The first week out of the Neo World Program was a hectic one. Hajime woke up suddenly remembering everything and was the only one who was able to walk right after waking up thanks to his body modifications. Trying to help the others while sorting out the mess in his own head was hard, but apparently, it was enough for the reminding members of class 78 (minus two of them who were still helping out in Towa city) to feel safe leaving them on the island as they report back to Future Foundation and deal with their 'treachery'.And so, after that first few weeks, Hajime decided to try saving the rest of their friends.

The Neo World Program was inaccessible from how corrupted the Monokuma virus made it. He was forced to edit over a thousand files before it was stable enough for Hajime to boot it in administrative mode. The feeling of success didn't last long, as not even after booting it up for the first time, the program crashed.
It was fine. Hajime was annoyed, but even that was welcomed at first since before even that emotion was hard to feel.

But then it crashed again.

Hajime checked the main files again, changed a few lines of code, booted it up and…

It ran for 2 minutes, and 39 seconds before crashing.

Frustrated, Hajime ran his hand through his recently cut hair, only to stop when he noticed the raised lines on his skull.

He went back to work.

At some point Sonia dropped by to check on their sleeping (not dead) classmates, and left before the program crashed again. But it ran for almost 5 minutes (4 minutes and 58 seconds). Hajime ran it once more without changing any of the code, but it crashed on start.

This isn't working. I need to try this from another angle.

Hajime decided instead of trying to fix the program, to try getting Alter Ego up and running again. They weren't corrupted like the program, but the AI had been damaged from trying to stop the virus and later getting the three future foundation members into the program. It was something Naegi mentioned before leaving, though at the time he didn't understand why he sounded so sad leaving the AI.

Then Hajime found the code and the comment left by the creator.

Oh, so they're like Nanami.

The Nanami AI was gone from what Hajime could figure out, which wasn't a surprise, but still sucked. He could remember Chiaki bleeding out, and still had her hair clip in his pocket. The fact that he can't save any version of her was…

Detangling Alter Ego from the program only took an hour. They seemed happy to help Hajime with his quest to wake up their classmates, and were tasked to go over the files, bring the most corrupted to Hajime in order to edit.

It was going well. Hajime felt like he was making progress, even if just being able to run the program still wouldn't stop their classmates from thinking they died, it was something. It gave Hajime more options and-

"Hey asshole, how long are you planning on staying in here doing a Dracula routine?" Fuyuhiko slammed the door open and Hajime felt his heart rate increase a little in surprise even though his body didn't move.

He just continued typing. If there was something wrong, Fuyuhiko wouldn't have entered with a joke. He just wanted Hajime to take a break, even though he's not even tired and was so close to-

"Really? You're ignoring me now?"

"I'm not ignoring you," Hajime said before Fuyuhiko could get angry (more angry), "I'm almost done with writing this new loop that will-"

"Yeah, don't care. Are they going to die if you take a break?"

"No, but-"

"Do you know you've been in here for two fucking days now?"

Hajime did pause at that.

"No, it's only been 36 hours and 27 minutes." And 38 seconds but Hajime knew better than to add that.

"Don't be a smart-ass. The fact that you're going into Kamukura mode is proof enough you need to sleep," Fuyuhiko said as he grabbed Hajime arm.

"Kamukura mode?" Hajime repeated with a frown as he let himself be dragged from the keyboard.

That was a new one. Hajime made it pretty clear to everyone he was Hajime, and besides the real Togami asking who he was when they first woke up, no one questioned it.

"Yeah, you're getting all robotic like before. Noticed that happened when you're tired."

That made Hajime pause, but Fuyuhiko pulled him, moving his grip from his wrist to his arm.

I need to be more careful. Haijme thought as Fuyuhiko started ranting about how Hajime needed to take breaks more often. He didn't want his friends to worry. Hajime knew he could stay awake for over three days without any lost in cognitive function, but it was true that was something Kamukura could do, not Hajime. He is Hajime, but he remembers being Kamukura. Or maybe Izuru Kamukura was always Hajime, just without any memories or emotions. It wasn't something he wanted to think about, and so he didn't.

