Chapter 1: What the heck is goin on around here?
Y'know, usually, when you see someone waking up in a strange situation, you might expect them to panic, jolt up, and immediately take stock of their surroundings. That's not exactly how it played out for me. After all, waking up is a gradual process, and your brain isn't usually functioning at full capacity for at least a few minutes, especially if you're waking up naturally instead of being woken up by someone. All that to say that I did not immediately process the fact that I was no longer in my bed, in my apartment, but rather, sitting at a desk in a classroom with my head resting on my arms. However, after lifting my head, smacking my lips a few times to get the taste of morning breath out of my mouth, and letting out a large yawn, that's when the panic set in.
"What the fuck? Where am I? How did I get here?" I asked no one in particular, standing up while I did so.
It was at this moment when I noticed several other oddities as well. My hair, usually ranging from practically a buzz cut to just long enough to get in my eyes, was now extremely long and had many, many points. My clothing was also substantially different from my usual fair, with three layers, a rope for a belt, and rolled up pants. I was also wearing… briefs? I don't even own briefs! Granted, I didn't own any of this other clothing either, but my choice of underwear is something I take very seriously. Boxer briefs only for me, thank you very much. But getting caught up in these details was distracting me, so I decided to get back on track.
The best way to figure out what the fuck was going on would be to take stock of my surroundings, and proceed accordingly. It was then that I noticed the metal plates bolted down, with the bolts welded to the plates where the windows should be that I started to get an inkling of what was going on here.
"Oh no. Oh no no no no no no. Fuck man! This can't be real! There's absolutely no way!" But as I looked around the room more, it only confirmed my fears. I was indeed in a classroom in Hope's Peak Academy. The setting of Danganronpa: Trigger Happy Havoc. Looking at my reflection in the metal plate, I also realized that I was not in my own body, but rather the one of Yasuhiro Hagakure, the Ultimate Clairvoyant, and a comic relief character who legitimately seemed too stupid to function.
This was bad. Really really bad. But panicking won't solve anything, so I took a deep breath, and tried to take better stock of my situation.
Being stuck in Danganronpa was… unfortunate to say the least. I first played it back in my junior year of high school, which was… god, 7 years ago? Fuck I'm old. I thought it was pretty alright. Some plot points were a bit silly, like two teenage girls causing the collapse of civilization, but after playing, watching, and reading the rest of the series, I learned to appreciate its silliness. It's kind of a core part of the franchise's identity, mixing silliness with darker themes. An interesting combination that makes for a fun visual novel, sure, but when you suddenly find yourself living in that world? Both aspects, the silliness and the dark themes, were very bad for my long term health.
I like the world when it makes sense, and follows rational logic, and unfortunately, it's not exactly a simple task to adjust your entire world view and what 'rational logic' entails. But I could deal with the world being a bit sillier. It would be an inconvenience for sure, but something that could be worked around or adjusted to. However, due to the darker themes, any wrong step I make due to misunderstanding could have immediate and disastrous consequences. Something I would very much like to avoid.
This all is not even mentioning that I seem to be in Hope's Peak Academy with the windows sealed. That more than likely puts me in the First Killing Game, where death is a fairly likely occurrence, that I'll need to be extremely careful to avoid.
And then there's the fact that I am in the body of one Yasuhiro Hagakure. Sure, he survived to the end of the game, so I could hypothetically mimic his actions exactly and be completely fine, but that doesn't seem very likely. I only played the game one time 7 years ago. I suppose I did also watch the anime, and a few let's plays of the game, but that still doesn't feel like nearly enough to go on to mimic his actions exactly. If I tried that I feel like I'd butterfly away my survival pretty quickly, especially since he had quite a few close calls in canon.
Also, Hiro wasn't exactly the greatest dude in the world. He wasn't evil or anything, and he meant well most of the time, but he still did some kinda fucked up stuff that I'd feel pretty bad about doing. Especially the attempted murder of Sakura in chapter 4.
