Salutations, friends! As of now, it's been… well over four years since the story's last update.

To make a long story short, I haven't been able to write much of anything at all in that timeframe, between other commitments and projects, life stress, and the special kind of exhaustion that comes from working a 9 to 5 job. On top of that, System Restore has proven a very tricky story to wrap up. Although I've always known how it'll end, many of the hanging plot threads have gotten tangled or moved around over time, and there are too many I've agonized over, or even been scared of, on the other of months and years.

Well NOT ANYMORE. A few months ago, in response to questions about updates, I made a commitment – by the end of 2021/start of 2022, I was going to create and publish a summary of the end of the story, ahead of its completion – and I'm still committed to complete it! This is both a way for me to collect my own thoughts in a finalized form AND the end of a long time waiting for the people who have supported me so far, whether you've just found the thing or you've been with it from the start.

I've created this based on my own notes about the remaining chapters, as well as my own recent reread of the story and feedback from friends and confidants. Another part of the reason I'm sharing this now is that I'd like your feedback, too, to make this ending as strong and as satisfying as is possible at this point.

If you'd rather not read this and wait for the rest of the story, I totally get it! However, if you do, I hope you enjoy – and provide your feedback, which I will consider as I move ahead. Again, thank you all just… so, so much for everything you've done for me and all the joy you've brought into my life. Believe me when I say that I'm going to do my best to stick the landing!


Summary of the End

Before updates continue, I'll be making a change to the existing story. The robot student will instead be Robo-Akane, and the sections with Robo-Gundam will be rewritten accordingly. I'll point out which sections are different before the start of the next chapter.

The Future Foundation, Part Eight

During this section of the story, the students and Future Foundation representatives have been separated into four groups, each of which has been trapped in a separate "instance" of the Hope's Peak Academy ruins, much like different copies of a video game.

Kirigiri, Asahina, Kuzuryuu, and Souda enter the ruins through the front door, and encounter an instance of Hope's Peak Academy that looks even more desolate than it did in canon. Everything in the halls seems drained of life and color, and the building is eerily silent. The only exception is the doors to the trial room elevator, which stand out bright red against the backdrop – and, as of yet, will not open.

As they explore the halls, they encounter the same manga that Hinata and the other survivors encountered in canon – and then some. New entries include "Learning about the Remnants of Super High School-Level Despair… With Manga!", which describes the atrocities committed by the Remnants of Despair, and "Learning about the Sins of the Future Foundation... With Manga!", which makes everything the Future Foundation did to them very clear. Souda and Kuzuryuu are deeply disturbed by what they read, and the Future Foundation is put to the task of keeping their heads on straight as they continue to explore.

At the third island hospital, Koizumi asks Fukawa about her "Master", and why the others won't tell her about him. With some prodding, Fukawa is able to reveal that this "Master" is Byakuya Togami, and that the others had hesitated to reveal his existence, given that the Impostor had imitated him. In the middle of this conversation, the monitor in the hospital room switches on.

Against all odds, Ibuki is on the screen. She is standing in front of Robo-Akane, holding a guitar that is connected to her, and playing a familiar song – Queen's "Don't Stop Me Now" – the lyrics of which she interrupts with appeals to "Byakuya-chan." She assures them that the hope the Impostor distilled in her is more powerful than the despair they're inflicting now – so why can't they see what the best strategy was the whole time?

Why this is being broadcast across the island is unclear, but in the middle of the song… a figure appears in front of the camera, their back turned. Ibuki, though no longer visible, stops playing. The figure appears to be swaying slightly. They lunge for Ibuki, but stumble with a retching noise. They raise a hand, and Ibuki, Naegi, Akane, and the figure all vanish. All that remains is a splotch of blood on the ground.

Fukawa screams and runs out of the room. By the time Koizumi catches up to her, she has switched out with Genocider Syo. After some chaos, Koizumi pulls Syo back to Saionji's room… only to find that they are no longer in the hospital, and instead are in the infirmary at Hope's Peak Academy. Attempting to leave puts them out in the hallway as well.

Three.

