Archive of Our Own

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Tsumugi saw her first Danganronpa when she was four years old.

Finding it had been luck, though she couldn’t tell if it were good or bad. Her father had set her up with a value-sized bag of cereal and the TV set to the cartoon channel, decided that would be enough to sustain her for a while, and left for work. Her hand happened to brush the remote and an impaled corpse happened to appear on the screen.

Tsumugi had shrieked, knocking over her cereal and the remote. She covered her eyes, but the sounds still reached her ears: shrieking, sobbing, and a familiar cartoonish laugh.

Even after finding the remote and switching it back to Doraemon, it felt as if her soul had been dipped in black. She would pretend it was an accident when she changed the channel back, and another accident when she peeked at the carnage through the cracks in-between her fingers.

Never would she say that she had a bad life, that she was abused or neglected. That was the type of thing that would make her an interesting character, and she had never been interesting. It was more that her father often forgot that he had a daughter, and she couldn’t blame him. After peeling herself away from the screen, having watched hours upon hours of Danganronpa, she forgot that she was real as well.

She would watch the season to its conclusion. When Junko had revealed herself as the Mastermind, she gasped and cheered. The first thing she’d seen upon accidentally changing the channel to Danganronpa was Junko having been impaled to death. She had come back to life! Tsumugi glanced at the small shrine dedicated to her mother expectantly.

After the season was over, she learned it was called a ‘rerun’ and there was an interview with one of the show’s writers, a stony-faced man named Masato Gesaku. It eased a nagging that had been bothering the child. It was all just fiction after all-- but it had felt so real. The image of Junko’s impaled body was burned into the darkness behind her eyes. All of the students had sobbed whenever they lost a friend. But if it was make-believe, then they were just fake tears, and it didn’t matter any more than someone being upset in a Doraemon episode.  

Tsumugi looked again at her mother’s shrine. How did she know that her mother wasn’t made-up? Why had she mourned this woman without having met her? It made as little sense as crying over anyone in Danganronpa.

If she was so real, why didn’t her mother come back to life like Junko had? Why was it that Junko, who wasn’t real, made her laugh and smile when her mother never did?

And gradually, in Tsumugi’s mind, ‘mother’ and ‘Junko’ became one and the same.

---

I.

Makuhari Messe Event Hall was already packed and the convention still hadn’t officially started.  

Comic-Con Tokyo that year had been disappointing at best-- a watered-down version of the event she was here for now, DanCon, the official Danganronpa convention. Tsumugi had spent the months since Comic-Con’s end on her cosplay, teaching herself to sew from library books, finishing Junko’s outfit with bloodied hands and bloodshot eyes.

It shocked her how expensive wigs were. Even though she had lied about her age to work part-time as a hostess in a shady club (she thanked her developing bust that she could pass for a high schooler even at thirteen), she still couldn’t afford a quality Junko wig. The day before she left for the convention, she settled on bleaching her hair and tying it into pigtails.

As a hostess, she had gotten used to the lurid glares from men who were at least three times her age. But at the hostess club, a bouncer would break it up if anyone got too handsy with her. Here, in the middle of Tokyo, she felt a type of loneliness that she hadn’t felt since being left with the bag of cereal and TV. Even surrounded by smiling faces, it felt as if a screen separated her from them, as if they couldn’t interact any more than she could interact with anime characters.

She gave up on making friends, idly wandering around the event hall. An old man’s eyes followed the hem of her short skirt as she walked. He followed her across the building; when she finally turned to confront him, she realized that he had been taking pictures the whole time. He must have modified his phone to remove the shutter sound.

“What’s your problem? Why are you following me?” Tsumugi asked, hoping she sounded confident.

The old man just laughed. “Such spunk! I like it,” he said. “Makes you even sexier.”

“I’m…. I’m not trying to be sexy! I’m thirteen!” she said, as if that were a justification. Even if she were just thirteen, men already looked at her with hungry eyes, and she had capitalized on it.

“Hey, I don’t mind ‘em young,” the old man said. She felt as if she would throw up. “If you didn’t want men’s attention, you shouldn’t have dressed like that. You’ve gotta take responsibility.”

“I didn’t… I didn’t cosplay for attention. I wanted to be Junko Enoshima,” she murmured, but it fell on deaf ears. He crept closer, his phone camera aimed at her chest.

The phone flew across the room and shattered on the wall. Tsumugi gawked, taking a moment to realize that the old man hadn’t thrown it, but someone had grabbed it and destroyed it.

“What the fuck is your problem, you little shithead?!” the old man cursed, yelling right in the face of Makoto Naegi. “I hadn’t paid off that fucking phone yet!”

“Maybe you should’ve thought of that before taking creep shots,” Makoto said.

“I’ll sue you, you little brat!”

“Sure, go tell your lawyer that you were trying to take pictures of underage girls.” 

The old man cursed again and ran off. Makoto turned to face her, and then she realized it wasn’t actually Makoto Naegi at all, but a boy about her age. “Geez, what a pervert. You okay?”

Tsumugi nodded weakly. “You… you saved me.”

“It’s what Ultimate Hope would do,” he said. “Even if you’re Ultimate Despair.”

She gave a weak laugh. She wanted to say ‘thank you’ or ask his real name, but instead all that came out was: “Nice cosplay.”

“Thanks. Cost me about 34,000 yen, but it’s worth it,” he said, tugging the material of his hoodie. Besides the shape of his face and his skintone, he looked as if he had walked straight out of the TV show or one of the video games.

“Th-thirty-four thousand?!” Tsumugi gawked.

“Yeah, I’m no good at making cosplay on my own. I just borrowed my uncle’s credit card. He might beat my ass, but it’s worth it,” the boy said, shrugging. “Did you buy yours, too?”

“No, I… I made it myself.”

“Wow!” he said. “It looks just like the real thing! You even got Ciaté London ‘Mistress’ shade nail polish, I can tell!” He smirked a little, adding: “They’re a cruelty-free company!”

She blinked. “You know a lot about makeup.”

“Huh? No, I don’t know makeup. I know Danganronpa,” the boy corrected. “I know the nail polish they used in the live action adaptation ‘cause one of the Remnants of Despair salvaged Junko’s hand after her execution. They had a special episode about exactly how he surgically attached her hand to his body and how it actually worked. I think it’s on the DanRon website, you should watch it.”

