Note about this story and Danganronpa 3: As I'm sure most of you are aware, the Danganronpa 3 anime has been airing this summer, meaning that canon is now different than it was when I planned out this story. I haven't actually watched the anime, so I don't know exactly what the changes are, but I wanted to take a moment to spell out a few things so there's no confusion. I'll keep it spoiler free, for those of you who also haven't seen the anime yet.
Affected is not DR3 compliant. That isn't as relevant for the future events, since this is a first game AU, but as I understand it, the flashback sequences reveal a lot of details about despair, the Tragedy, characters, and motivations. These detailsdo not apply to my AU. Anything that was new information as of DR3, no matter how critical or game-changing it is, does not exist in the world of Affected.
Since that is the case, I may end up referring to things that are explained in DR3, or contradicting new facts, or making characters behave in a way that no longer makes sense. I probably won't realize it if I do, because as I said, I haven't watched the anime yet. I don't plan to do so until I'm done writing Affected. If any of that ends up happening, I hope you'll try to suspend your disbelief. I'm too far into this plot to change things now! Hopefully you all still enjoy the ride. And now, back to your regularly scheduled update...
Junko Enoshima leaned back in her chair and propped her feet up on the desk in front of her, tilting her head back to look up at the security feed from the headmaster's office. Naegi and Togami had been way more determined to get in there than she'd thought they would be — even the sauna hadn't tempted them! She'd figured that would be a surefire distraction, handsy as they'd been back in the day. Maybe she ought to give them a prize for sticking with her schedule so beautifully — she did like to reward her friends for showing initiative, after all!
But on the other hand… maybe she'd been a little too indulgent already. Junko tracked Naegi's progress as he worked his way across the room, scanning through each of the files she'd left scattered across the floor. She didn't think the facts in those papers were especially revealing, since her predecessor had kept most of the juicy stuff in his private quarters… but with the way Naegi had been acting lately, he might just take some insignificant detail and run with it.
Of course, Naegi remembering a few things about those erased years wasn't necessarily a bad thing — it might even be fun! But the timing was pretty awful. If he managed to remember her before the trial ended, well, that would just mess up all kinds of things! And back in the data center, he'd gotten a little too close for comfort.
What would Naegi have done, if that chance remark had triggered an epiphany in his poor overworked brain? Would he have been happy to recognize her? After all, they'd all been such good friends once! Maybe he would have run to embrace her with tears of joy on his sad little face — that would've been a great shot for the audience to enjoy! The only thing that hooked fans more than a romance was a love triangle. That might be something to keep in mind for later… especially if the lovely little wrench the cameras had thrown between the boys stuck.
On the screen, Naegi seemed to have finished whatever he was doing with all those papers and began making his way over to the headmaster's desk. Finally! She'd been starting to think she'd have to hurry those boys along a little. But no, her unexpectedly sharp little friend was going to be in the right place at the right time once again.
Junko laughed to herself, leaning forward to keep track of this part a little more closely. And here she'd thought this trial would be a snore! But dangerous or not, things were definitely looking way more interesting than she'd planned.
Naegi couldn't shake the uncomfortable feeling of eyes crawling along the back of his neck as he approached the headmaster's desk. Part of it was his heightened awareness of the security cameras, still recording their every move as they searched the torn-apart office… but that wasn't everything. He couldn't help but feel like searching this room was some sort of violation, almost as though he really was prying into his headmaster's secrets… but that was ridiculous. He'd never once felt any kind of respect for Monokuma as the headmaster of Hope's Peak Academy, whatever the bear might call himself.
He did his best to keep that thought firmly in the front of his mind as he looked down at the upended contents of the desk. Rummaging through the mastermind's possessions shouldn't bother him at all — not that he could do much rummaging, with his only free hand occupied with the music stand pole. But maybe if he could lean on the corner of the desk, or… he turned to look at the imposing leather chair behind the desk. Normally, he wouldn't have even considered it, but in these circumstances, he didn't see another option.