On the third floor, Nanami, Hinata, Togami, and Enoshima encounter what appears to be a normal school hallway. They can hear voices echoing through the hall – the voices of their classmates – all of them calling for Ryouta Mitarai. Togami speaks again in the strange voice, alluding to the Impostor's time living as Ryouta Mitarai, and what that meant to them. They reach another staircase that extends down into darkness.

Two.

The second floor is very dim, and Hinata can barely see where he is going. Enoshima seems to gain new life by being here, while Togami moves ahead of them in silence. As they move forward, red letters appear across the dark hallway – the word "DIE", over and over. In the same distorted voice, Togami describes the process of hunting down and slaughtering the members of the Togami Conglomerate.

As the voice describes the death of Togami's father, Togami fights back against it, angrily demanding to know what it wants. By the time Hinata reaches the end of the hall, Togami is gone.

One.

The first part of the chapter reconnects with the Kuzuryuu group and the Koizumi group. The Kuzuryuu group hears an announcement telling them that their tours cannot continue, and that the "meeting chamber" is ready for them. At this time, they look ahead to see a pair of red doors. Koizumi and Syo, on hearing the announcement themselves, go out into the dorm area to find that it also ends in a pair of red doors.

For the Hinata group, the first floor is a dead end, with only a painting – a painting of a trial room. Togami, standing in front of it, shudders and says, in the distorted voice, that the time has come for them to "become whole." They step directly into the wall, appearing to melt into the painting – and as he does the painting vanishes, leaving only a long, unbroken hallway that ends in a pair of red doors.

The Future Foundation, Part Nine

Naegi, Ibuki, and Akane are directly transported to the pre-trial elevator lobby. Shortly after they arrive, Kuzuryuu, Souda, Hagakure, Asahina, and Kirigiri come through the doors, followed in short order by Syo and Koizumi. Koizumi attempts to leave, but finds she cannot. Before they can fully sort out what's happening… the door opens one more time, and Hinata, Nanami, and Enoshima step through.

With (almost) the entire crowd together again, chaos erupts as accusations and misunderstandings fly – particularly about the presence of Enoshima, which comes as an immense shock to the rest of the Future Foundation, and the absence of Togami.

Naegi is eventually able to quiet the others, and just as Togami and Enoshima predicted, he tells them the truth – about the state of the world, about their past as Remnants of Despair, about the Neo World Program and what the six of them went through for them. He is telling them this, he says, because he is almost certain that the Impostor will pit them against each other in the coming trial, and attempt to use this information to manipulate them. Because there will be a trial. If they are here, it can't be anything else. It is… only a matter of when the elevator will arrive.

He then apologizes to the remaining students, both for the events that occurred in the New World Program and for performing this experiment on them without their knowledge or permission.

The survivors, barely able to comprehend all they've heard, can only come to a consensus on asking one thing – what is their plan for getting them out? More specifically… how are they going to handle the Impostor?

Kirigiri is the one that breaks the news – in essence, all they have to do is run out a clock, because the Impostor is dying. Whatever it is they did, they are now in the "administrator" role first taken on by Usami, and then by Enoshima (who waves at the mention of her name). However… the human mind, complex as it is, was not meant to take on a role designed for a computer. At best, she says, it will only be one more day before their mind breaks down completely. The state of the Ruins speaks to the current state of their mind.

Nanami explains then that, in an emergency situation, she can take over system administration and stabilize the program. However, in order to do so, the position must be vacant. This infuriates Hinata – is there no option that will allow them to save the Impostor?

Before the Future Foundation can, with heavy trepidation, tell them about the Forced Shutdown, the elevator door creaks open. It is time to go to the trial. The silence that falls over them all is a tense one, given that not all answers have been given.

Chapter Zero: In a research facility on Jabberwock Island / Item Get: Usami's Magical Stick

These two short segments are packaged as one chapter, and each informs the other.

In Chapter Zero, we go back to just before the beginning of the story, when Izuru Kamukura was awaiting entry into the New World Program – and thus an opportunity to unleash his virus. While he is waiting, he encounters the figure of of a girl he once knew – Enoshima. Quickly he realizes this is not Enoshima, but the Impostor – after all, Enoshima is dead.