“You mean… he actually cut his hand off?” Tsumugi asked. “I thought that was mae up.”

“Oh, no. Danganronpa is all about reality.” The boy’s eyes widened as he spoke. Tsumugi had only seen this type of ecstasy on Junko’s face before the trash compactor crushed her. “Well, Ultimate Real Fiction, that is!”

“But I heard that they were actors. Like, they gave them the talents and everything,” Tsumugi said.

The Makoto cosplayer threw his head back and laughed. “Of course they do! It’s part of the show!” he said, bursting with glee. “But the deaths, the betrayal, the hatred? That’s all real! It’s the best part! Who’d want to just see random losers like me kill someone? There’s no drama in it!”

He calmed from his mania for only a moment, as if sizing himself up, glowering at every part of his body that wasn’t covered by the costume. “That’s why deaths on the news are just facts. Genocides are just statistics. They’re boring. Nobody cares,” he said. “If you or me wound up dead on the sidewalk, nobody would give a shit. We’d be forgotten by the end of the news episode. But if you or me turned up dead on Danganronpa, we’d be legends.”

She couldn’t argue. Her father didn’t even notice she was gone. She had learned how to spell Junko Enoshima before she learned how to spell her own name.Even though Tsumugi knew the deaths were all real, she hadn’t fully processed it.

But for some reason, when she played one of the Danganronpa games and a character died, it felt no different than when she watched someone die on the show.

Wasn’t killing wrong? Wouldn’t you go to jail if you killed someone on the street? Or was killing just wrong if it was boring?

“I don’t know about you, but I’m just biding my time ‘til I’m in high school. Then I’m going to get onto Danganronpa, no matter what it takes,” said the Makoto cosplayer.

“Even if you die on the show?” she asked.

“I’m planning on it, actually,” he said. Her jaw dropped, but he continued. “A Detective hasn’t been the blackened yet, so I’d love to do that. I’ve got loads of ideas for murders that nobody could solve. And my execution would be so cool! I’ve got at least three great ways I’d love for them to kill me.”

“I… I see.” She didn’t know what else to say.

“Anyway, be more careful. I’m gonna go sneak into one of the private areas to see if I can meet any of the show’s team.” With that, he turned on his heel and started to leave.

“Wait!” she called out. He stopped. “Why did you save me then if you think what happens in real life doesn’t matter? You said that if something happened to us, nobody would care!”

“Oh, that?” he said, shrugging. “I didn’t want your cosplay to get messed up.”

And then he left, and Tsumugi was alone again. The outfit felt too scratchy on her, like it didn’t fit-- as if it weren’t a cosplay, but a poorly-fitting disguise. The characters were fake, but also real- more real than her- and now Junko whispered in her ear that, if she ever wanted to be loved, she would have to rewrite her identity as well.

---

II.

Tsumugi felt that she would never see that Makoto Naegi cosplayer again even if she hadn’t spent the next few days locked in her hotel room. When she emerged, it was with an armful of papers.

One of Danganronpa’s top writers- Masato Gesaku, the one she’d seen on the interview all that time ago- had a panel about the series’ long-running success. Afterward, during the autograph signing, she had forgotten her Danganronpa Blu-ray Boxset but instead gave him the clipped papers.

“Do you want me to sign this?” he asked. Up-close, he looked scarier than on television, with deep-set eyes and wrinkles like scars.

“No, this is for you. It’s a concept for the next season of Danganronpa. If you like it, please contact me.”

He gave a polite nod, shoving the papers into his tote bag. She didn’t leave until he promised he’d look over it. He had a lot of Blu-rays to sign.

Later that evening, Masato remembered the paper when reaching for his car keys. He grunted, pulling it from his bag like it were a candy bar wrapper. At least twenty times per convention, someone submitted their fan character or something like that.

To his surprise, the paper didn’t show a drawing of Junko Enoshima or the girl herself, but it was an arduously detailed diagram of a robot. Not only did it go over every part that it would be made out of, but it suggested making its eyes the cameras for the audience, and it would be powered by audience suggestion. On the back of the paper was a possible execution: every part of him would be ripped apart, and the eyes would be destroyed last, ‘killing’ the audience. Now everyone who loves the show can have their own execution as well, it said. Below that was a name and phone number.

Tsumugi got a call back that same evening.

“I call him K1-B0, or Kiibo for short. Like the word for ‘hope’,” she said, into the phone. Masato and his Team Danganronpa coworkers ate it all up. “Audience participation would spice up the next season of Danganronpa. Imagine the tagline: will YOU choose hope or despair?”

There was mumbling on the other end of the line. Finally, someone said: “how would you like a job?”

“I’ll take it,” she said, without hesitation. She couldn’t afford to stay another night at the hotel, anyway. Her father would welcome her home with a resounding shrug, but she just as soon would return to the beach by diving off a cliff.

Some more mumbling. “On second thought, how old are you?”

“Sixteen,” she lied, effortlessly.

There was a long silence on the other end of the line. If they knew it was a lie, they didn’t expose it. She’d grown used to it from adults. “Come to our office tomorrow morning. Here’s the address,” Masato said, before giving her said address.

She thanked him and hung up the phone. There came no sound besides the ringing in her ears. Her head spun from not having slept the past few days, working the entire time on the K1-B0 diagram. She’d sourced it all from Google; while she was considered ‘spacey’ and ‘stupid’ by school, she could focus for days on Danganronpa. The thought didn’t make her as proud as it used to.

With nothing besides chipped plaster walls caging her in, she turned on an old Danganronpa episode on her phone and pretended the immediate rush of gratification was because of her victory.

---

Tsumugi wasn’t sure if she didn’t change out of her Junko cosplay because it gave her confidence or because Masato might forget who she was if she didn’t wear it.

Everyone on the team turned out to be polite and professional, almost startlingly so for people who spoke about the benefits of bludgeoning versus stabbing when she walked away, and all of them introduced themselves multiple times. She even caught the office tour guide seemingly forgetting her.

The last person she was introduced to was an old man, but fortunately not the pervert that had been chased away at DanCon. He didn’t smile when she approached.

