I Don't have much to say, so…

Responses to Reviews/Comments:

Delly (Guest): Thank you! I'm glad you enjoyed the chapter!

Duke (Guest): That's a good question! And I would answer that, but it's not relevant yet. As for her leaning on the morality spectrum. Well, you'll just have to see for yourself, mainly because I don't want to spoil anything.

CURRENT UNIVERSE: DANGANRONPA – PRE TRAGEDY

xxXXxxXXxx

[Hajime Hinata – POV]

To describe Hajime Hinata would be to pick a random person off the street who looked as average as the most average human being to ever breathe air, and then say to that person that they are special and unique.

Hajime was a boy who was… well, not-so-average in height, considering he stood at a height of 5'8. Well, in reality, it was average, so he wasn't even special in terms of height. His hair was the same colour as most people, too; that being a light brown. The only thing different about him is his eyes, as they were a pukish green colour.

But outside of that, Hajime was as basic as basic could get. He didn't have a talent, he didn't have a special ability, and nor did he have anything to call himself unique. Nothing special ever happened around Hajime Hinata.

So, you could imagine that, out of all the things that Hajime had expected to see, blood transforming into bright red spikes to stab his classmate, Natsumi Kuzuryu, in the back was not one of the things he had banked on seeing today as he was getting ready to go to the cafeteria after finishing his gym class.

Now, of course, he didn't believe that it was real. Far from it, in fact. A part of him believed that it was part of a movie set. That, perhaps somehow Natsumi had gotten a role in a movie, and that this was a big act that would stop, and for a camera crew to pop out of the bushes and shoo them all away.

Seconds turned to minutes, and those minutes began to feel like hours. At that moment, Hajime realized something.

This was most likely NOT something from a new movie, but rather, something else completely. He still refused to believe that what he had witnessed had been genuine. Maybe it was something for a play? Because, if it was real. If what he had seen had just been real. Then that would shatter his whole world view on reality that he had for the last 17 years of his life.

And then the person who did it, some stranger that he had never seen before, started looking around her surroundings. The girl in question had two-toned hair, and from the looks of things, it looked natural… somehow. One side of their hair had been pink, while the other side was black. Her skin was white, leading Hajime to believe that she was a foreigner, and she was wearing the school's uniform. That meant she was a Student. A Student of Hopes Peak Academy.

Although, he didn't know if she was a Reserve Course Student. His reasoning for that was what he had just witnessed. Her being in the Reserve Course wouldn't have been possible if she had done what it was she had just done.

Which only led to one option, which had been the more plausible of the two, and that was that she was an Ultimate Student. However, most people knew who was an Ultimate Student, but he had never seen her before, so that scratched that out of the two options.

So, if she wasn't a Reserve Course Student, and if she wasn't an Ultimate, then just who the hell was she? Was she an intruder who somehow got past Hopes Peak Academy's security system? She couldn't have been a member of the elementary division of Hopes Peak for one too many reasons.

"Just who or what is she?"

The teen adopted a cold face out of nowhere and looked around the crowd, then locked eyes with a silver-haired, red-eyed teen who was wearing glasses and an all-black version of Hopes Peak Academy's uniform. Out of all the people in the swarm of high schoolers who came to see what had happened, Hajime recognized them immediately. This person was Peko Pekoyama.

While Hajime didn't know who she was as a person, he did know that she was the Ultimate Swordswoman. What the Ultimate Swordswoman was doing here, he hadn't the faintest of ideas, but judging as to how she was glaring at the newcomer, it couldn't have been for a good reason. Add on to the fact that there was an air of anger radiated off of her, all of which was directed toward the new girl, it only added to Hajime believing that a fight was about to break out… again.

The two stared at one another for another moment, and then, the half-and-half-haired girl frowned. "Is she with you?" The newcomer questioned, motioning her head over to Natsumi, who let out a pained groan.

