Unlike some of the other characters, it didn't take them long to find a new actress for Kaede Akamatsu.

After all, her look wasn't incredibly uncommon in pop culture, and neither was her build.

The actress they'd chosen had last been used for a side character in some drama years ago, and ever since she'd languished in statis, her biological age frozen somewhere around 17 years old.

Well, it was time for her final, permanent, new role.

Once brought back to the world of the living, she was as malleable as they expected.

When not in use, immersive actors weren't just left to continue inhabiting their last character. That would be far too messy. Instead, they just overlaid them with a simple character: an everyday person, unemployed, who was just coming out of an operation.

Throw some intern in a doctor's coat and have them show the actor a Flashback Light, and things were golden.

Small revisions using the Light would let the person stay conscious, but a complete mental rewrite usually knocked them out.

She went from placid, if curious, to out cold in seconds. The intern handling her had been a fan of season 53, ending and all, and did marvel at how close this actress was to her original.

Some time later, as the drugs that kept her unconscious started to wear off, Kaede Akamatsu opened her eyes.

Looking around the room she was in, her mind struggled to figure out where she was, what was going on.

It looked like a generic, if a little spartan, office. Had she fallen asleep, in what a quick look down confirmed was a computer chair?

Wait...

Why was there an office in the Ultimate Academy?

How did she get in this place?

Kaede tried to remember the last things that happened to her.

She nearly threw up on the spot.

Her crime.

Her trial.

Her execution.

That...had to have been a dream, right?

But the more Kaede looked at the memories, the more sure she was they were real. Intentional or not, it had been her trap that had killed Rantaro Amami, and after Shuichi revealed her crime Kaede had been ready to pay the price.

At the very least, she could take solace in the promise she'd gotten from her friends. They'd told her they'd all get out, and when they did, they'd all still be friends.

None of that explained why she was in an office.

Unless...this was the afterlife? Kaede examined it more closely. It was more beige than white, but...she had seen more than one story where the world beyond was more boring and bureaucratic.

Still, if this was what came next, it was better than it had any right to be.

After what Kaede had done, she knew she deserved eternal torment.

Rising up from the chair proved surprisingly difficult. Kaede's body felt...odd.

There wasn't really one thing she could immediately point out as strange, if someone had been there to ask. It was a million tiny things, that all came together into a pervasive anxiety. Not only that, her legs felt weak, like she hadn't stood up in ages.

Still she could take a step forward, and a quick glance around told her there was only one door in or out.

Kaede was considering investigating the room more, when there was a shout from outside the room.

"What the hell?!"

It wasn't one person screaming, but two of them in near-perfect unison. They also sounded...familiar.

Staggering to the door, Kaede opened it, grateful it wasn't locked, and entered a different room.

This one was clearly some kind of lounge, fairly well furnished, with two couches in the middle, a coffee table in between them. Standing by two other sets of open doors were some very familiar people.

Or at least, generally familiar.

The one on the left was looking at Kaede like she'd seen a ghost. She moved to put her hands up in a familiar combative gesture, though they moved a lot slower than Kaede was used to seeing. "K-K-K-Kaede?" Tenko Chabashira asked.

Meanwhile, on the right, someone Kaede usually expected brashness from was looking pretty calm. Running a hand through his short hair, Kaito Momota muttered, "Shit, you too?" He appeared, at best, mildly put out to see either Tenko or Kaede.

The thing was, as sure as Kaede was that these two were her friends, she also wasn't.

The Kaito in the room with her was taller than she remembered, by at least two or three inches, and while he was filling out the jacket he usually wore with as many muscles as normal, if not more, the small bit of facial hair on his chin looked a lot more sparse.

Tenko, on the other hand, had the opposite problems. While she didn't show it off as much, Kaede had still noticed the Ultimate Aikido Master's well honed physique back when they first met, made obvious whenever she struck a pose like she was doing in that moment. That athletic build was gone, replaced with something more lean, almost unhealthily so. Her hair color was off as well, just a shade or two too brown.

There was more than that, a lot more. Small details here and there that didn't feel quite right.

But the way they stood, the way they talked, the way they...existed, Kaede just knew they were her friends.