“This is Professor Idabashi,” said the office tour guide. “He’s our resident robotics expert who has made several breakthroughs for Danganronpa, including neurobiological work on our machine that renders Ultimate talents.”

“It’s a pleasure,” Tsumugi said, shaking his hand. “I loved the work you did on the Exisals.”

“I’m not surprised. Those are some of my finest work,” he said. His grip was too tight and his breath smelled like coffee grounds. “So which school group are you with?”

“I’m sorry?” she said, as if apologizing for her existence.

The office tour guide spoke up. “Ah, this is Tsumugi Shirogane. She’s the young cosplayer who came up with the audience surrogate robot idea.”

“Interesting,” he said, examining his dirt-caked fingernails. “Tsumiki, as nice as it is to have you here--”

“Tsumugi.”

“Yes, that’s what I said. As nice as it is to have you here, I’m afraid you’ve been taken in by one of Masato’s flights of fancy,” Idabashi said. “He sends me several dozen of these ideas for ‘cool mechas’ per week that will never fit in Danganronpa. I sincerely regret to inform you that, although he may have promised you an internship position within Team Danganronpa, he doesn’t have the final say in appointing such a role.”

“But, I…” she sputtered. Every word she reached for danced out of her grip. As much as she hoped to channel Junko’s confidence, as well as the charm she tried to show the men who patronized her hostess club, it all drained out of her and left her a gawky 13 year old with a bad bleach job. “Y-you don’t understand. I’ll do anything to be a part of Team Danganronpa. Anything.”

“I hear that quite often as well. I do apologize,” he said, in a tone that indicated he couldn’t care less. “I’ll arrange for your taxi fare back home to be covered. It is an unfortunate matter that this robot fully controlled by the audience will not work.”

“No, that’s wrong!”

He raised his eyebrows as she raised her voice. “If it were fully controlled by suggestion, Kiibo couldn’t function. It would be all over the place,” she said. “Kiibo will mainly be an artificial intelligence which will, through its circumstances and the suggestions of our audience, choose hope or despair.”

“It will be like Alter Ego!” the tour guide chimed in.

“‘Our’ audience,” he snorted. “And why is this supposed to change my mind?”

“Danganronpa’s viewership has begun to decline. The ratings for the most recent season were down to 4.3 from last season’s 4.4, and the previous season’s 4.5. Even the attendance for DanCon was down by… I estimate at least 3% since last year,” Tsumugi said. “As someone whose life is dedicated to Danganronpa, I cannot let this continue. K1-B0 will help rejuvenate the series. Not only is there the audience participation aspect, but the idea of a mostly-blank AI who will be forced to definitively choose between Hope and Despair.”

She curled a lock of blonde hair around her finger. “Even blank-slate characters like Makoto Naegi had preconceptions of Hope or Despair. They’ve had the unfortunate reality of existing outside Danganronpa. K1-B0 won’t have that disadvantage.” Tsumugi took a breath. “It will be your masterpiece, not mine.”

Idabashi was silent for several long seconds. “I must admit I am fascinated by the possibility of creating a true blank slate AI-- not Alter Ego, which was programmed after Fujisaki’s own conscience, or Nanami, who was programmed to choose Hope from the start.” He pushed his glasses up his hawk-like nose. “I will take this project into consideration for a future season of Danganronpa. I will see to it that you can stay on as an intern on the project, but we may not have the money to officially pay you--”

“That’s no problem,” Tsumugi said, immediately.

“The robot will need to interact with someone to learn basic human interactions, too,” Idabashi said. “The lab will also need to be cleaned each night, and someone will need to handle other janitorial duties--”

“I’ll do it,” she said.

His smile unsettled her. A row of uneven, yellow teeth faced her. When he smiled like that, she felt as if her choice had been as predetermined as that of a fictional character’s.

“Very good,” Idabashi said. “I’ll be in touch, er--”

“Tsumugi,” she said.

“Right,” he said, walking away. During their entire professional relationship, not once would he try to say her name again.

---

Kiibo was her first creation to come to life.

First they built his head, then synthesized a voice. A multitude of wires connected him to one of Idabashi’s computers. He could be programmed to change expressions, and after Idabashi left each night and told her to clean up the lab, Tsumugi liked to leave a smile on his face. As if Kiibo knew what big plans they had in store for him.

The first day they tested his AI, he looked around and finally settled on her, as if it took him a long time to notice her. “Hello. I am K1-B0. What is your name?”

“Hello, K1-B0. I’m Tsumugi Shirogane,” she said, with a smile.

“Tsumugi Shirogane,” he repeated. “It is nice to meet you.”

“You as well,” she said. “I’ve decided that we will be calling you Kiibo for short.”

“I see. This is my first nickname,” he said, as if it weren’t obvious. “Do you have a nickname?”

She glowered. Nicknames were for people who were important to other people. “No, I do not.”

“I apologize,” he said. It appeared his expression-reading functions were working. “I was insensitive.”

“No, it’s good for you to be curious,” she sighed. “But let’s talk about something besides me.”

They wound up talking for nearly six hours-- or, rather, Tsumugi talked and Kiibo recorded information. She’d truthfully never spoken to someone else at such length, even if it were a robot. Nervously, her topics drifted off from basic things like how many hours were in a day or the purpose of water to things such as anime. Even when she spoke about the most minute details, he listened with that same smile.

“You are passionate about fiction,” he remarked.

She tilted her head, surprised that- even if his whole function was to absorb information and repeat it back- anyone would make an observation about her. “I suppose I am.”

“Forgive me, but I noticed a difference in the tone of your voice when talking about fiction. That is why I came to this conclusion,” he said. “Is it that fiction makes you ‘happy’?”

“Fiction is the only thing that makes me happy,” she admitted. “Nobody cared who I was when I took off my cosplay-- ah, that’s when you dress up like a fictional character. Even though I came up with you, whenever I’m in the offices here, everyone asks if I’m someone’s daughter or I got lost here. That’s how it’s always been. But with fiction, you can escape to a better world,” she said.

“But why would one escape?” he asked. “Individuals grow by proxy of solving problems. One would grow by solving their own problems, not by avoiding them.”

His ability to reason surprised her. She supposed he was right-- in Danganronpa, all the protagonists grew after having faced a trial. A Danganronpa with no murder would be just plain boring. But that was Danganronpa, and this was the real world. Even if she could dress as Junko, she’d never have that much ability to overcome her obstacles.