"What did you just do. To her, I mean?" Pekoyama demanded, not moving an inch. The newcomer's frown changed to a scowl as she coughed. Hajime hadn't noticed it before, but she was shaking.

Every time she breathed it seemed to shake her body, meaning that whatever she did either weakened her, or the punches that Natsumi had thrown had done more than just bruise her. Maybe she didn't take to pain all that easily? Whatever the case had been, she didn't seem to be holding up too well, and a part of Hajime felt a tiny bit sad for her.

But only a tiny bit, seeing as, well, she kind of almost killed Natsumi. Even though Natsumi wasn't a friend, seeing someone he knew almost kick the bucket wasn't exactly a good thing. As for the newcomer, they simply glanced over to Natsumi, and her scowl deepened, something Hajime didn't think was possible until now.

"She's going to die without medical attention. I think that's more of a pressing matter than what I did. Unless, of course, you want her to die that is," the newcomer stated, Peko glowering at her in response. The silver-haired teen walked toward Natsumi, knelt to her body, and slowly picked her up. Blood dripped through her fingertips, and a scowl became present on the swordswoman's face. She whispered something undecipherable from where Hajime had been standing, which didn't get a reaction from the newcomer.

A general sense of fear and confusion had spread around the remaining students after the tension faded. Whispers and scared looks were exchanged as the newcomer walked forward toward the reserve course building, those in her way moving out of fear of what she would do to them otherwise.

Hajime didn't know what to think after witnessing what he did. Intrigue was one of the many things that floated around his head, but so did fear and terror. What had been a normal fist fight somehow developed into some sort of fantasy battle that one would see in a Shonen Jump Manga. Hell, it even looked like that from a distance, too.

His parents always told him that foreigners were strange. Well, that was assuming that this newcomer was foreign. And if that was the case, that only opened up more questions than answers. However, before anyone could say anything, an older man with dark green hair approached the crowd holding what appeared to be a shoulder-mounted camera.

The man was wearing a green button-down shirt, and blue cargo shorts, and was built like a bodybuilder. He had red and white heterochromatic eyes, and he seemed to be grumbling about something as he approached everyone.

"Nothing to see here folks! Get moving! We just finished shooting for a trailer for a new movie! Get lost! All of you! Now!" The man shouted, glaring at everyone. Hajime and the others walked away to go to lunch, although Hajime remained skeptical. The person in question put down the shoulder-mounted camera and grabbed a cloth from their breast pocket and began to wipe up the blood.

"Shooting a movie trailer? But… that didn't look scripted at all?" Hajime thought, frowning as he approached the Reserve Course building. He wanted to continue walking straight ahead, but something in his brain told him to turn around.

And as he looked over his shoulder just before he entered the building to head to the cafeteria, he was met with… nothing. The man was gone, and so was the camera and blood. He blinked a couple of times before shaking his head. "What was that?" Hajime thought before finally giving up and writing off whatever he saw to be something unexplainable.

Maybe he could ask that girl from before? That was, of course, if he could find her.

xxXXxxXXxx

[Jolyne Brooks - POV]

Jolyne was not in a particularly good mood, and she had several reasons for it. One of the main reasons as to why she wasn't too happy was because of what happened just a few minutes ago. Granted, her first Quest was a success, which was a good thing! The only thing that annoyed her was that she almost died because of it.

Apparently, as a Level 1, fighting a Level 5 character, person, NPC, whatever she wanted to call the other people in this world, was NOT a good idea. Especially someone who's part of a freaking Yakuza, and had lived in that world their whole damn life!

"What was The System thinking when it gave me that Quest! Did it really think I was ready for that?!" Jolyne thought, the frown on her face that she had adopted turning more and more into a scowl every passing second.

Most tutorial fights in games were super easy. She knew that much from playing Oblivion, Fallout New Vegas, or hell, even Pokemon Diamond and Pearl! So why the hell did The System see it fit that she fought some high-level enemy right out of the gate!? Was it because she picked the Remnants of Despair as her faction?