In conversation with the Impostor, Izuru discovers that they have reached pretty much the end of their rope. They have gained nothing from despair, and despair brings them no joy. They thought embracing despair meant embracing Enoshima, but the effort was hollow, and they no longer feel anything. Izuru detects that their despair has become more like longing – and for the same thing they had longed for all their life, a sense of self. In a burst of interest, Izuru wonders what effect their governance might have on the ultimate goal of the New World Program's corruption – and what form their despair might take, given the same power Junko wanted for herself. So they give them a gift – something that Izuru calls a "cheat code." If you awaken to yourself, Izuru says, you'll know what to do with it.

In Item Get: Usami's Magical Stick, we return to the night that the Impostor regained their despair memories. They approach, trick, and confront Usami, commanding her on pain of death to tell them where Enoshima is. In order to defend her students, Usami does tell them, but also tries to stop them without success.

The Impostor approaches the Ruins, enters the cheat code, and actually ends up confronting Enoshima directly. This is when the Impostor ousts her, and locks her in the Octagon. The Impostor then wipes their hands, tells Usami she should probably sit tight and wait until morning, and heads back for the hospital.

System Restore: Part One

The participants enter the trial room, where the Impostor has assumed Monobear's usual position – and Togami has assumed Monomi's, dangling above the ground. He looks to be in bad, bad shape.

With all the players in place, the Impostor makes their offer. First, they explain to them what Enoshima's plan actually was – and then says how vile it is, creating a world of only copies of the original. And who is Enoshima, anyway, to decide that she is the shape of despair? They have lived despair every moment of their lives – and that despair is the void. It is nothingness.

Much like Enoshima would have, they will offer them all a choice. Of course the Impostor knows they are dying. If they choose not to graduate, and to run out the clock… well, what is there to stop Enoshima from reasserting control? Nanami cannot overpower her. But if they choose to graduate, the dead students' minds will be overwritten – but not with Enoshima. Everything that constructs their personalities will be entirely deleted – leaving them in a state of true and equal nothingness. And then, when those in the simulation wake up, they will almost certainly be killed. But of course, if they would much rather join them in emptiness, they are welcome to kill themselves before the graduation truly concludes. So the choice is between Enoshima's despair, or the Impostor's. Which is more appealing to them?

It is at the end of this that Togami and Kirigiri explain the Forced Shutdown – the fact that it will end the Impostor's plan, and allow them to survive, but it will also revert absolutely everyone to their despair selves. And they will almost certainly not get a third chance at life.

Stuck between three rocks and hard places, Hinata voices his decision – he accepts none of them. Because he is going to do what the Future Foundation has said is impossible – he's going to talk the Impostor out of executing their plan.

The Future Foundation tries to convince Hinata this is impossible, and even the Impostor mocks them, considering themselves impenetrable. But, over the course of some debate, Hinata and his friends use instances from their past and what little they know of their nature to reveal what Hinata believes to be the truth – that the Impostor's driving force is and has always been their hope to be accepted, to belong. Their entire plan boils down to creating something like themselves. The driving force of this argument is the Impostor's continued focus on Togami – why continue to fixate on him, if not for what that personality means to them? The Impostor attempts to play dirty, to throw Hinata's past as Izuru at him, but it is not enough to dominate him completely.

Confronted with the paradox of their existence – a hope that masquerades as despair, despair that is in fact hope – they are forced to confront the fact that they are not themselves nothingness, and that to remove the others' sense of self would be to render them even more alone. This shatters them, and leaves them in a state that is practically inert. When this occurs, Togami is released from his bounds.

System Restore: Part Two

Attempts are made to resuscitate the Impostor, to no avail. The Future Foundation accepts this as a tacit victory, and tells Nanami to prepare to override the program – only for Nanami to be impaled through the chest by a manicured hand.

Enoshima, now almost completely restored to her previous state, proceeds to toss Nanami aside, smash Togami against a wall, gloat about regaining control for a little, and finally approach the Impostor, who makes no move to stop her. As she attempts to stomp them to death with her high heels…

The simulation glitches around Hinata, and he finds himself face to face with Komaeda.