Trying to focus on that, rather than all the confusing bits, Kaede took a step closer to Tenko, arms outstretched. "Whatever's going on, I'm glad to see you-"

Before Kaede could finish that sentence, Tenko backed away a few steps and snapped, "Stay back, spirit!" Something in her voice made Kaede feel like, if she continued her approach, the girl might actually attack her. "This is crazy! I was just in a séance, and then...is this the ghost world? Why are you pretending to be Kaede?!"

Tenko's words didn't make any sense to Kaede, but it looked like they struck a chord with Kaito. He also seemed to be sweating a lot, though he was trying to put on a serious face. "Y-you're probably not too far off," he said, not doing a good job at minimizing the sound of his chattering teeth. "But that's probably really Kaede. Tenko, you died." The bottomless pit of despair in Kaede's stomach that she'd been trying to ignore suddenly seemed so much colder, and so much more hungry. "I mean, so did I. Which means..."

That they were all dead.

Kaede had been right, this was some sort of...afterlife.

"Degenerate male!" Tenko spat. She wasn't ready to accept it. "The real Kaito is still alive, I just saw him a little while ago!" Suddenly looking cocky (and rather smug), Tenko added, "Also, those aren't very good disguises. You couldn't even fool Gonta."

For some reason, the Ultimate Entomologist's name made Kaito's face fall, pain making him forget whatever had been freaking him out before. "Yeah, well, you don't look like yourself either, Tenko." For a second, she almost looked down at herself, but stopped and continued glaring at him. "That séance is the last thing you remember because it was right before you died. Korekiyo had set up a trap in there, and it took you out."

Kaede put a hand to her mouth in horror.

The killing had continued? Her murder hadn't been the last? The promise had been for nothing?

Tears started to fall, but the conversation continued around her anyway.

"That's impossible!" Even through her despair, Kaede could tell Tenko was starting to break. Does she remember dying? Is she trying to ignore it, the same way I'm trying to ignore the feeling of what being slowly strangled was like? "I-if that's true, what about you?!"

"I was executed, like Kaede was." Kaito spoke of it frankly, as if it wasn't a big deal. Kaito had killed someone? "Well, not exactly like hers. I was dying anyway, and my illness got me before Monokuma could." Then he looked away from Tenko, and away from Kaede, focusing instead on the rest of the room. "Is it just me, or are both those couches built for three people?"

He was right. There was something else, too. "There's another door," Kaede said, her voice still thick from tears she'd yet to spill.

They all stared at that closed door, directly opposite the one Kaede had come through. Were any of them breathing? Kaede didn't feel like she was anymore. The maelstrom of emotions in her was too overpowering to even have room for things like that.

Then, the door opened. And three more people they knew came through it.

Maki Harukawa.

Himiko Yumeno.

And...Shuichi Saihara.

They were all wearing the clothes they'd worn the last time she'd seen them, though they moved like they weren't entirely comfortable with them. There was something else, more ephemeral, that felt different, but Kaede couldn't tell what it was.

Unlike Tenko or Kaito, they all looked as they should, no strange differences, aside from the fact Himiko had an arm and leg in casts, and was walking with the aid of crutches.

Oh, and Shuichi had actually taken off his hat, one strand of his dark hair sticking up, not unlike Kaede's.

He stood opposite from Kaede, just...looking at her. Everything else disappeared from her mind.

What was he thinking? How was he here? What was actually going on?

The little that had started to make sense no longer did.

"Himiko!" Tenko shouted, and in seconds she'd bolted across the room to face the shorter girl. "You're hurt! But you look okay? Are you okay?" More questions tumbled out of her, but Himiko...didn't look bothered by them, like Kaede would have expected. She was actually grinning.

At the same time, Maki had screamed, "Kaito!" with more feeling that Kaede had ever heard from her before, and in less time than felt possible she had crossed the distance and was hugging the Ultimate Astronaut tightly, tears rolling down her face.

He just laughed. "Hey there, Maki Roll!" His arms went around her shoulders, and Kaede watched, stunned, as Maki actually leaned into the gesture, not seeming to care there was anyone else in the room. Looking down at her, Kaito's voice turned serious. "Don't tell me you guys are dead too."

