and you felt the despair of committing an act of mass-murder of innocent children just like you were supposed to!
Your intentions don't matter, it just matters if you ended up bringing hope into the world!"
He stopped grinning suddenly and I could detect nothing but malice towards me in his gaze now.
I backed up further only to bump into the window. He followed and ended up directly in front of me. I couldn't move anywhere to escape him. I was trapped.
His threatening tone sent shivers of fear up my spine as he spoke.
"No, you became Ultimate Despair the moment you failed to defeat the final boss. Your defeat at the hands of Big Bang Monokuma proved to the entire world that you have forsaken hope in the name of despair." What the hell? How dare he? Once again righteous anger surged through me and helped me overcome the fear that I was feeling.
"Defeat? You call that a defeat? I brought that giant robot down all on my own. I didn't even need Toko's help!"
"And how exactly did you manage that? Do you really not understand the most important part?" "Huh?"
What is this guy even trying to say?
"I shot him with my hacking gun and it went down just like all the other Monokumas! What are you even talking about?"
He looked genuinely confused for a moment before he answered me with a cold glare. "You used her power." Power? Whose power did I-
His next action, immediately put a complete stop to all of my conscious thought.
With an expression on his face that rendered me utterly incapable of making any sense of his emotions, he moved his right hand towards his left.
In a moment that seemed to drag on for far longer than it really should, he carefully removed the mitten that had been covering up his left hand up until now.
What I had taken to be an insignificant if unusual fashion statement, turned out to be anything but the harmless piece of attire it had appeared to be.
Oh my god... Is that...a woman's hand?
Completely frozen, I could do nothing but follow the horrifying sight of his mismatched appendage as he moved it higher and higher up in front of his body.
In an almost loving voice, I heard the man speak more to himself than to me.
"Unlike me, who had to take her power for myself in order to get even the slightest glimpse of it, you awakened to it all on your own. And just like her, you used them to shatter my plans in an effort to bring me despair." I remained completely motionless as my eyes darted between the mesmerizing swirls that were dancing in his eyes and the red glint of the perfectly manicured fingernails moving ever close to my face. I honestly couldn't decide which sight was more terrifying to me.
I had to strain myself to hear the man continue speaking, as my heartbeat had grown increasingly louder in my own ears.
"I never would have expected that the sister of the Ultimate Hope, a completely normal girl by all definitions, would end up being the conduit of her will. I suppose that was quite a stroke of bad luck for me, wouldn't you say?" He regarded me silently for a moment, mulling over his next words.
"Tell me, do you still claim not to have any idea what I am talking about? I find that hard to believe, considering everyone saw the depths of your darkness that day."
I...I never- The thought never even managed to fully form, as the woman's hand finally made contact with my cheek. It's cold.
Somehow that was all mattered to me at the moment. A hand shouldn't be this cold. It was more than that, however.
It was as if I could feel death itself burning my cheek under the touch of it. No, it was not burning me, it was...a strangely familiar feeling.
It feels empty.
Suddenly, memories returned unbidden.
I saw myself lying in the blood of hundreds of innocent children whose lives had been ended by my own hands. No I don't want to see this!
It was the image of a girl so utterly broken, that she welcomed her death at the hands of Big Bang Monokuma with an empty smile. That isn't me! That's not how it happened!
A laugh escaped the person that looked like me, but clearly wasn't.
I knew it wasn't me because the laugh didn't sound anything like it was supposed to sound like.
I never sounded so...hollow.
"So this...this is Despair."
This had to be some sort of trick, right? What was this empty shell, that was pretending to be me?
It couldn't be me. I wasn't supposed to give up! I never gave up!
Yet as I watched the unusual purplish-black truth-bullet make its way toward the massive Monokuma, the dark entity in my head that I had tried to suppress so far slithered it's way toward the forefront of my mind. Despite my unwillingness, it compelled me to watch this lie, this fabrication.
Big Bang Monokuma started to shut down and my doppelganger looked almost...disappointed?