Actually, that had made her question something that had been on her mind for a while now. The Factions seemed to have another, unexplained purpose in this "Game" than she had first initially assumed. Added to the fact that most RPGs gave the player an option to select the difficulty before beginning the game, her theory/realization had become all the more apparent.

DID SHE OPT INTO HARD MODE ON ACCIDENT?!

All she wanted to do was cast spells and make everything look like a joke! Not the other way around! She had never played a game on Hard Mode before. She always stuck with normal mode or easy mode if normal was too hard! She wanted to play on Kind difficulty, damnit! Not Mean difficulty!

But that wasn't the worst bit about this nonsense. No, because nearly dying was just a side effect of the true purpose of that Quest.

But what, exactly, was it that the Quest's true purposes had been for?

Well, the answer to that was simple. It was so that she was given something to fight against in this otherwise bland and boring world, where the only "magic" were simple party or parlour tricks. And that enemy just so happened to end up being an entirely separate faction from the one she had been able to pick, because of fucking course it was.

Oh, but what made things worse was that it had to be told to her by the person who was most obviously an assassin or a bodyguard for that faction. Oh, and it had to be told in a very discrete way, which made it all the more terrifying.

"You made an enemy out of the Kuzuryu Clan today."

Those were the words that Peko Pekoyama, The Ultimate Swordswoman, said to her after she picked up Natsumi and walked off. Jolyne was terrified, and she had every reason to be. The first thing that made her terrified was Peko herself, and the threat she posed to her.

But what threat was that, exactly? Well, outside of her being a literal bodyguard/assassin for a powerful Yakuza, as she had found out through her quick research session as to what the group was, what primarily scared her was Pekoyama's level.

185.

She was Level 185 and she had about 75,000 health. On top of this, she was in a faction known as the Kuzuryu Clan, which meant that she was most likely not alone in condemning Jolyne to death.

Although, there was one thing that intrigued the half-and-half-haired teen, and that was the fact that there was another faction that was blacked out besides Peko's main faction, The Kuzuryu Clan. It had a lock over it, so that must've meant something to come later.

Oh, and then there was the fact that she used LITERAL MAGIC in front of people. Not tossing around cards, but making blood turn into spikes and stabbing a person in the back WITH said blood spikes! While it was a cathartic thing to do, seeing as if she had been punched one more time she would've died, that still didn't mean that it was a good idea.

And to top it all off, a majority of the SCHOOL saw it. So unless she had a really good cover story, then she was—

[Incoming Message from Developer]

Jolyne raised an eyebrow, looking in her peripheral vision to see a small chatbox. It opened the moment her eyes landed on it, and once it did, she was greeted with a small blurb of text.

[Just saved your ass. You're lucky I can enter any dimension the moment I have someone whose linked to The System. I made those brats believe it was part of a movie. I won't help you a second time, so don't expect it again. Yours Truly – Daimen.]

"Oh Thank god…" Jolyne thought, letting out a sigh she hadn't known she had been holding in. "Okay, Problem 2 solved, now I just gotta solve Problem 1. But how on EARTH am I supposed to do that?!" As Jolyne thought that, she put her hands on her face as she rested her chin atop a Piano Key cover.

Currently, Jolyne was sitting in a music room within the reserve course building. She came across it during her mad dash throughout the place to find somewhere secluded. For some reason, this room had been ignored, which was a good thing, and it meant she could hide here for the time being till stuff died down.

This also meant she could think about the Quest she had just completed. She got something called a Gacha Token, whatever that was, 250 EXP, and a plus 1 to her Neutral Karma. She opened up her inventory page by putting her hand in her blazer pocket, which showed her Karma. She had 50 Evil Karma, 1 Neutral Karma, and 0 Good Karma. There, she also noticed she was halfway to Level 2.

That was another thing that annoyed her. That fight almost killed her, and she didn't even level up for her troubles! What kind of nonsense was that!