Shuichi cleared his throat. "Ahem." Everyone else went quiet, and now five sets of eyes were on him. To Kaede's surprise, he actually seemed to handle that better than she would have expected. "We can explain everything, but we should sit down first."

Tenko practically sprinted to one couch, taking the middle seat and setting aside the one to her right for Himiko, while Kaito and Maki grabbed the opposite spots on the other couch.

Which left Kaede and Shuichi sitting across from each other, Kaede next to Tenko, Shuichi next to Maki. Shuichi's eyes rarely left Kaede, but she didn't know what to make of that. He looked...conflicted. Well, of course he's conflicted. I used his trap to kill someone. He'll never trust me again.

"This is going to be a lot," Shuich started, looking from Kaede to Tenko and then across Maki to Kaito, who gave the Ultimate Detective a grin and a thumbs up. That was almost enough to punch through Kaede's gloom; she had always appreciated Kaito's positive attitude. "I'm guessing you all put together that you died. How you're here is something we'll get back to. You missed a lot, all of you, but some more than others, so I'll have to start at the beginning." He met Kaede's eyes, and she could see a depth of sadness in them that made her gasp. "I got your trial wrong." That...wasn't what she was expecting to hear.

There was so much pain, so much self-hatred in those words, they almost made their meaning impossible for Kaede to decipher. "What...do you mean?" she asked, trying to put a faux smile over her roiling thoughts. "I admitted what happened, I killed Rantaro." She hadn't meant to, it was never supposed to be him, but that didn't matter.

She was a killer either way.

"But you didn't," Shuichi pleaded, and she still didn't understand what he meant. Kaito and Tenko looked confused as well. "Yes, you created the shot put trap, but it missed." Kaede's heart skipped a beat. It...had missed? Tears started streaking down Shuichi's pale cheeks. "I missed it. I fucked it all up. The real killer was the Mastermind. There was another entrance to the Mastermind's lair, they just came out of it, killed Rantaro, and then left, without any of us ever knowing."

The things he was saying...they made sense. But they also didn't.

Kaede had lived with the guilt of her crime in the short time between committing it and going to her death. She'd felt like she'd come to terms with it. Learning it had been wrong, that she'd been tricked...it should have made her feel better.

Why didn't it?

Kaito was smiling at her, and even though it was still odd seeing someone who was mostly, but not quite, the same as Kaede remembered, it still bolstered her spirits, at least a little. "Did you hear that?! You weren't a killer after all!" Kaede accepted the excitement, and didn't say what she was thinking. Only because I was sloppy.

Getting back on track, Shuichi continued his explanation. "After your execution, the killing didn't stop. Ryoma was killed by Kirumi, and Korekiyo killed both Angie and Tenko." A confirmation at what they'd been told before, but it was still so hard for Kaede to believe. Kirumi? Korekiyo? They had turned to murder? Well, I can't really judge them, can I? "Then, Kokichi tricked Gonta into killing Miu, before then assisting Kaito in his own death to try and ruin the Killing Game."

The little time Kaede had spent with Kokichi had given her an...unflattering opinion of him, but what Shuichi was talking about, it made her head spin. Even Tenko, who usually had nothing good to say about men, couldn't help asking, "Gonta? I can't..." Her words trailed off, and Kaede understood why. He had seemed like such a gentle person.

"It was only then, when there were five of us left, that things escalated. Keebo helped us investigate everything we could, and a final Class Trial was held. We were able to reach the real truth." This, at least, was something Kaede wanted to know more about. Who had been the Mastermind, the one who really killed Rantaro? She tried to put it together, based on who was sitting in front of her, and who Shuichi hadn't mentioned dying.

The answer hit her seconds before it did the others, all of them dropping their jaws. "T-Tsumugi? She was the Mastermind?!" Tenko asked. The other three students nodded.

It felt impossible for Kaede to wrap her head around it. She'd been such a kind girl. How could she...

But that wasn't really anything, compared to the next bomb. "That wasn't the only hard truth waiting for us." It was Maki who spoke up, her tone as cold as a morgue. Himiko seemed content to just continue listening in, or perhaps more accurately, zoning out. "We solved the mystery of the Ultimate Academy, why we were all there, why we were forced to kill each other."