NO! I hadn't given up! I remained strong and I ended up winning the fight all on my own!
The darkness inside me seemed to thrash in anger at my resistance. The longer I denied the memories before me, the stronger this beast inside me seemed to become.
I grit my teeth and tried to fight against my mounting headache as best I could, but it continued to grow stronger and stronger.
Finally it became to much for me and I had to gave in to the pressure building in my head.
I had to face the truth.
No...I did give up, didn't I?
Finally, as if in sync with Big Bang Monokuma's decaying frame, I could feel the cracked walls of false optimism and feigned ignorance that I had unconsciously built up for days crumble to dust. I could no longer pretend. Everything that I had buried away was now washing over me like a flood. A mass of images and emotions assaulted all of my senses.
Among the onslaught however, a strangely familiar set of memories stood out to me above all others. Sparked by my initial curiosity, the other images began to slowly fade into the background until only the images that I had started to focus on remained. Suddenly I realized what I was looking at.
This was the dream that had woken me up every morning. The dream that I had never been able to remember, and never truly tried to.
I would no longer be able to escape it.
"You are Hope!" I heard a chorus of voices proclaiming loudly.
Hundreds of voices continued to repeat that sentence over and over again.
"You are Hope!" The voices seemed to come from all directions at once and continued to grow louder and louder.
"YOU ARE HOPE!"
Yes, I had been Hope...
I saw the children, terrified of their impending death at my hands. This was what my hope had resulted in. Seeing myself as I had been at the end of my fabricated journey, my thoughts echoed the words of the girl that had forced me to confront a truth I had never wanted to believe.
But Hope isn't always a good thing.
That's what all of this was about in the end wasn't it? I had been shown all the facets of hope, and just what it all could amount to in the end.
After all that I've been through, I no longer believed that I had in it me to chase a better future in the face of despair. I'll never be like Makoto.
I heard the sound of shattering plastic at the same moment, that I resigned myself to that simple truth.
At long last I started to calm down and my mind cleared. I no longer had to pretend to feel hopeful despite what I had been through.
However I didn't feel like I was filled with despair either. I knew that I would be able to move on from this someday if I simply left all this madness behind me.
Just leave me out of all this stuff from now on...
Makoto could be the hope of the world if he wanted. I just wanted to be Komaru Naegi now, a normal girl who tried to be someone she wasn't and ended up screwing up.
That's all I really needed. With that realization, I was brought back to the feeling of a dead hand resting on my cheek.
It felt warmer now somehow.
Something in my expression must have given away my state of mind, because he started speaking without giving me a chance to voice my thoughts. "Ahh. I see you finally acknowledge your actions to be worthy of someone calling herself the Successor to Junko Enoshima. Now that we have established that, we can finally move on to the important part of our discussion."
Before I could get a word of objection in, he sent my mind reeling once again.
In a completely nonchalant manner he reached into his hoodie while keeping 'his' left hand steady on my cheek.
When he brought his hand back into view, the sight of a gun immediately had my heart racing.
Not just any gun either, it was a revolver like the ones that I had seen in movies, or that one weird manga I had never really gotten into.
I was desperately trying to think of ways this scenario could play out without ending in my own death, unfortunately I failed completely.
He'll kill me...
As I started to panic, I frantically thought of ways that could stall him. He seemed to like talking, maybe I could think of something if I could make him waste some time.
"What do you need a gun for? This really doesn't seem like much of a discussion to me, especially since you haven't even given me the chance to talk yet!"
While my wavering voice lacked the hard edge I had intended, it seemed the point I had made seemed to give him pause nonetheless.
"Why should I give you time to speak, when your actions already revealed all I needed to know about your true character?" My response was instant, almost instinctive.
"Because in the end all of this is your fault!" The words seemed to shock me more than him. Where exactly did that come from?
Despite my initial surprise that I would say something like that to someone threatening me with a gun, another glance towards the deadly weapon removed all my doubts.
