AN: This was an idea born from playing Danganronpa and over analyzing it, a friend who kept the thought alive with me, and the overwhelming urge to punt Kirigiri into the Sun for all she's done to our dearest protagonist. Among other things, of course. Anyways, spoilers for the Mastermind of Danganronpa: Trigger Happy Havoc, and everything else really. So go play the game or read a summary if you don't like that kind of thing. If not, I hope you enjoy it.
Chapter Summary: In which something quietly breaks in Naegi Makoto alongside the death of one Maizono Sayaka.
Naegi Makoto didn't quite know the face he was making while gazing at Maizono's dead body. It couldn't have been anything pleasant, of course, but a small part of his brain wondered about it nonetheless, and he welcomed the diversion like a drowning man dragging down the first person to try and pull him to safety. An overwhelming surge of nausea made him gag as bile burned at the back of his throat, but the Luckster forced it back down with willpower he didn't know he had. This was probably the worst time to be sick. Trying his best to avert his gaze from the terrible sight in front of him, the teenage boy took several shuddering gulps of air as his vision swam and the urge to scream and pass out and cry (not necessarily in that order) clung to the very fiber of his being.
It felt like hours, but it was probably just a matter of minutes before the sound of multiple footsteps reached his ears, along with the occasional concerned call of his name. Still, he remained kneeling on the ground, head bowed in a grotesque parody of prayer as Naegi struggled to regain control of his mental faculties. The voices drew closer as a door slammed into a wall, but his eyes remained glued to the floor, and the pools of blood littered all across it. The better part of himself was crying out in agony and misery, already grieving the death of the one person he somewhat knew in this school of horrors. But even then, no tears would come.
The scuff of shoes screeching to a halt followed by a loud curse indicated that someone else had discovered the crime scene, and Naegi kneeling in the midst of it all. The outburst was quickly followed by several more variations of the same shocked and horrified response, but before anyone could say anything else, the obnoxious ring of the school intercom cut through the tension.
"Ahem, ahem. A body has been discovered! After a certain amount of time, which you may use however you like, the Class Trial will begin! However, since this is the first Trial, your esteemed principal will explain the rules. Please meet me in the gym~"
"The fuck is that bear saying?"
"Whatever his intentions, it's in our best interest to follow his orders. One of us is already dead."
"How can you be so calm about this? One of our classmates…she's…"
"We can't change what's already happened. But what we can do…is make sure whoever murdered her is brought to justice."
Naegi flinched as a gentle hand carefully settled itself on his shoulder. Still, he didn't move. He couldn't. It was like he had woken up from a nightmare only to find that he was trapped in another one. A flicker of blonde hair in the corner of his eye indicated the identity of the one who had stayed behind while other voices trailed off into the distance.
"Enoshima-san?"
"Yo, Naegi." He could hear the half-hearted attempt at injecting cheer into her voice. "Normally this is when I'd crack a joke…but y'know." Naegi shrugged slightly, eyes tracing the tiles on the floor as he studiously ignored the dead body just an arm's length away. An awkward silence ensued before she cleared her throat.
"We've gotta go and meet Monokuma."
"I heard."
Enoshima hissed through her teeth, seemingly at a loss for words. Her hand drifted from his shoulder to rub small circles on his back. Normally he'd be on the verge of spontaneously combusting from embarrassment, but the Luckster couldn't even dredge up a fraction of the energy that would be needed for an emotional outburst like that. He shivered, despite the perfectly regulated temperature of the school and his hoodie. They stayed like that for a couple moments longer before he gathered the remaining willpower he had and stumbled to his feet, narrowly avoiding falling face first into the bloodstained corpse. He shook his head sharply, hoping in vain that it would be enough to dislodge the images now seared forever into his mind.
He finally turned around, making eye contact with the clearly worried Ultimate, and offered her a wane smile.
"No time to rest."
"Fellow classmates! Your tardiness is unacceptable! Especially you, Naegi! We talked about this the first time we got here!" He resisted the urge to bite back with a pointed retort. It wasn't worth the effort.
"What's your freaking problem? He just found his friend dead in a bathroom! This is not the time to give a shit about punctuality." Ishimaru stumbled backwards, as if physically struck by the idea that the rules were meaningless in a place like this. Or maybe it was because he saw the error of his words? Naegi wasn't sure at this point. Before the conversation could rapidly devolve into an argument, Monokuma sprung up from behind the podium, looking far too cheerful considering one of the fifteen students had been stabbed to death.
"Hello hello, dear students of my esteemed school!"
"Cut the shit out you overgrown stuffed animal, why the fuck did you call us here?"
"While I despise such…vulgarity…the peasant has a point."
"Oi oi oi you prick, who you calling a—"
"As I was saying," Togami adjusted his glasses slightly, "you summoned us to talk about the procedure that follows a murder, am I correct?"
A ripple of surprise passed through the people present. Those who had seen for themselves the macabre display of Maizono's demise showed varying degrees of horror, bar Kirigiri who looked just as unfazed as ever. Those who hadn't, on the other hand, were frantically looking around, searching for the one who wasn't currently present. Naegi clenched his jaw, but didn't say a word.
"Upupupu…how'd you guess it?"
"Anyone who's read the school rules and has some semblance of a brain would have figured out the hidden part of the graduation clause. Rule number six talks about how a 'blackened' would graduate if they weren't discovered. And considering the nature of this game, it's obvious that you'd provide a method to figure out the murderer."
"Bingo! It's not enough to just kill someone. You have to actually get away with it! Which naturally means you need a system in place to assess whether or not it's been gotten away with!" Monokuma bounced on his feet slightly, earning himself a disgusted sneer.