“There are some problems in the real world that you can’t solve,” she said. “In the world of fiction, all that exists is what the creator chooses, and these problems are always resolved.”

“So fiction is a world that can do the impossible. All problems are eventually solved. It is a world that… makes sense,” he said. She could practically see the gears inside his head turning.

“You got it,” she said. “And some of us just can’t confront our own problems, anyway. Thus, seeing others fight, and grow as a result, is a comfort.”

“When you say ‘some of us’, do you mean you can’t confront your own problems?” he asked.

“I suppose.”

“Why?”

She felt a knot twisting in her stomach. This bucket of bolts was the first one to ever ask her. She supposed the best answer was, why should she? What was out there in the real world but an endless supply of garbage and strife? What had the real world ever given her but insecurities and stares from old men?

“I don’t want to talk about it,” she said.

He thought on this for several moments. “Tsumugi?”

“Yes?”

“Fiction is created by a real person, correct?”

“That is correct,” she said.

“And real people have thoughts and problems and feelings, correct?”

“That is correct.”

“Then… am I a real person, too? Or am I fiction?”

“Yes,” she answered. The conversation had become too much for her. She pressed a button on the laptop. “Goodnight, Kiibo.”

His face shifted from pain to a smile as he was shut off. She draped a sheet over him, powered down the laptop, and turned off the lights. He had learned more than enough today. Idabashi would be pleased with his success on Kiibo.

She lingered by the door before leaving. She couldn’t get attached. He may have been the only person to listen to her at length, but he was built that way. Besides, once he entered the world of Danganronpa, he would forget all about her. So their conversation had become fiction, too.

---

III.

The years came and went. Kiibo was given a test body, but he needed to refine his motor skills. He spent an entire Danganronpa season’s length of time learning how to walk, and two seasons learning how to grip a spoon. His debut was delayed when he accidentally wounded Idabashi, and Tsumugi had to beg him on her hands and knees to not scrap the project. He had asked who she was again.

She was actually sixteen when they began taking auditions for the 52nd season of Danganronpa. To her surprise, she was chosen to help sort through the contestants.

“The final decision will rest with the executive producers,” a secretary told her, as Tsumugi was presented with a stack of thousands of audition tapes, “but you have an eye for costumes and characters.”

This was news to her. Regardless, she jumped at the attention like a starving dog at a scrap of meat. “I’ll be happy to look through them, but… By some chance, could I ask to only see the tapes that the producers thought would be best suited for the show?”

The secretary covered her mouth in a polite giggle. “These are those tapes. The bad auditions were tossed. There were far more of those,” she explained, leaving Tsumugi dumbstruck. “You see, the balance of the cast is the most important thing. Some students would work well together, but others would not. Your job is to help put together a cast with chemistry.”

“I… I will. It is an honor,” she said, bowing deeply.

Tsumugi forgot to eat or sleep for the next solid 24 hours that she spent watching audition tapes. Some were bad, some were good, but most were mediocre and blended together in front of her eyes. A few new ideas for talents caught her attention- product tester, mailman, sword swallower- but most of them were too specific or dull.

“Number 853,” said a voice on the next tape. She almost nodded off before jerking her head back upright to see some green-haired pretty boy. “Rantaro Amami.”

“I’m not going to lie to you guys. I hate my life,” said the pretty boy. “And if I don’t get in, I’ll probably just kill myself anyway.”

She raised an eyebrow. Usually, people started going on about how much they loved Danganronpa or how much they loved so-and-so character. Not this.

“Talent? Nothing. I’m only good at looking pretty, I guess,” he said. “That’s why I’m here. If I’m going to throw away my life anyway, I might as well give it away. I’m a blank slate. I have nothing. I’ve never been outside my home town until today. I have no family. I have no friends. You could turn me into anything you want. Murderer? Sure. Victim? Why not. Survivor? Well… that would be funny.”

He just shrugged. “It’s all up to you. Thanks for your time.”

Tsumugi sat in silence for several moments after the tape ended. How fascinating. Everyone else had some strong idea of what they wanted to be, or at least some kind of life in their eyes, but this ‘Rantaro Amami’ had nothing. He didn’t even say he liked the series.

It was perfect. Her mind began racing with ideas. He was the one. He would be her Hajime Hinata-- her Izuru Kamukura. He was a bishounen, just the type of anime character she liked, and she was going to pour all her knowledge of Danganronpa into making this the biggest fan-favorite character yet. That would get Team Danganronpa to notice her the way they did when she created Kiibo.  

She began sketching out ideas. His backstory would be noble-- a quest of some kind, to save a woman he loved… no, no, any kind of pre-existing love interest would make it harder for fujoshi to feel like they had a shot with him. His quest would be to save his sister. No, he had no family, why not play it up? Two sisters! Five sisters! Twelve sisters! Tsumugi penciled in personalities and love and all the things that she never had herself.

His talent would be Ultimate Adventurer to match the quest motif. Someone worldly and experienced, but also mysterious and suave… she was giggling with glee just thinking about it. And the perfect assistant for an Ultimate Adventurer to interact with would be an Ultimate Cartographer, someone who would guide the hero to the greatest treasure: Hope itself!

She leaned back in her chair, daydreaming about the possibilities. She was going to give him such an amazing plot arc. He would be so happy.

---

“We have a suicide attempt in Room 01!”

“We’re on the way! Emergency services are being contacted as we speak!” Masato shouted into his earpiece.

Tsumugi hadn’t finished watching the final trial of Season 52 for the fourth time. Rantaro had done so excellently, far beyond what she could ever imagine when she first created his character. He had voted for Hope and sent Junko Enoshima- well, one of them- to her death. He had sacrificed himself nobly, fluttered his beautiful lashes to a close one last time, and anticipated his demise.

Instead, he wound up in a glorified holding cell in Team Danganronpa headquarters, Room 01-- the ‘survivor’s suite’.

“I’m at the scene, he’s alive, he tried hanging himself with his clothes. Very dazed, severe bruising but no worse injuries,” another voice shouted into her ear. Tsumugi hugged her Junko Enoshima dakimakura close to her chest.  

“Good. Audience wouldn’t put up with the fan favorite hanging himself after surviving six trials,” another voice said.