It doesn't matter either way. If I make him angry or don't say anything at all he'll kill me, but if I keep talking...
With that I let go of my reservations, and allowed my words to flow freely from my mouth in what was perhaps my most desperate gamble yet.
"This whole Successor business was your idea wasn't it?" I asked, hoping to probe for anything that might be able to get me out of this situation.
"Hardly, it was Monaca Towa's idea to mold you into Ultimate Despair." He actually scoffed at the suggestion.
"Then why did you help her?" The slight pause was all I needed to confirm my suspicions.
I knew it! Toko thought the whole thing was suspicious too. I quickly continued pressing him.
"Did you really think I would believe that those kids could have managed this all on their own? They might be pretty impressive but they are still just kids.
From what you told me, it's obvious that you helped them believing that in the end I would somehow become your own personal Ultimate Hope or something!"
Narrowed eyes bored into mine, the mesmerizing swirls long gone.
"You wouldn't have 'somehow' become Ultimate Hope, you were going to do so after overcoming the greatest of despair. The failure to grasp true hope in the end was yours, and yours alone. You cannot shift the blame on me now. After all, had you succeeded you would have gladly taken all the credit for yourself."
His grasp on the gun tightened. I didn't have much time.
I don't know how to deal with this guy, but I have to do something quick!
Honestly, I couldn't tell what possessed me to do what I did next. All I knew was that I felt like I had a good chance to avoid my death at the hands of this guy.
However I needed to do something absolutely disgusting and terrible first. Something that I never would have even considered, had my very life not been at stake.
It took me a moment to silence the part of my conscience that still refused to give in to the dark whispers that had started to creep up in my mind.
Come on Komaru, don't let this freak get away with everything! If you want to survive stop holding back!
And so with the most genuine smile I cold muster at the moment, my hands clasped the hand that still lingered on my cheek.
I ignored my disgust as best I could and spoke softly, careful not to give away my true feelings while my hands held the dead flesh tight. Don't think about it Komaru, focus!
"I am sorry." His eyes widened in shock. "W-What-" I cut him off quickly. "I see now. You are right, of course. I fell into despair at the most important moment of your plan and ruined your chance to bring true hope into the world, didn't I?" While speaking I gave a glance to the gun when the sour feeling in my mouth threatened to overwhelm me.
Keep going Komaru, just a little more...
And indeed, his victorious smirk showed me that my improvised trap might work as intended. He chuckled after he regained his composure.
"Indeed, it seems you finally see the ramifications of your failure. Unfortunately, your regret will not be enough to make up for the despair you brought unto the world."
He raised his right hand and pointed the gun straight at my head. "There is only one way to erase the darkness in your heart."
Oh no... I had intended to make him go on another preachy speech about his plan and then grab his gun while he was distracted, unfortunately that plan seemed to have backfired on me rather spectacularly. Starting to panic, I desperately tried to think of anything I could do to prevent him from pulling the trigger.
As I struggled in vain for anything that might get me out of this situation, a whisper in the back of my mind gave me a truly baffling idea. There was no way it would ever work.
Not like I have any better ideas, I might as well try.
And so I seized the chance before it was too late.
"You are pointing that thing the wrong way, you know..." He paused for a moment and smiled.
"Don't worry, I know how to use a gun." I shook my head and took a deep breath to get rid off my doubts.
"That's not what I meant. I'm not the one you need to erase. It's you." His smile faded and he narrowed his eyes at me.
"That's a pretty pathetic attempt to manipulate me you know? That wasn't even subtle. You should at least try a little harder."
I looked him straight in the eyes and threw away any last reservations that I still felt.
If I want to survive I have to do this. It's the only way...
"I told you so earlier. The entire thing was ultimately your doing, right? We both know that when I fell into despair at the end, that was the only time my actions went against your plan. And since you planned the whole thing up until the end, doesn't that make it your fault?" My eyes widened when he actually snarled at me.