Naegi gingerly lowered himself onto the smooth, cool expanse of the headmaster's chair, half expecting some kind of trap to go off the moment he sank into its depths… but nothing happened. Maybe whoever had torn the office apart had already triggered any traps left here — or maybe the destruction was the result of it.
He set the music stand pole down in front of him, carefully resting one foot against it to keep it from rolling out of reach, and then turned back to the desk. It looked as though whoever had been here before him had dumped the contents of half the drawers haphazardly on the ground around the desk, scattering pens and paper clips and other normal office debris. The other drawers stood open, leaving files full of papers exposed. He glanced at the nearest one — it looked like some kind of inventory for the storeroom, pretty typical for a headmaster's desk. Shuffling through the rest of the drawer, it looked as though all the rest of the papers in it were more of the same. Maybe Togami had the better idea, searching through the contents of the bookshelves for some kind of student records.
But he couldn't be sure, not without checking everywhere. Naegi forced himself to soldier grimly on, working his way through all the drawers on the left side of the desk, looking for some hint of a clue about the students. He couldn't just shrug his shoulders and give up because there might not be anything to find. After all, he told himself as he turned to begin the right hand side, a clue could be hiding in any of these documents. It wasn't as though he could expect to open the top drawer and see —
A bright blue notebook clearly labeled 78th Class Student Roster.
Naegi blinked down at the book. 78th class… that sounded awfully familiar. How many classes of students had been through Hope's Peak Academy — had he ever known that? He reached out to flip the book open.
Asahina's face smiled back up at him.
He caught his breath, staring blankly down at the page. He had thought that he'd never see her again after her execution, but… here she was, as happy and full of life as she'd been when they first met. She'd tried her best to stay cheerful through everything, but looking down at this picture, he could see the absence of shadows in her eyes all too clearly. Seeing her this way made his chest clench up, tight and painful… but it was better than having his last sight of her as a body crumpled in a pool of blood.
And… maybe he wasn't the only one who needed to see it. Naegi remembered the morning after the fourth trial, when he and Kirigiri had found Ogami alone and grieving in a darkened room. She'd forced herself past the paralysis, but… he knew the sadness couldn't have disappeared so quickly. He tore the profile page from the notebook, careful not to rip the image, and tucked it into his pocket to give to Ogami later, when they finally went down to wake her for the trial.
He paged through the rest of the book at random, flipping through record after record of the students he'd met here at Hope's Peak — the students who would have been his classmates, if their lives hadn't gone so terribly wrong. They all looked lighter somehow, not yet touched by the darkness waiting in their future. It was amazing how much of a difference that stress and fear had made, now that he looked at pictures of the way they'd been before being imprisoned here — as though the experience had aged them years, instead of weeks.
He paused, frowning down at Celeste's image without really seeing the girl's faint smile. For a moment there, he'd thought… he'd almost thought… that there was something he'd forgotten. Something… he ought to remember…
"Did you find something?"
Naegi's head snapped up at Togami's words, and he saw the other boy peering over at him from the other side of the desk. He'd braced one hand against the desk corner in an attempt to look casual, but Naegi could see how heavily the other boy had to lean against it to stay upright.
"I think so," Naegi said, lifting the front of the notebook enough to make the cover visible.
Togami's eyebrows shot up. "78th class — yes, that's our year. Did you find Kirigiri or Ikusaba?"
"I hadn't gotten that far yet," Naegi admitted.
Togami crossed around the desk and reached in front of Naegi, paging rapidly back towards the front of the book. He didn't so much as pause at the sight of the dead students' pictures, and Naegi bit his lip as he watched the pages turn past Yamada… Owada… Maizono… gradually going forward through the alphabet. He knew they'd come here specifically to investigate student records, but… there was something a little creepy about reading about his friends' pasts, instead of hearing it straight from them. If searching the headmaster's desk had felt like an invasion of privacy, surely this was much worse.
Finally Togami turned past Kuwata's profile and stopped short, glaring down at the image of Kirigiri on the next page. "So she is in here."