The big mystery, looming over them, from the first second they had woken up in that place.

"It was a television show."

Maki's words hit Kaede like a freight train. That didn't, it couldn't...Starting to laugh, Kaede asked, "You're joking, right? They couldn't...people don't die on television shows, not really." Judging by Kaito and Tenko's faces, they were of a similar mind.

Shuichi wasn't smiling. He wasn't laughing. He looked...detached. Like he wasn't really present in the moment any longer, as he explained further. "There was a game series, one that started a long time ago, called Danganronpa. It was about a group of talented high schoolers, put together in a mysterious school, and forced by a robotic bear into a Killing Game." An all too familiar situation.

Now it was Kaito trying to laugh away the idea. "Yeah, but, you said that was just a game, right?"

"It was, at first," Shuichi replied, voice still empty. "But it was popular, and it kept going. At some point, people invented a way to replace people's memories, personality, and skills with fabricated ones. That's what the Flashback Lights really were." That got gasps from Tenko and Kaito, but Kaede didn't know the term. "We aren't...we are all fictional characters, written for the show. The bodies we were all in came from fans, who volunteered to be a part of the Killing Game. We were created from them when they gave us our talents, our new memories, everything that makes us...us."

It was an impossible thing to believe.

They weren't...real? They had been made up, just for a television show?

But at the same time, was it any more strange than a robot bear and his five kids? A high school hidden under an unbreakable cage? A death game with an arbitrary judicial system attached?

It also got Kaede to think...about how they were still there, even after death. If they could...

"We three were the only ones to get out of the Ultimate Academy alive. Keebo sacrificed himself to give us that chance, and Tsumugi died in the process," Shuichi continued to explain, though it sounded like he was starting to come back to himself.

Three.

Of sixteen students, only three had survived.

But as for what was going on with Kaede, and where they were, things fell into place. "These...aren't our bodies, are they? Or at least, they're not the same ones we had before." Looking down at herself, Kaede could see it. What had felt so wrong.

This just...wasn't the body she was used to. A little less busty, which should have made it a little more obvious from the start. At some point, she'd have to get a mirror and really look herself over, take stock of what she looked like going forward.

Shuichi nodded. "Team Danganronpa, the company behind the show, is facing penalties for all the deaths on their hands, now that we've asserted our status as people." Kaede shivered. 'Asserted our status as people'...the fact they even had to do that didn't make her feel like the road ahead would be easy. "Recently, they contacted us with an idea: they could bring back the people who died, putting you all into new bodies, if that meant some of the charges got dropped."

The fact Kaede was back among the living, only to help her tormentors escape their just punishment, didn't feel right.

"Okay," Tenko said, looking around the room. "So, why only us? Where's everyone else?"

For the first time, Himiko said something. "They weren't sure if it would work."

"Oh," Kaede said, putting up a weak smile. "So...we're the lab rats then?" She wasn't complaining, not really. It was better than still being dead, right?

Shuichi nodded, but before he could say more, Tenko interrupted. "That's all impossible! I'm...I'm Tenko Chabashira! I might...feel a little weird right now, but I'm not fake! There's no way everything we went through was just...just some show!" Kaede really wished she could object so strenuously.

"Stop screwin' around!" Kaito shouted, looking angry. "If Maki Roll and my sidekick say that's what happened, it's what happened!" It still boggled Kaede's mind a little, how close Shuichi, Kaito, and Maki all seemed to be. Even the way they sat together on the couch, it was like something broken had been reforged. Something I missed by dying. Kaito waved a hand at everyone. "How else do you explain it, Tenko? Us being alive again, our bodies being off, them being here to greet us?"

Tenko looked like she was still willing to fight the idea, but Kaede jumped in, her eyes focused on Shuichi. "You're sure?" Before he could answer, Kaede clarified herself. "I mean, you're absolutely, positively confident that what you've told us is all the truth?" She didn't know why...she just had to hear it, directly.

Taking a breath, Shuichi returned her gaze. "Yes. It's hard to believe, but it's all true."