“Do we know why he attempted it?” Masato asked.

“Not sure, but his mental health may have been unstable before joining Danganronpa. We’ll need him under constant supervision until Season 53,” the voice replied.

“Ingrate. He survives Danganronpa and then betrays us?” Masato said, his voice darker than Tsumugi had ever heard it. “He signed his life with that contract. Don’t let him forget it. We own him.”

She turned off her headset, smiling as she watched Rantaro on TV point right at Junko Enoshima. ‘We must not lose Hope!’ he had said. Amazing. Amazing! Amazing! The audience had loved it. Another great message about hope, about looking despair in the eye and moving forward anyway.

She rewound the episode to watch it yet another time. Only about an hour later, someone walked into the break room.

“Tsumugi! I thought I might find you here,” Masato said, all smiles, as if the scary voice in the headset never existed. “We did it! Rantaro’s character was a smash hit with audiences. K1-B0 will be ready for debut next season as well, and the focus groups are loving him! I thought it would only be fitting that you, the mastermind behind it all, would be our new Junko!”

He held out a blonde wig with two giant pigtails. The blood on the wig cap hadn’t yet dried. That’s what made it authentic.

The sight of it mesmerized her. The golden threads symbolized confidence, sexuality, and ironically, Hope. It was everything she had been working toward. Tsumugi swallowed her doubts- that this was the first time that Masato had spoken to her, much less addressed her by name, in months- and donned the wig. It was warm, comforting, gooey.  

With her sign-on as the new Junko- a title as symbolic as Caesar- came a hefty bonus that she used to buy her first food that wasn’t ramen in months. She turned off her headset again, enjoying a bowl of miso soup, as Masato mentioned that Rantaro had attempted to gouge his eyes out with a plastic spoon and was now only being fed intravenously.

---

IV.

Kaede was nice.

It was the first thing she wrote when designing her character. The rest flowed from that point. Polite, but bold. Confident, but pushy. The ideas flowed from Tsumugi's fingertips into the flesh and blood being before her, as if they shared veins.

It couldn't surprise her that Kaede was first to invite her to tea, or ask her politely about cosplay, or agree to paint their nails together. But, it still managed to surprise her nonetheless. Tsumugi hadn't written Kaede to interact with her specifically; she supposed she gave her free reign on 'kindness' and Kaede interpreted it to interact with the lonely girl that everyone else had looked over.  

They made idle chatter while Tsumugi painted her nails. “I started playing the piano as a little kid,” she said, reading naturally from a script in her mind. “People started calling me Piano Freak ‘cause all I can think about sometimes is piano.”

“I see,” Tsumugi said. “I tend to get obsessed with things I’m into, also… one time I watched Bleach for 12 straight hours.”

“Did you go to the bathroom?!” Kaede asked.

“Well, I forgot to drink water, so I didn’t need to go,” Tsumugi said, casually. “There. All done. I gave them a pink gradient.”

When Kaede examined her nails, her jaw dropped. “Wow! They look amazing! I hardly recognize my own nails, they’re so cute!”

At least someone was appreciative of her work. Tsumugi smiled. “With a gradient like this, you can make even plain nails-- well, they’re short, but shaped nicely,” she said. “This shouldn’t get in the way of playing the piano.”

The two chatted a little more until her other great creation waltzed in: Rantaro Amami. He had gone from suicidal wreck to bishounen love interest extraordinaire once again. Would Kaede end up the way he had, after the show was over? Desperately trying to kill herself to avoid another season, filming her Survivor Perk video with dead eyes and a broken smile? Maybe it would be a gift if Tsumugi killed her off, after all.

“Hey… what are you two up to?” Rantaro asked, eyeing them both-- but his stare lingered on Tsumugi, as if he had a bad taste in his mouth whenever he looked at her.

To think that Rantaro, of all people, was on to her. She hadn't written him to be suspicious of her-- that was the dangerous part of him, that he was a few pages ahead of the rest in the script. He had the potential to know too much.

Yet, she couldn't let him ruin her game now. She had worked too hard on it for it to come apart from the inside. She and Kaede were simply giving one another innocent manicures and until Rantaro had butted in and given Tsumugi a sly glance as if to suggest he wouldn't let Kaede be alone with her and Tsumugi wanted to wrap her fingers around his pretty boy throat.

As time went on, she bit her nails until she tasted blood. It was true that she’d worked the past several years without a day off, and it was also true that she had chosen Season 53’s cast in one long multi-day sitting like last time. And now it was true that her exhaustion had caught up with her and she made Kaede to be too effective of a leader. Monokuma’s deadline was fast approaching and her script was going haywire. If she let Monokuma kill everyone, she’d die a fool. But if she made him go back on his word, he’d lose his authority. Picturing the audience dissatisfied left her digging her jagged nails into her arms, through her skin soaked in a cold sweat.

A good writer could make sudden changes to the script, she told herself, grabbing a shot put ball of her own. A good writer could adapt. Masato would be angry about all the wasted work of marketing Kaede as the protagonist, but it was a gift. A gift to her ‘friend’. Kaede wouldn’t wind up like Rantaro, a hero discovered in their suite with their own clothes tied around their neck as a makeshift noose. Killing him would be a gift too; it would save him the trouble. Because she loved her ‘classmates’, just like Junko Enoshima did.

The Makoto cosplayer’s words rang in her ear: they both would die on Danganronpa as legends.

---

Tsumugi had never killed before. It felt somehow against the natural order of things. But this wasn't killing more than it was to off a character in her fanfiction. It didn't really count, and it was technically Kaede’s fault anyway. In writing a character who Tsumugi wished would be her friend, she wrote someone who would care enough to stop her.

It was easier to kill than she thought. It always looked hard in anime and shows, but all she did was hit him with the ball and then he was gone. She'd seen plenty of dead bodies on past seasons of Danganronpa, but something felt different about this. The smell, for one. Blood smelled awful in such high quantities. And then, the stillness. There were no jump cuts, no sound effects, no voices. Rantaro had given one last gasp and then nothing else. He had been alive- or as alive as a fake person could be- a moment ago, and now he wouldn't move again.