And he didn't want his friends to think about it, so if sleeping every 30 hours (what a waste of time) in order to make sure he doesn't lean too much into 'Kamukura mode' was what was needed, then he'll do it.

"…at least tell me you've been eating."

"I had some can soup 5 hours ago," Hajime answered like he wasn't having deep existential thoughts as they walked to the dorms they have been using.

Fuyuhiko didn't look happy about that, but didn't have room to talk. Outside of Hajime, the only one who could cook was Akane, and she eat half of whatever she cooked while cooking. They have mostly been living on canned goods since they only started turning the abandoned park on the central island that they have been living on into a farm. It would have been a few weeks before they got any fresh food.

"Take a fucking shower too. I have no idea how you don't smell, but I can see you have pit stains. I'll get Sonia to wash your clothes."

Hajime thought about telling Fuyuhiko about the body modifications they made so his sweat didn't smell but…

"Get Kazuichi, Sonia might put bleach in again."

Fuyuhiko stopped walking.

"Fuck. She already offered to do everyone's laundry. Go take a fucking shower, I'll make sure she doesn't ruin all our dark clothes," Fuyuhiko said before he bolted down the hall.

Hajime paused for a moment, a smile tugging at his lips before shaking his head and heading to the bathroom. Maybe he did need to take more breaks. Hajime realized he missed his friends.

Maybe we could have another sleepover. Hajime thought, and this time he did smile.

Hajime was painstakingly going through the files Alter Ego found individually, trying to clean up the corrupted code, when someone opened the door. A glance at the reflection from the monitor revealed it was Kazuichi, looking a little panicked, but not enough for Hajime to stop what he was doing.

"I'll take a break in two hours," He promised.

"Oh, yeah, sounds good man. Do… would you like any help?"

That caused Hajime to pause and take the time to look at his 'soul friend'. He looked stressed, playing with one of his earrings like he use to do with his beanie in the simulation. Kazuichi was probably…

No. I don't need to psychoanalyze him. If something is bothering Kazuichi, I just have to wait for him to tell me.

"I'm not good with the software stuff, but I could make sure the hardware is all good?" Kazuichi continued, not even bothered that Hajime was probably staring at him too long.

"Uh, sure? You can check the cooling system."

"Great!"

Hajime watched as Kazuichi bounced over to the other end of the room, already with a wrench pulled out. He waited 37 seconds before pretending to go back to work. After making fake typing sounds for another 68 (come on, so close to 69) seconds, Kuzuichi spoke up.

"I… uh… do you think how I've been treating Miss Sonia is… creepy and stalker-ish?" Kazuichi said in a quiet voice that would have been lost in the hum of electricity if Hajime didn't have improved hearing.

"…Sometimes. You do have a habit of seeing her as a princess before being a person," Hajime bluntly said, and felt a little bad when Kazuichi visibly flinched.

Should I be taking his side since we are soul friends or whatever? But I can't lie can say how he's been treating Sonia is fine…

"Yeah… Ah, shit… You're right. No wonder Miss Sonia doesn't want to see my face anymore."

"What did you do?"

"Nothing! Or, well, I was just asking if Miss. Sonia wanted to take a break and… I guess she was tired of being nice when I was acting like… a creep. So, yeah…"

Hajime wish he could say he didn't see this coming. Obviously, everyone was under a lot of stress from recovering from what they did and what happened in the simulation. He should have taken the time to talk to Kazuichi about it, more bluntly than he ever did in the simulation, but Hajime has been more focused on making the island livable, and now bringing their friends back.

"…I think it would be best for me to avoid her."

Is he being mature right now or just avoiding the issue?

"I think Sonia would rather have you treat her like a friend, rather than… whatever you were doing before. Just, try treating her like how you treat me, or Akane, or even Fuyuhiko," Hajime said before recalling how somehow after the funhouse, Fuyuhiko had become Kazuichi go to person to hold onto when he was scared, "Maybe not Fuyuhiko, but the rest of your friends."

"What? I can't do that. Miss Sonia is the ultimate princess! There is no way I can treat her like I do you guys."