"Now that I think about it, that just adds more evidence to the fact that I might have put myself into Hard Mode on complete accident. Hard Modes in RPGs usually reduce the amount of EXP that is gained in quests by half. Something tells me that if I had picked the Future Foundation Faction that the Quest I just completed, or something similar to it, would've given me enough EXP to level up. Son of a bitch!"

However, as annoyed as that made her, it wasn't like she could change it. "Whatever, It's best not to think about it. I can't change my faction, so I'm stuck on hard mode. Which, in retrospect, makes sense. You know, unless I do a bunch of quests to get any of my other Karma's higher than the Evil Karma. And seeing as that looks to be a taller order, I think I'm fine for now. Besides, it would be better if I simply just "got good" as my friends used to say," Jolyne thought as she straightened her posture.

Before she could close her inventory menu, there was another thing that caught her attention, and that was a glowing exclamation mark that was above her name. Looking at it, it opened up to reveal something called a Perk. She raised an eyebrow and manually blinked, allowing her to see the details.

[Perk Unlocked – Gamer Body!]

[Perk description: As a reward for completing your first Quest, you have unlocked Gamer Body. Every time you level up, your body will grow more resistant and stronger every level up. Though that should've been obvious from the get-go.]

"Huh?" Jolyne muttered, the box closing from her view as she closed out her inventory. "Well, I guess that makes my life easier," Jolyne thought as she took out the thing she had gone into her inventory for in the first place, that being the Gacha Token she had received.

The token in question was a golden coin with the words "Admit One" in bright red letters on the front. It felt malleable, like a piece of rubber, or if she really wanted to think dirty, like a condom. Though it wasn't as stretchy as one, it did have the same consistency. How did she know what a condom felt like? Well, in her past life, she had a few encounters of the sexual variety, so that was how she knew about it.

Regardless of that fact, a small text box appeared with the name Gacha Tutorial on the sidebar.

[You've got yourself a Gacha Token! You can earn these by completing mainline Story Quests, or special Side Quests. As a reward for completing your first Story Quest, you've been awarded one Gacha Token! To use the Token, all you have to do is snap it in half. Once that is done, you will receive your item! Here are the Rarity chances: Common Drop: 50%, Uncommon Drop: 17.92%, Rare Drop: 13.81%, Epic Drop: 9.25%, Legendary Drop: 8.10%, Mythical Drop: 0.92%. Happy Gambling!]

The text blurb disappeared as Jolyne stared at the Gacha Token in between her two fingers and frowned. "So it's a rip-off. Tch, whatever. Let's just see what I get," Jolyne muttered, snapping the token with her fingers as it glowed a bright red with a rainbow hue. Raising her eyebrow at the event, as soon as it snapped, in her hand was an arrow.

The arrow in question had a golden arrowhead with a small heart-like motif at the tip, with a few patterns mixed within it. The rest of the arrow looked like a normal, everyday arrow. She didn't understand what was so special about it. Although that changed when a blurb appeared that described the item.

[Name: Mysterious Arrow - Rarity: Mythical (Locked until Level 10 is reached): This Mysterious Arrow hails from a distant universe in which being stabbed with it will unlock one's latent potential! However, the catch is that if you stab yourself with the arrow, and you are not yet worthy (Minimum level requirement level 10) you will die! The higher the level you are, the higher the success chance you will have with this Mysterious artifact! {Note: Only you can use this item, and it cannot be used on anyone else. Killing someone with this arrow will net you 0 EXP, and you will lose the item permanently. You will also lose the item permanently if you use it on yourself} Be careful when handling, you wouldn't want to accidentally cut yourself, now would you?]

Jolyne paused as soon as she finished reading the information given to her as the blurb disappeared. It had looked familiar to her, but only ever-so-slightly. She remembered that, back before she died, she had read some stupid Manga with her older cousin about some guy with a pompadour and a ghost thing. They were trying to get some arrow away from a guy who could control toy soldiers, and that arrow apparently gave those people their powers.