Tsumugi grabbed the other shot put ball, dropping her own, and the Survivor Perk Monopad. She had no time to waste; the hidden door would close, and she would be discovered if she wasn't fast enough. It wasn’t fear of execution so much as fear of a boring show that caused her to sprint back into the hidden room. Once inside, the door closed behind her and she opened the trash can, dropped in the shot put ball, and dry heaved into it as well.

She couldn’t cry. Masterminds didn’t cry. Junko didn’t cry. It would get her nowhere. All she had done was hit him with the ball and then he was gone. It was a favor. It was Despair. But still she choked down vomit the whole way back as she forced her legs to run so she could return in time to discover the body.

When she saw Rantaro's body minutes later, she dug her jagged nails into Kaede’s arm, relieved to find the flesh give way to them, as if trying to affirm she were real one last time while she still could.

---

V.

Nobody ever joined Tsumugi to eat, but that was how she liked it. She had never eaten a meal with anyone else, and starting now would be awkward. Tsumugi wound up being the last one in the cafeteria during breakfast.

After finishing, she carried her plate to the kitchen, where Kirumi was already washing dishes. She set the plate in the sink. Lingering for a moment, she decided to pick up a rag and started drying the dishes.

Kirumi only noticed after Tsumugi took a freshly-washed dish straight from her hands. "Oh, I assure you that is not necessary. Both washing and drying dishes is something I am more than capable of as a maid. You may go and enjoy yourself somewhere away from the drudgery."

"I feel like helping. It will go faster with the two of us," Tsumugi said. Kirumi's nose twitched in a way that indicated she could probably dry each dish faster than Tsumugi could, but she relented in the end.

"If that is your wish, I will serve it the best I can," Kirumi said.

The two continued their rhythm for a time. After a few moments, Tsumugi spoke up. "Don't you ever get tired of all this maid work?"

(She didn't, of course she didn't, she wasn't written that way-- but Tsumugi was written in a way where she would ask, and so the marionette pulled her own strings.)

"Not for a moment," Kirumi answered. "My principle as a maid is selfless devotion. So long as I have someone to serve, I am content."

"Content? What about happy?" Tsumugi asked.

"That is not necessary."

"What's not necessary? Being happy?" she asked.

Kirumi gave a curt nod. "If something will not further my abilities to perform my duties as a maid, then it is of no value to me."

"Well, what if..." Tsumugi blanched. "What if you needed to be happy to complete a service that a superior requested? Then what?"

"I suppose, then, that I make myself be happy." Kirumi handed Tsumugi the last dish, drained the sink water, and changed her gloves. "Why do you ask?"

"I dunno, just... don't you ever think, 'this is all there is'?" Tsumugi asked, unsure why she was bothering. The melody of Kaede’s execution was still fresh in her mind.

To her own surprise, Kirumi nodded again. "Such thoughts have crossed my mind, but I refuse to entertain them. Such a sentiment is not suitable for a maid." 

"What would you do if there was nobody to serve?"

Kirumi raised an eyebrow. "May I ask that you explain?"

"What if you were the last person left on Earth? Then you couldn't serve anyone but yourself," Tsumugi said. "What would you do then?"

It was like asking a horse to run backwards. Kirumi frowned, staring at her gloves as she thought.

"I would swiftly kill myself. I would no longer be necessary," Kirumi said. Tsumugi's jaw dropped, but she didn't entirely feel surprised. "Being a maid is the role assigned to me, and it is a mantle I bear with pride. Simply because there are other options doesn't mean they should be pursued. Freedom has subjective value, and often it's most beautiful as a distant concept rather than something one experiences firsthand." She leveled her gaze and looked Tsumugi in the eye. "One may enjoy the rush of the wind when free falling, but eventually, everyone hits the ground."

Tsumugi didn't move as Kirumi nudged past her, apologizing and saying she had business to attend elsewhere.

---

VI.

There wasn't a lot of anime in the AV room-- mostly things that Tsumugi had seen a million times before. But she found herself craving familiarity, and it led to her putting in an old Doraemon video. She had watched the show every day as a little kid, at least before Danganronpa entered her life. Watching it now left a kind of hollowness in her heart, reaching for a bag of cereal that wasn’t nearby, wondering if her father would ever come home.

Someone knocked at the door.

Tsumugi jumped, scrambling to pause the projection. "Ah-- uh, er, who's there?"

"It's Ryoma." The former tennis star's voice was unmistakable, even through the closed door. "I thought I heard Monokuma in here. Is everything okay?"

She opened the door. Ryoma peeked past her curiously, raising his eyebrows seeing Doraemon on the screen. "Well, what do you know. I used to love that show as a kid."

"Me, too!" Tsumugi said. “It’s my old favorite!”

Ryoma gave a small chuckle. "Mind if I sit in? Of course, I get it if you don't feel safe with a guy like me around."

"I always feel safe with a fellow anime lover!" Tsumugi said. "Come on in!"

He hesitated for a moment, seemingly surprised that Tsumugi trusted him, but ended up walking in and sitting down on the couch. "Oh, this is ‘The Fishing Pond in my Study Room’. That’s his debut in this version of the anime.”

"Yes! I'm surprised you recognized it!" Tsumugi said.

"Like I said, I was a kid too, y'know," he said, lowering his head. His hat cast shadows over his face, as if he were mourning a time long past. "You might not know it by looking at me, but I loved Doraemon. I actually got a pet cat because of the show."

"You had a cat?" Tsumugi asked, pretending to be surprised.

He nodded. "Yep. For a while. When I went to jail, I couldn't keep him, obviously."

"It must have been hard to part with him," Tsumugi said.

"It wasn't the biggest loss I faced." He shrugged. "Look at me, though, getting you down. Let's watch some Doraemon."

"Okay. But we can talk if you ever want to talk to someone," Tsumugi said.

"I'll keep it in mind."

Tsumugi resumed the episode. She didn't feel quite as lonely anymore, even if watching the nostalgic old show left a pang of guilt in her heart. Was this what it was like to watch a show with a friend? He laughed at all the jokes and even let out a little whoop when Doraemon did his rocket punch.

Tsumugi had met people who shared her same interest at conventions all the time, and everyone on Team Danganronpa worked with a single goal in mind. But at the end of the day, she always returned to her room and watched episode after episode of something alone, hugging a pillow to her chest, pretending that the voices on the show were talking to her.