Kaede could feel it. He really did mean it. Smiling wider, and actually starting to feel the joy bubbling up for it (hiding her darker emotions beneath it), Kaede proclaimed, "Well, I believe it, then. I trust you, Shuichi. Always have, always will." He blushed at that, which only made her want to smile more. He was cute when he was embarrassed.

Now that she was completely outnumbered, Tenko looked like she was ready to give in. "So...what are we going to do now?"

It was a good question.

With just a slight blush on her cheeks, Maki took over for that question. "We're all staying with the families of the people who volunteered their bodies for us. They agreed you guys can stay with us too. Tenko's with Himiko, Kaede is at Shuichi's, and Kaito...you're staying with me." The news of lodging arrangements made Kaito smile like a kid on Christmas, and Tenko's face was a deep red.

Kaede herself was...definitely interested in that news. Sure, she had complicated feelings with Shuichi, to say the least, but staying with him sounded like a good idea regardless. "Are we going then?" she asked, standing up a few seconds before everyone else joined her.

There were nods all around, and most of them moved towards the door, but Shuichi hesitantly spoke up. "U-um...if it's okay with you guys, I wanted to talk to Kaede in private before we leave." Hearing him say that made Kaede's surface-layer good mood falter a little, and she watched everyone else leave them behind.

They were alone. Her and Shuichi.

Trying to push down her guilt as far as it could go, Kaede gave a weak smile and raised up her arms, doing her best to look more excited than she felt. "So, what did you want to talk about?"

"I'm sorry." Shuichi wasn't crying, at least not yet, but his voice was heavy with emotion regardless. But Kaede didn't understand...why was he apologizing to her? "It's all my fault. If I hadn't...if I was a better detective, I would have figured out Tsumugi was the real killer, and you never would have..." His voice trailed off, and he looked at the ground, so she couldn't see if he was starting to tear up again.

Had he...Kaede almost couldn't believe what she was hearing. Had Shuichi actually been putting her death on him? For how long?

It tore her up. There she was, the one really responsible for all their woes, from day one, and Shuichi, the nicest, most hard working, and smartest of any of them, he was the one who had taken that burden onto himself.

Kaede wanted to reach out, to touch his shoulder, but it felt like there was a barrier stopping that. Her own guilt. Deciding that could wait for another day to be addressed, Kaede put on a smile again. "Shuichi, thank you for the apology, but...I don't blame you. Tsumugi..." She shook her head. It was still baffling that she had been the Mastermind. "...Tsumugi fooled everyone, right? You found the truth in the end."

After a long sigh, Shuichi gave her something that looked a little like a smile. "How are you able to be so positive?" It was a good question.

I guess I'm just written that way. Kaede didn't say that. She also didn't tell Shuichi that, beneath her cheery attitude, was an ocean of resentment, fear, and despair. "We're alive." That sounded better. More appropriate. "You, me, Himiko, Maki, Tenko, Kaito. Maybe more of us, soon." It was a simple truth, and one Kaede was trying to cling to.

"Could I..." Shuichi said, looking more genuinely happy, if a bit awkward. "...could we hug?" The wall came down. Nodding, Kaede came closer, and they embraced. "You're a little shorter." The observation made her laugh. Was she? Another thing to look into. Speaking of, as they pulled back from the embrace, Shuichi asked, "Anything else you wanted to talk about?"

There was one immediate question, actually. "How did you become good friends with Kaito and Maki?" Not that Kaede didn't like the girl, but the Ultimate Child Caregiver was cold, to say the least.

He gave half a laugh at that. "After..." his voice trailed off, and the humor faded little. "...Kaito saw how alone I was, and had me start exercising with him. Then, he brought in Maki. And...we became friends." It looked like he knew that sounded strange, but he didn't have any other explanation.

They started to head out of the room, out of the office and into the world. "I'm glad." She meant it. "I was...worried. That without me, you'd have been by yourself." Or worse, that someone with unscrupulous motivations would have taken advantage of him.

Something seemed to just occur to him, his eyes going wide. "Oh! By the way, Maki isn't the Ultimate Child Caregiver." That wasn't...entirely surprising. She didn't seem to be the nurturing type, after all. "She's the Ultimate Assassin."

Oh.

"That fits, actually," Kaede replied, sharing a smile with someone dear to her, and trying to enjoy the second chance she was getting.