"Of course she is," Naegi said, when Togami looked back up at him. "She's a member of the class, right?"
"Assuming these profiles are real," Togami said, frowning. He looked back down at the page, apparently reading it this time instead of just glaring — and his eyebrows shot up. "Well, well… now that is interesting!"
Naegi grimaced, slowly leaning forward to look for himself. The back of his neck crawled with as much guilt as if he was peering into her underwear drawer, not just reading her student record. Kirigiri hadn't told him anything about herself, even when he'd asked… even when he'd told her about himself, hoping to forge some kind of deeper bond with her. She hadn't wanted him to know the information recorded here… but if they were going to identify the body upstairs, what other option did they have? He took a deep breath and began to read the first line of her profile.
Name: Kyoko Kirigiri, Ultimate Detective
Naegi's eyes widened, and he reread the line again — but no, it said the same thing a second time, plain as day. Kirigiri's talent that had earned her a place at Hope's Peak, the secret she'd refused to reveal to any of them, was that she was the Ultimate Detective… and it made all too much sense.
He thought back to all the mysteries they'd solved, remembering how Kirigiri had been a step ahead of him every time. Even back in the first trial, when the rest of the students had still been figuring out what they were doing, she'd seen through the confusing situation between Maizono and Kuwata almost immediately, though she'd refused to explain it. She'd known how to examine dead bodies and identify their wounds in more detail than the Monokuma Files had provided. And in their search for a way out of the school, she'd been the one to uncover almost all of the critical clues. Of course she had to be a detective.
Slowly, he looked down to the rest of the page, where the other profiles had listed information about the students' history prior to Hope's Peak.
Kyoko Kirigiri is a descendant of an ancient line of detectives, respected for their neutrality and discretion in addition to their considerable skills. She was trained in the art of detection from a young age.
While it is rare for members of the Kirigiri family to be known as detectives, she came to the attention of Hope's Peak Academy by solving several high-profile cases during the recruitment of the 78th class. She has not provided any stated reasons for breaking the conventions of her family regarding international acclaim in this manner.
After reading the short profile, Naegi looked back up at Kirigiri's picture. She stared back, as stoic and blank as she had ever looked, without any hint of an answer. Even with information about her right in front of him, she was still an enigma.
"Quite a secret she's been keeping from us."
Naegi turned away from the profile to see Togami scowling back at him. "I'm sure she had a good reason."
"Oh, really? A good reason not to tell us that we have an expert detective in our midst while we've been forced through a series of murder investigations?" Togami said skeptically. "The mastermind clearly knew exactly what she is, so the only people she could have intended to deceive were us, her supposed allies."
"She wanted us to figure things out ourselves," Naegi countered, recalling the way she'd treated him during that first trial. "If we'd known she was a detective, then… wouldn't we just have depended on her to find the answer instead of trying to investigate on our own?"
"I wouldn't have," Togami said flatly. "Nor would you. And it's not as though she was hiding her abilities — she still acted like a detective. She just didn't use the title. She didn't want us to know just how good at this she is." He frowned. "And if this is referring to the family I think they mean, then she would be very good indeed."
"You know them?" Naegi asked, startled.
"Not personally," Togami said, shrugging. "I've never needed to employ a detective, myself. But in high enough circles, you learn about the resources to call on if necessary. Not much is known about the family, not even the name — just how to reach them. They prefer to stay out of the public eye as much as possible." He crossed his arms. "Which means that she must have had quite a compelling reason to agree to be publicly known as part of an incoming class at Hope's Peak."
"I guess whoever wrote the profile must have thought so, too," Naegi agreed cautiously, glancing back down at the paper. "It doesn't say why, though."
"Maybe not, but I think we can hazard a guess," Togami said. "Or do you think this was all a big coincidence — that the class the mastermind chose to imprison in this game of theirs just happened to have the Ultimate Detective in our ranks?" He shook his head. "No, this looks like she wanted to be here — because she knew what was going to happen."