The episode soon came to a close, but Ryoma didn't object as another came on. It kept going on and on until they had watched an entire season of the show. Suddenly, the show wasn't just something that she had watched over and over while left alone in her childhood home, but something that she had shared with a friend.

(As much of a friend as any of the characters on screen could be, anyway.)

"That was pretty nice," Ryoma said. "Feels like it's been forever since I got to watch anything besides whatever was on prison TV. Or forever since I did something with someone where they didn't talk to me about tennis."

"I'm glad you had a good time," Tsumugi said.

"Hey. You okay?"

She blinked. "Why do you ask?"

"Oh, just a hunch." He pulled his hat down a little. "I just think I'm a little skilled at telling when someone's faking a smile. Comes from experience."

"Well... to tell you the truth, this show has a lot of unpleasant memories as well attached to it for me. I know it's silly for such a campy show like Doraemon, but..."

"No, I completely get it," Ryoma said. "Lots of innocent things trigger memories of my past, for better or for worse. That's just how we are as people. Nothin' we can do about it but take everything as it comes.”

Tsumugi smiled. "Thank you, Ryoma. Do you want to watch more anime together soon?"

"Sure," Ryoma said, also smiling. "It'll give me something else to look forward to besides Himiko's magic show."

"Alright! Maybe we could even figure out a joint cosplay for us to do sometime!" she said. It was an empty promise and she knew it.

But still, Ryoma nodded. "We'll see. Later, Tsumugi." And then he left, his head held a little higher.

Of course, he had said before that if he ever got out of here, he would simply go back to jail. The reality was that if he got out of here, he would go back to being an ordinary teenager with no criminal record, but also no former girlfriend, no tennis skill, no pet cat. Would he still want to watch anime with her, then? He couldn't be mad at her for something he asked her to do- write him into Danganronpa- could he? And she hadn't written into his story that he liked Doraemon, so that must have been a genuine childhood memory, right?

But only the resounding silence of the AV room answered her. Suddenly feeling hollow again, she turned toward the screen and numbed her mind with another episode.

---

VII.

Everyone began to avoid Tenko a little more when her Research Lab opened. She claimed she didn't mind training by herself, but she took any excuse she could to try and flip someone. Eventually, after going down the list of potential sparring partners, she wound up pestering Tsumugi.

"You need to learn some self-defense, right?" Tenko said. "You said once that all kinds of disgusting men flock around you when you cosplay! Neo-Aikido could keep you safe!"

Tsumugi eventually had to give up on her plan of ignoring Tenko until she went away. Besides, she had said the C Word. "It does bother me to be stared at while in cosplay, but I have other means of protecting myself."

"You have something? Even then, there's nothing better than Neo-Aikido!" Tenko said, delivering a blow to the air in front of her.

"Well..." Tsumugi shrugged. "I can conceal pepper spray on my keychain, and it isn't as physically demanding..."

Tenko relaxed a little. "Pepper spray will work in a pinch... but what if you don't have your keychain? Or the attacker overpowers you?" she said. "You need to be prepared in all situations!"

"Usually, I have bodyguards that protect me at any events I appear in... 'cause my cosplays are sponsored now," Tsumugi said. "So I don't need to worry."

"But..." Tenko seemed deep in thought for a moment, but a sad look flashed across her face. "Even so... you can't rely on someone else forever. Sometimes, you can only rely on yourself."

Tsumugi studied the other girl, trying to remember the details of the tragic past she wrote for her. Of course she had been the one to write it, but she did on occasion allow input from the applicants themselves. In Tenko's case, she said she wanted to be a cool martial artist- ("Like Sakura Oogami!")- so nobody could hurt her friends.

Of course, there were no friends in Dangan Ronpa. Just predators, and prey, and- at best- fellow contestants. "You truly are concerned about me, aren't you, Tenko?"  Tsumugi asked.

"O-of course I am!" she said, blushing. "I- I'm worried for all the girls in our class! Who knows what perverted thoughts any of those men are having as we speak?!"

"I don't think any of our classmates are having perverted thoughts... besides Miu, anyway," Tsumugi said.

"That's... different," Tenko said. She sighed. "I'm sorry for being overbearing, Tsumugi... I know you can take care of yourself. It's just that..." She paused. "Neo-Aikido can help clear your mind. We've all been through a lot lately, and you are the quiet type, so I'm not sure what you've been doing since... well..."

A vision of all the dead students so far flashed through her mind. She had to admit, it wasn't taking as much effort to produce tears as it used to. She must have been becoming a better actress.

"Well..." Tsumugi bit her lip. It wouldn't hurt to reveal a little bit of her own backstory. "Perhaps I could benefit from learning self-defense. An old man did follow me and take creepy pictures of me at my first convention... but a boy in a cosplay saved me."

"A... degenerate male saved you?" Tenko asked, baffled. After a moment, she clenched her fist. "I... I'm glad you were saved, even if it was by someone like he."

"I'm a lot more careful now. However..." Tsumugi put on a fake smile. She wondered whatever happened to that Makoto Naegi cosplayer. "I would be happy to train with you for a little while, Tenko. Perhaps it would clear my mind."

Tenko beamed. "Yeah! You won't regret it! Let's go!"

She followed Tenko to her talent lab. Tenko gave her a martial arts uniform to change in to, for easier movement. Tenko had barely been able to throw a punch when she applied to Danganronpa. Now, as the two did warmup exercises, her movements were fluid, fast, even ferocious. The process of giving them talents was partially due to suggestion, and the mind filling in the blanks, but she didn't think even Idabashi could explain how well it adjusted. When Tenko flipped her, even if it was fake talent, the pain was excruciating.

"I- I'm so sorry! I went overboard! Are you okay?" Tenko asked, scrambling to help the other girl up.

"I-- I'm okay," Tsumugi said, smiling. "You took me by surprise."

"Sometimes, I get so involved in Neo-Aikido that I lose myself," she said, bowing deeply. After confirming that Tsumugi was okay, the pair continued doing basic exercises, although Tenko's movements were considerably slower.

"Is something wrong, Tenko?" Tsumugi asked, after they finished the next set.