Hajime gave Kuzuichi a Kamukura classic stare in the hope that he understood that was the last thing Sonia wanted.

"You know, I have the ultimate princess talent as well. If that's your argument for treating Sonia the way you have, then you should be treating me the same way," Hajime said in the most deadpan voice he could (which was a little too easy).

"You… what? But that… Bro, you got to stop putting these types of thoughts into my head!"

What thoughts?

"I'm just saying, try not to bring up the princess stuff. That would be a good first step in you not being as… creepy."
Hajime didn't want to bring up that Sonia wasn't a princess anymore, since she became queen and destroyed her own country in wars. That was something Sonia only admitted to him, that her talent was just a reminder of everything she lost. No wonder Sonia snapped at Kazuichi since he loved to bring that up. Hajime was impressed it took this long.

"…I guess I could try that."

"Great," Hajime said, and feeling like this conversation was over, he went back to work for real.

Fuyuhiko ended up dragging them both out for a brake four hours later.

"Guys!" Hajime ran into the courtyard that Sonia's been trying to set up as a garden with Fuyuhiko and Akane.

"What happened," Fuyuhiko asked, immediately getting up from his crouched position.

Before Hajime could tell them, Kazuichi joined, out of breath and holding onto Hajime's shoulder for support.

"He… Program… backup…" Kazuichi wheezed out before Hajime took up.

"I found a backup of the program that's mostly free of the corruption. If we overwrite the memories of those who died in the simulation, so they never died to begin with, then everyone will wake up!"

"What?"

"Please explain!"

Hajime did his best to explain what needed to happen. He likely went into too much detail, since at a few points Kazuichi had to 'dumb it down', but soon enough, smiles started showing up on people's faces.

"For the program to run properly, we would all have to go back in, and it's likely the Monokuma virus will be there as well, but…"

"It would be like a redo!" Kazuichi interrupted, "All we have to do is stop all the murders, then do the shutdown!"

"But won't we forget our memories again once we enter the program?" Sonia asked, and Hajime shook his head.

"No, the memory whip is a different program. The others won't remember anything of the first time since the backup is from the first day, but we should be able to remember everything."

"Great! So what's the plan?" Akane asked, and everyone looked to Hajime.

"Plan? To stop the murders? Uh," Hajime didn't think that far, but already his mind was swirling at the options, "the biggest challenge will be the Junko AI. If we change things too much, then what we remember from the first time won't be any help, and if she finds out what we know, she'll change the motives. Our best bet is to try to delay the first two motives as much as we can and prevent the murders at the last moment."

"Wait, why can't we just go in, do the shutdown thing, and get everyone out before Monokuma showed up?" Akane asked, and Hajime thought he already explained this.

"We have to rewrite what happened the first time to make sure everyone wakes up and don't remember their deaths. So we can't do the shutdown until we are in there longer than the last person to die."

"You're saying we have to deal with that bastard until the countdown ends?" Fuyuhiko asked.

"I do not think that is what Hajime meant. Remember, we still had two days left in the counter when the fifth trial happened," Sonia explained for Hajime.

"Right. That happened on," Hajime did some quick math, "day 21. We should be safe to do the shutdown after 22 days."

"How do you plan on delaying the motives?"

"I don't think we can delay the first one. Stopping Komaeda from sending the letter would just make him do something else. I think having a party isn't the worst idea, but we either need to change the location to make it impossible for a murder to happen there, or stop both Komaeda and Teruteru right before."

"I don't know why we are waiting time planning now. We should just go in, and if we need to plan, we can do it then," Akane said as she punched her fist into her hand, getting very pumped up.

"Once we are back in the simulation, we have to be careful not to let Monokuma overhear us talk. I might be able to program 'deadzones' with Alter Ego's help beforehand, but it would be safer for us to act like we don't know each other. All our planning needs to be done now."

Turns out they were not very good at planning how to avoid murders. Akane's ideas could be grouped in the 'punch them' or 'tie them up' categories, with Kazuichi's also in the 'tie them up' group. Sonia had a few good ideas like removing the metal skewer from the old building so Teruteru couldn't use them, but Hajime was worried that he might come up with another idea if they did that.