Komaeda does not precisely explain why he has appeared in this moment, or even his presence in Hinata's mind throughout the game since his death. Simply, as he leads Hinata through a strange sort of glitchscape, he explains to him that everything that has happened so far is still present in the game to some extent – including the Togami they once knew, the Togami that wanted to save them all. While Komaeda has been able to find and preserve them, Hinata, uniquely, has the power to draw them out from where they have been hidden.

Hinata is taken to a recreation of his meeting with Togami at the pool right after Komaeda and Hanamura's deaths. There, at last, they can speak plainly with each other. Togami is ashamed at this darkness within themself, but Hinata assures him that they are all in the same boat, and that they can overcome it, together. He has seen for himself what a wonderful person the Impostor is, and that all of them want to know more about them. The Impostor has their doubts, but Hinata says that he can at least say for sure that he does.

System Restore: Part Three

Hinata finds himself back in a frozen edition of the trial room he had just left, with the Impostor, as Togami, by his side. He follows the Impostor as they rearrange the scene as they see fit – placing Togami gently on the ground, rearranging the pixels that make up Nanami's body as if she had never been impaled at all. Finally, as they come to Enoshima, in one last burst of very dramatic power (mayhap with some funky white hair and red eyes), they summon facsimiles (one might say, impersonations) of the dead students to destroy her, including the DR1 students, with Mukuro executing the final blow.

As this occurs, time resumes for the people present, and the glitch ends. Togami is okay, Nanami is okay, and the Impostor lies collapsed on the ground, restored to their appearance as Togami.

As the students and Future Foundation take stock of what has happened, Nanami glows with a white light. Having successfully asserted control over the program, she says she can enable them to graduate – with the deceased students alive but comatose for an indefinite period of time. Hinata is loath to leave her, but Nanami assures him that he has made her feel more alive than ever.

They wait for a short time to retrieve Saionji, and for the Impostor to awaken. The Impostor deflects most attempts at conversation, saying, "We'll talk outside." As the graduation begins, however, he turns to Hinata and apologizes to him, saying, "I'm sorry. I may have to wait a while longer." As Hinata watches, the Impostor's form glitches, taking the shape of –

And then Hinata awakens with a start, in a hospital bed. As he claws his way out of the bed, he comes to realize that something is very wrong. For one thing, he has very, very, very long hair. For another, there is someone else in the room with him – Komaeda, alive and unconscious in a hospital bed. Naegi rushes to answer the noise from his room, and Hinata asks him, frantically, where the Impostor is. The chapter ends on Naegi's uncomfortable silence.

Epilogue: The Day Before the Future

About a year has passed. The survivors remain on the island, working to resuscitate the students that had died during the simulation. A few, including Sonia and Peko, have been awake for some time.

The Impostor did not awaken when the simulation ended, but Komaeda did, for reasons unknown.

As the epilogue begins, Komaeda and Hinata are sitting on the beach together. It is clear that they have had a lot of time to spend together over the past year. Komaeda wonders, idly, why Hinata thinks that Komaeda awoke while the Impostor did not. Hinata says that Komaeda has asked him this many times, and never given him a clear answer. Komaeda laughs, and says he perhaps does not have one himself. Did Komaeda himself ask for new life in exchange for bringing Hinata to the Impostor? Or did the Impostor force Komaeda to continue living, as some sort of attempt at redemption? The truth is, Komaeda doesn't know. Which, Komaeda asks Hinata, does he think sounds the most likely?

Hinata, once again, does not know how to answer that. Komaeda changes the subject, and asks Hinata how he will feel, seeing the Impostor again. It would seem that they will be the next to be awoken. Hinata says it's something he finds difficult to believe, and knows that emotions will be complex for everyone.

They discuss what the future may hold, given their knowledge of the world. At the end of that discussion, a figure approaches them from behind.

Hinata looks up, and though he sees an unfamiliar face, he knows them well enough to recognize them by sight.

He runs to them and embraces them, calling out their name.


Thank you all once again, and please let me know what you think!