And she was holding that very arrow right now, which made her smile big. Though she couldn't use it until at least level 10, she planned to keep the thing with her in her inventory. There was no way in hell she was going to lose something like that. Not to mention it was a mythical item, so the chances of her getting another one were pretty much next to impossible.

Opening her inventory, she quickly stored the arrow away, and then, let out a sigh. "Okay, so that wasn't exactly a waste. Sucks that I can't use it now, so until then, I'll just have to practice with my Blood Control spell in the meantime," Jolyne stated, putting her hands behind her head. Just as she was about to close her eyes, her stomach growled, indicating to her that she should probably get some food in her stomach.

Groaning, The System user got up from her chair, left the music room, and began her march to the cafeteria inside the building, wherever the hell that had been. She assumed that there was a Cafeteria, mainly because most schools in her past life had one, so she assumed that this obviously overly funded school had to have one of its own.

However, just before she turned the corner to continue her search for the Cafeteria, Jolyne was greeted with a pop-up that annoyed her to no end, especially because she had just gotten done with a Quest not even a few seconds ago.

Main Story Quest

[Apple of their eye – Prologue]

Description: The Headmaster of Hopes Peak Academy has gone over the surveillance footage after someone reported you using your magic, oh no!

Quest: Talk to Jin Kirigiri, the Headmaster of Hopes Peak Academy, and see what he wants!

Rewards: 1 Karma (good), 250 Exp.

"Because of course, that's just my luck…." Jolyne muttered, a frown replacing the brief smile she had. And as soon as she said that, the school's speaker roared to life. Jolyne looked up to the speakers, her expression unchanging.

"Will Transfer Student Jolyne Brooks please report to the main school building, please and thank you," a masculine voice rippled throughout the school as several of the students in the hallway turned to look at her. Jolyne sighed, facepalming as the Quest screen disappeared out of her vision.

"Now I wish I had a teleport spell…." Jolyne thought with a deep frown, walking down the hallway as fast as she could to avoid the stares. "This had better be worth it."

[? – POV]

Something was wrong.

Something was not right.

No, that wasn't the best way to describe the nonsense that she was feeling.

Someone had tapped into that source, which meant that for the first and only time in her life, her suspicions had been true.

Magic was real.

She had known it to be real for a long time, she could feel it for… whatever's sake. But no one believed her.

But for the first time in a long time, she brought herself to smile. She could never connect to the magic in the air, mainly because she didn't know how to do it. But recently, some of that magic had been tapped into.

Which could've only meant one thing.

"There's someone out there… someone in this world… who can use magic! I mean, I can use magic, too, but it's nothing like flinging fire and causing lightning storms. Nyeh… how long will it be till they find me?" A little red-haired girl thought in the midst of one of her famous shows.

Her magic wasn't that impressive, yet everyone thought it was. Pulling rabbits from her witch's hat. Making doves fly out in droves from her cape. Sawing people in half without killing them and then putting them back together almost immediately. There was no denying that she was talented. After all, she had heard that Hopes Peak Academy was looking for a Magician-based talent.

While she was a mageand not a magician, she assumed that she could call herself that. But that hadn't been the point. She wanted to branch out from just the small town in Hokkido, and Hopes Peak Academy would allow her the ability to do just that.

But now, that had changed.

Himiko Yumeno could finally show the world that magic was real. If she could find the person responsible for using magic and get them to teach her how to do it, then her life would finally feel complete!

But for now, that would have to wait. She could do that search at a later point. Right now, she had to wow the crowd by summoning over 100 bunny rabbits from her skirt.

And wow them it did.

-To Be Continued-

Did I just put Himiko Yumeno in this story, as well as softcore canonizing the V3 cast? Yes, yes I did. Did I also just say that Himiko can really, honestly feel magic? Yes, yes I did. Are a few of you going to complain about this? Probably, and if you do… then go off, I guess.