The second motive was much easier since Fuyuhiko just needed to not plan on killing Mahiru, but also Hajime figured they could use that to make Monokuma think he was still planning to murder to give them some more time.

"But what about the despair disease? We were not able to find a cure last time, and it truly seemed like Monokuma would let those inflicted die if there wasn't a murder," Sonia pointed out.

"That's right, hey Haji, can't you just cure it?" Akane asked, absentmindedly pulling out some food from her pockets.

"Unfortunately I won't know until we're back in the simulation, but considering Monokuma referred to it as a bug, it makes me wonder if it was never a disease, but just the avatars being corrupted by… a bug."

"Oh, like a computer virus? I guess that would make more sense how everyone's personalities got so messed up…" Kazuichi muttered to himself, but Hajime still heard it.

"Yeah, and if that is the case, the only way for me to fix it is to get access to the mainframe. Which would require me to go to the ancient ruins."

"Huh? I thought you said we can't do the fucking shutoff until the 22 day?"

"I won't be doing the shutoff, but that's the only place Alter Ego can talk to us. He'll be able to access the files and change them to fix the bug."

"Great! Sounds like a plan Haji!"

"Okay, but what about that bastarded funhouse? If we all get stuck there again you won't be able to go to the ruins and get Alter Ego to hack an exit for us," Fuyuhiko pointed out.

"Um, pardon me if I'm wrong, but can we just… not go? I remember Monokuma being clear that he wanted all of us to go, so if the five of us decide not to…"

"Then we wouldn't go! That's amazing Miss… uh… I mean… Sonia."

"That's not the worst plan. But I'm not even sure if Monokuma will use that as a motive if everyone is still alive at that point," Hajime warned them.

"But if he changes the motive, then there is nothing we can do to plan for it until it happens."

"Hopefully by then we'll be on day 20 or something," Fuyuhiko muttered, stabbing the ground with a trove.

"At least if we do not go to the fun house, there will be no way for Komaeda to find the true and attempt to kill us all."

Hajime frowned at that, not because of what Sonia said, but because that brought up another problem they had to deal with.

"Since we have to do the shutdown, everyone will remember their despair years like us. Not only do we need to keep everyone alive, but make enough positive memories that no one falls back into despair once we wake up."

Everyone fell silent when Hajime brought that up. It was nice to think that everyone would have an easy time shedding their despair years, but even they had problems. Going against Junko at the end bonded them together and make it easier to avoid the thought pattern that would lead to despair, but Hajime knew how unlikely that was. So far the only issues they had was Kazuichi getting a little too into the idea of a new machine or Akane suddenly not being able to eat. Not only did they need to plan for the simulation, but also after.

It was a daunting task, but everyone agreed it was worth trying. Even if they failed…

"The other issue is since we are alone on this, if we fail and people die, we'll have to do the shutoff before it gets to less than 8 people to prevent Junko from taking over."

"But if we do the shut off too soon, that means none of the others would wake up. Will we be able to attempt it again in that case?" Sonia asked, and Hajime really wished he could say yes.

"Reloading the backup is going to cause more corruption in the program's files. I don't know how much, but if it's too much then… this will be our only chance."

Maybe one chance to save everyone. And if not everyone, more people. Unless 8 people died, then they have to accept they failed and leave the others to their brain dead states. It's not the best outcome, but unless Hajime makes a completely new program to go into everyone's subconscious and let them deal with their memories of their death, one by one, it was the only option.

"Then we don't have a choice. We need to save everyone," Akane plainly said, like it was so simple, but maybe it was.

Maybe they would get lucky and everything would turn out how they wanted it to.

A/N: I was talking to a friend of mine who mentioned how she prefers reading fics on this site, so I decided to bring this fic over from ao3. I currently have 7 chapters up, and I'll be updating weekly until we catch up. This is my first danganronpa fic, and I don't have everything outlined for this fic yet, but I was too excited to start writing/posting.

Feel free to let me know if any of the characters sound off or wording is weird.

Hope you all have a good night/day!