"So, a certain amount of time after a murder has taken place, which you all can use to gather whatever clues you might need, a Class Trial will begin!"
"Class…trial?" Fujisaki looked like she was on the verge of tears, and to be perfectly honest, Naegi wasn't far off either.
"Yup! Once a couple of hours have passed, I'll tell everyone to gather together, including the blackened who committed the murder. And they and the spotless students will all engage in one big debate showdown! There's a bunch of other rules, yadda yadda, but I wouldn't want to hold you back from your execution, I mean, investigation, so I'll summarise it! You'll try to figure out who you think the blackened is, and once everything comes to an end, the outcome will be decided by popular vote. Get it right, and only the one who disturbed your peace will be punished. Get it wrong…and the one who got away with murder wins while the rest of you receive your punishment!"
"So, um…what exactly is this 'punishment' you speak of?"
"I thought it was obvious~ But to put it simply, it's execution!"
A brief moment of stunned silence followed before several people began talking at the same time, sentences overlapping to create a cacophony of noise before Monokuma stomped his foot."
"Wasn't I clear enough? Execution! Ex. E. Cution! Electric chair, bzzt bzzt! Poison gas, cough cough! Torn apart like a paper plane in a hurricane!" So go through your investigation and judge wisely…we wouldn't want the game to end after the first round, yeah? That's bad for the viewership!"
"W-wait, hold on a second!"
"Hmm?"
Enoshima stepped forward, outrage and panic warring on her face as she folded her arms across her chest. Naegi shifted uncertainly, before quietly edging closer to the Fashionista, sensing something amiss with the whole situation.
"Who gives a shit about a Class Trial? What the hell is that!? I don't want anything to do with it!"
Monokuma seemed to grin despite his face not changing in the slightest, tilting his head to the side in a twisted mockery of a child who had been presented with something they didn't understand.
"Why not?"
"Whaddya mean why not!? Someone got murdered and all you can think about is making a game out of it? You sick freak!"
"What!?" Monokuma feigned shock with a full body shudder that made Naegi's skin crawl. Something was definitely wrong. "Not participating in the trial…only punishment awaits such blasphemy!"
"Shut up already! You're all talk and no action!"
"Don't test me! I'll…I'll…I'll throw you in a deep, dark, scary prison or something!"
"That's the best you can do? I'm sick of this crap!" Enoshima scoffed, examining her nails in an almost bored manner.
Monokuma laughed, "You, who dares to violate the sacred rules…if you really want to follow through, you gotta go through me first!" One of his paws sprouted claws as the robot-bear-thing charged forward (well, it was more of a waddle), only to be immediately curb-stomped by the disgruntled teenager. He stiffened, immediately reminded of what had very nearly happened to Owada at the start of their School Life and glanced around hesitantly. Everyone else was just silently watching, and some even seemed to be enjoying the way Enoshima was grinding Monokuma into the dirt underneath her heel.
"Go on, do something!"
"If you insist…" A chill ran down the Luckster's spine. Well, he called it a chill, but it was more like someone had reached into his back and grasped it with both hands before twisting. Throwing caution to the wind, he sprinted forward.
"Violence against Principal Monokuma is not allowed! You've just violated a school regulation…I invoke the mighty summon spell! Help! To me, Spears of Gungnir!"
"Enoshima-san! Get down!"
"Huh?"
Having no other choice, Naegi grabbed the other teenager by the back of her collar and yanked, throwing them both backwards as numerous spears impaled the ground where she was previously standing. He bit back a curse as his left arm flared up in pain, and turned it slightly to glance at the severity of the wound while the room burst into noise.
Thankfully, it appeared to be nothing more than a scratch, indicating one of the spears had missed him by inches, close enough to pierce through his clothes but not cause any serious damage. Grimacing at the way the injury throbbed, he dragged Enoshima behind him with strength he didn't know he possessed, standing between the shell shocked girl and the bear in front of them.
"Hmm…" Monokuma glanced from the metal bars embedded into the gym's floor, then to the still alive Fashionista, then finally locked eyes with the glaring teenager. He tried his best not to fidget or twitch underneath that gaze, feeling nothing but malice radiating from those cold, glass eyes.
"Well, that ruined my fun. Anyways, you'd think some people would learn to follow the school rules after what happened to the biker. None of that matters right now. Here's a gift to help out in finding the blackened!"
Completely changing the subject, the Principal produced a set of thin files from…somewhere… before handing them out. Naegi carefully accepted the item, heart pounding in his chest as he watched the bear for any signs of hostility.
"I call it the Monokuma File! It has alllll the information I've gathered about the death in question. That way you all can't blame me for not knowing stuff about a corpse that could be very important for the Trial later. Any questions? No? Good! I'll see you in a couple hours~" Monokuma waddled back to his podium, seemingly unpertubed by the fact that he had just tried (and failed) to murder someone without a second thought. Naegi sighed quietly, tension bleeding from his frame before a sudden call of his name made him straighten up.
"Naegi-kun." He slowly looked up to meet the unsettling gaze of their Principal. A beat of silence passed. Then another. Ever so slightly, it seemed like the plastic grin of the animatronic twitched upwards.
"I can't wait to see what you'll do next~"
Normally I'd push the chapter length further, but this seemed like a good place to stop. Anyways, welcome to chapter 1 of what I've called the Despair!Naegi AU, but not like those "Naegi is the Mastermind but really just a carbon copy of Junko" stories. Expect to see a much different Naegi Makoto in the following chapters, and a far different Killing Game than what we're used to. See you next time.