"You don't get it do you? My plan was merely part of the background. Ultimately my interventions mean absolutely nothing. What truly matters is that you failed to choose hope when you confronted Monaca. While I intended for you to have sufficiently grown when the time came, the result of your journey was always determined by you, and you alone." While he spoke, I couldn't suppress the smile that was forming on my face. I've got you now!
"Your intentions don't matter, it just matters if you ended up bringing hope into the world!"
The words he used earlier seemed to echo in the room after I spoke them back at him. His eyes widened almost comically and the grip on his gun slackened slightly.
"That...that doesn't mean I-" I cut him off before he could finish.
"Unfortunately, your regret will not be enough to make up for the despair you brought unto the world."
Clearly uncomfortable, he lowered his gun and tried to step back, but since my hands still held his left tightly, he failed to get far. You won't get away from me now!
I couldn't even begin to describe the feelings rising up inside me when the man who had threatened me started to lose control of the situation.
As I watched him squirm, I thought about the fact that it had been his fault that I had to suffer through the events in Towa City. Slowly the whispers in the back of my mind seemed to take form and started to rush throughout my veins, bringing a dark sense of satisfaction with them.
I had been his unwitting pawn for so long but now... I am in control. It felt...liberating.
When I saw him open his mouth to speak, I quickly beat him to the punch.
"There is only one way to erase the darkness in your heart."
My heart was beating loudly in my ears. I wanted to see it. I wanted to see this man suffer the same way he had forced me to suffer.
This feeling was not wholly unfamiliar to me. I had similar feelings when that masked kid had been taken by the crowd of Monokuma kids.
Back then had been the first time I ever truly understood the concept of "an eye for an eye". If you cause suffering you deserved to suffer in return.
That mindset had always been spoken poorly of by our parents when they raised me and my brother, but it seemed like I had not internalized those lessons very well, unlike Makoto who had likely stuck to his principles considering he became the Ultimate Hope.
Well, I promised myself to stop trying to be like him anyway.
And I couldn't deny myself the pleasure it brought me to finally stop being the victim.
When I felt him attempting to bring his arm closer to himself I finally let go of the dead hand. Any remaining disgust towards the appendage had long since faded, and I watched him hugging himself. Had that been all it took to cause him distress? Was he already at the verge of shooting himself?
I was strangely disappointed at the thought. What did I want to happen again?
I couldn't seem to remember my initial intentions, however what was going on now definitely felt off somehow. It took me a while to ponder it, but then it dawned on me.
It wasn't right. At this rate I was practically forcing him to kill himself, which didn't sound appealing to me at all.
The part of my conscience that had been screaming at me to stop for some time now, insisted that it felt that way because it was wrong to do something like that in the first place, but the growing part of myself that felt vindicated and free told me something else.
It feels wrong because this isn't enough.
I chose to listen to the latter.
Preparing myself to add the proverbial icing on the cake, I spoke up once more.
"The plan was your responsibility, so it falls on you to decide which one of us is the real Ultimate Despair. And to punish them accordingly."
That had been what was missing all along. A choice. While I didn't want to die, I couldn't stop myself from doing this. My journey -fake or not- had ended in a choice as well.
And now I had given the one responsible a choice in return. When he inevitably chose to kill himself instead of me, the irony would be absolutely beautiful.'
Now it's perfect.
"Ha...haha..." The sudden sound of laughter surprised me greatly. "Hahahahahahahahahah!" The crazed laughter continued for longer than I cared for but I remained silent, waiting to hear his choice. "I'm supposed to choose the true Ultimate Despair among us, huh? That's actually quite easy, so you don't have to worry. We'll just let fate judge for us instead."
Unexpectedly he raised his revolver and in a surprisingly dexterous motion he removed a single bullet from the gun without ever using his left arm.
He probably can't use that arm to begin with... Lastly he ran the chamber along his leg to spin it around, before focusing his attention at me again.
He looked me calmly into my eyes as he spoke.
"There are five bullets in the gun now, and since we established that I am the instigator here, it seems only fair that the first shot should be directed at my head.