Speaking of murders, I could probably prevent a few huh? I mean sure, if I prevent the canon murders, some different ones will probably just occur, and preventing those would be much harder. Even still, being able to prevent a murder and NOT doing so just didn't sit right with me. I'll have to at least try to prevent as many murders as I can, though doing so might draw the ire of Junko…
Ah fuck, Junko. She's supposed to be the Ultimate Analyst or whatever right? That means that even the slightest deviation from how Hiro acted before the killing game will likely tip her off that something is up. Though surely, she wouldn't be able to piece together whatever magic or science bullshit got me isekai'd here. Even with supernatural analysis abilities, she can't just generate correct information out of nothing… Right? Hopefully not, otherwise, I'm even more fucked than I already am. Plus she was beaten at the end of both the first and second game, so she's not omniscient. She can and has drawn incorrect conclusions, though it's been kinda implied that she was only beaten because she deliberately chose to leave an opening for her plans to fail, so that she might feel despair.
If that's accurate, then any failure will likely be on her terms, so she'll at least partially accomplish her goals. After all, most students still died in DR1, and in DR2… well, I guess she did kinda completely fail in DR2 huh? To be fair though, Hajime going Super Saiyan and managing to break the system into giving him exactly what he wanted despite there being no reasonable way in which it could be accomplished is kinda outside the bounds of being reasonably predictable.
I suppose that my situation might give me exactly what I need then huh? There's no reasonable way my situation could have been predicted, which seems to be an effective strategy against her. I'll still need to be super cautious though. I can't just go throwing around things I should have no way of knowing and expect her not to take notice.
Although… I am in the body of Yasuhiro Hagakure, the Ultimate Clairvoyant. A little bit of knowledge I should have no way of knowing might be reasonable, or even expected. Though I should still be careful. Trying to do too much too fast might put a target on my back. I'll probably get one on me regardless after a while, but hopefully by that point we'll be far enough along that she can't just sic Mukuro on me and call it a day.
With all that thought about, I had a general plan of attack. Try to play the part of Hiro while still subtly trying to prevent at least the canon murders. Once Mukuro's out of the picture, I can play a bit more openly, but it would still be best to not flaunt my meta-knowledge too openly, as Junko can still pull off quite a few schemes by herself. Hopefully this plan will let me survive to the end, and get like, 2 or 3 extra people out? Getting everyone out is kind of a tall task, so I won't set my expectations too high, but I'll still try to save everyone if I can.
My own survival is a lot less likely than if I just played super conservatively, putting my own life above everyone else's, but I don't know if I could really live with myself if I did that. It just feels way too selfish. Plus, maybe I'll just get sent back to my old body if I die. I don't know that for sure, and it's way too risky to just be cavalier with my life, but if it comes down to it, putting my life on the line might be a little less scary than it would be in ordinary circumstances.
I suppose I should also try to figure out how I got here? It would be nice to know whatever bullshit isekai nonsense had to occur for all of this to happen, but I don't know if I'll find any answers about that. This whole situation seems very esoteric, and those kinds of things don't usually leave behind evidence to be studied by the scientific community.
But, with a plan in place, my mortality contemplated, and my situation considered, it was finally time to head to the entrance hall to introduce myself to the other Ultimates.
A/N Hey all, name's PersonGuy. This is my first fic on this sight, and in general. DR is pretty good, but I'm not like, super into the fandom for it, and I haven't read everything, but I've juts had this fic idea for so long that writing it out seems like something I should do. All the fics seem to be from the perspective of Makoto, with the exception of "I'm who now?" by Clemrl, which is a big inspiration for this story. Having our isekai'd protag be put into Hiro's body might not offer as much drama and intrigue as being trapped in Junko's, but due to him already being known as clairvoyant, he can play a little more aggressively with his future knowledge. Of course, that comes with the downside of having to put on an act for Junko, but for me the author, that's just a source of more drama!
Let me know if I make any mistakes or anything, as there are sure to be some. I'll try to get updates out once a week at least, but I'm not making any promises. Writer's block can and will probably strike me at some point, but we've still got a long way to go before I start worrying about that.
Also I have no idea how long a chapter should be. From what else I've seen on this site, this is kinda short, but hopefully they'll be longer in the future when we get to more dialouge-heavy sections.
-PersonGuy