If I end up surviving, that would definitely mean that I am not to blame and you are truly the legitimate Successor of Junko Enoshima, what do you think?"
Omitting the obvious fact that he would then proceed to kill me, he seemed to await my approval of his suggestion.
While allowing luck to be the deciding factor in his decision wasn't how I had envisioned it at all, I still gave him an encouraging nod.
After all, the odds of me surviving this way were pretty much guaranteed. A five in six chance of winning is fine.
When he pointed the gun at his temple I couldn't help but ask him a question that was long overdue.
"Just who are you anyway?" A friendly grin plastered his face as he readied himself to shoot.
"Right. I never introduced myself to you, did I? My name is Nagito Komaeda." *click* "And I am the Ultimate Lucky Student."
I was dumbfounded. This guy was an Ultimate? And he just so happened to have the same talent as Makoto? What kind of coincidence was that? Wait a second, luck?
Was that why he survived when he pulled the trigger? He relied on his talent that much? Pndering that revelation I realized something else as well. He played me.
He deliberately changed the situation I had presented him with to use his talent against me, and I fell for it because I hadn't known about it.
Had I never been in control of the situation after all? He never considered that he would end up shooting himself, did he?
Somehow I didn't feel any anger upon learning that this guy - Nagito - had turned my own trap against me.
I had attempted to manipulate him, so being manipulated in turn seemed only fair. It was over. There is nothing that I can do now...
Nagito seemed to agree, judging by the fact that his gun was now pointed directly at my head.
As the inevitability of my impending death dawned on me, the rush of emotions that I had felt finally came to an end, and all I was left with was hollow resignation.
It was the same feeling I had when Big Bang Monokuma was about to end my life not to long ago, which seemed somewhat appropriate considering the circumstances.
In both situations I had tried to fight against the fate that had been imposed upon me, only to realize that it all amounted to nothing in the end.
No matter how hard I fought, my life was ultimately just going to be part of a larger scheme in the end, wasn't it?
Even if I somehow managed to escape and run away, people like Nagito, or even the mysterious man that had saved me, would track me down and force me to play the role I had been assigned. The role that I had accepted when I had broken a controller in front of a worldwide audience.
With that thought, the reality of the situation truly dawned on me for the first time. It didn't matter what I wanted.
No matter my intentions, the entire world already believed me to be someone I didn't want to be.
All because I had been unable to resist giving in to my anger towards a little girl.
Things will never go back to the way they had been before...will they?
Feeling myself stuck between a past I was unable to return to and a future that I was unwilling to face, dying here seemed to be a pretty decent way out of this situation.
At least this way the few people that might still be willing to believe in me might see my death in a heroic light that might overshadow the last actions of my life.
Somewhat comforted by that thought, I gave a small nod to indicate that I was ready for all of this to end.
Seemingly unwilling to pull the trigger just yet however, Nagito decided to speak up.
"Well, It seems we have finally discovered the truth. Before we end this, why don't you introduce yourself in turn? I know who you are of course, but it really wouldn't be proper otherwise."
I knew what he was doing now. Now that he had won, he would draw his victory out as long as he could. The fact that I seemingly understood the mental processes of a man who had attached the arm of a dead woman to himself, was a worrying indicator to me that I might have already started to slip beyond the realm of sanity myself.
Since I wanted nothing more than to end this farce already, I decided that I might as well give him what he wanted.
"My name is Komaru Naegi."
The ensuing silence almost convinced me that Nagito had decided to spare my life after all, but the disapproving look he sent me seemed to indicate otherwise.
Since he stayed silent it took me a moment to realize what he actually wanted to hear from me.
Knowing that my next sentence would be my last, I let out a resigned sigh and allowed my emotions to seep into my words as I spoke.
"My name is Komaru Naegi...and I am the Ultimate Despair."
Upon hearing my declaration, Nagito Komaeda pulled the trigger of his gun with a victorious smile.