Tenko bit her fingernail. How odd-- Tsumugi hadn't written her with that habit. "It's just that... whenever I'm in the heat of battle, I feel as if my heart is at one with my opponent’s. It's like a sixth sense... and..." Tenko couldn't look Tsumugi in the eye. "Something about the look in your eye and the way you let yourself fall... I can't help but feel as if you have an overwhelming amount of discord in your heart, Tsumugi. It's as if you're at war with yourself... I never thought you would be going through so much. And I was so selfish to make you train with me, as if it was all for your sake, when you're in so much more pain than I am."

Sometimes, in the corner of her eye, Tsumugi would see a Nanokuma, and then it would be gone. Not good. "Tenko... I think your sixth sense may be mistaken," Tsumugi said, rubbing the other girl's back soothingly. "Someone as plain as me doesn't have that much trouble with things. I think we've all been feeling in a lot of pain since the last class trial."

Tenko wiped her eyes on her sleeve. "Yeah... yeah, you're right. I might be wrong," she said. "Still... if you're ever not feeling good, you can come to me, okay? I'll be here for you day and night. You're my friend."

Tsumugi blinked. 'Friend'. Relationships with fake people were naturally fake as well. The boys in her dating sims said they loved her, but that wasn't real. One person in the relationship didn't exist. Although, she wasn't always sure which one it was.

"Thank you, Tenko. You're my friend too," she said.

After calming down, Tenko led Tsumugi through cooldown stretches, and then it was over. Tenko walked her back to her dorm, chatting idly about her ideas to incorporate magic into the routine. When Tsumugi was alone in her room, she didn't collapse on her bed and bury her face in her pillow like usual. The exercise had helped. She did feel good for once, like she could run a lap around the school.

Of course, it didn't matter if someone like her felt good. It wasn’t in the script.

---

VIII.

Tsumugi had been a night owl as long as she could remember. It didn't help that, as a child, her absent parents couldn't enforce a bedtime. She would lie awake from dusk until dawn until she fell asleep with an anime episode still playing.

The rest of the school stood still at night. Shuichi and Kaito would finish their training and return to their rooms, and then the school would be hers. She found it oddly beautiful, for an overglorified television set. Tsumugi became so lost in her thoughts that she jumped and let out a shriek as she ran into a still figure.

"Do not be alarmed," the figure said. The calm, breathy voice-- it must have been Korekiyo. "I did not mean to startle you. I was out for a late night constitutional, the same as yourself."

"Thank goodness it's just you, Korekiyo," Tsumugi said. "I thought it was a killer out to get me."

He chuckled. "No, no. Not this time," he said. Before he could elaborate, he added: "Statistically, most crimes are committed in broad daylight. I personally am most on guard when the sun is aloft, even if many legendary rogues acted only by moonlight."

"Oh! Like Lupin the Third?" Tsumugi said.

"I thought of more mythological figures, but yes," he said. "Tell me, Tsumugi. Were you simply unable to sleep?"

"Well... yeah. I thought I might head down to the AV room and watch some anime. There's not much in here and I'm running out of inspiration," she said.

"I may empathize, even if the slightest amount. Before the opening of my Research Lab, there were few anthropological reference materials legible for my perusal, even in the library. Although I must admit, I've been reluctant to return there since the incident."

She still could remember the dead open eyes of Rantaro’s corpse, like the eyes of a fish on a plate. When he was in the hospital after the 52nd season, he asked if he could have his memories back. She had just told him that there was nothing of interest to return. And thus, in a way, she had killed him twice. "Y-yeah," she said, gripping her sleeve. "Me too." Anxious to change the subject, she said: "What about you? Are you usually up this late?"

"I tend to require but a few hours' rest per night," Korekiyo said. "I've trained myself to perform efficiently at that level. Like you with your own study materials, I tend to become lost in my lucubration and not look up until it's dawn."

"I only get a few hours of sleep, too," Tsumugi said. "It's easy to lose track of time, but... even if I sleep through breakfast, nobody really notices I'm not there." 

"I notice." There was a twinkle in his eye. "I have come to recognize the schedules of everyone. When you are not there, it does sadden me."

"That's... nice to know," she chuckled. She would have to keep a better eye on him. In the trial for Rantaro's murder, he had been the most suspicious of her leaving to go to the 'bathroom'.

In their silence, he turned back facing the wall, the way he had been when she bumped into him. Yet it didn't seem as if he were standing there to punish himself, like a kid in a time-out corner. And if he were looking out for anyone, he was facing the wrong way. "Korekiyo? Could I ask what you're looking at?"

"As an anthropologist, I've found myself dabbling in architecture to better understand the buildings of various civilizations and eras," Korekiyo said. "I'm attempting to determine when this building was constructed. Something about it is extremely strange, but I cannot put my finger on it."

"Well... the Monokubs said that the school was still under construction, right?" she said. "So it must be recent."

"So you suggest that it was intentionally made to look dilapidated? Drafts, mold, and the possibility of collapse wouldn't foster a nurturing learning environment. That does not begin to cover the barbed wire over the windows, which is unnecessary considering the front door of the school is open for us to leave," he said. "Furthermore, leaving this old school reveals to one that we are caged within this massive enclosure that would be impossible for anyone but an eccentric billionaire to create. There are also facilities within these school grounds that appear relatively modern, if not high-tech. It does not seem to add up."

Tsumugi remembered her instructing the workmen to put barbed wire on the windows. 'It'll be an homage to Season 1, with the plated windows! It will be cool!' she had said. "Hm... that is strange," she said, biting a nail again.

"If I didn't know better... I might say that this was all made intentionally for the sake of one's entertainment and no greater meaning." He looked her right in the eye. "However, I have yet to determine for whose entertainment this all is for."

She met his hard stare with one just as strong. "If anyone can figure it out, I'm sure you can," she lied. He wasn't capable. She secretly weaved in an incest fantasy of hers to his character. By all means, he would be a murderer by the end of the show, and she wouldn't let herself become the victim.

He considered her stare, looking right through her, and then he let out a low chuckle. "I appreciate your bid of confidence. For now, let us not keep each other any longer. We both have important matters to which to attend."

"Yeah. Goodnight, Korekiyo," she said, hurrying into the school.

He didn't say anything back, his eyes on her neck until she was out of sight.

---

IX.

It only made sense for Tsumugi to join the student council. She played the type of character who just happily accepted majority opinion. In real life, she made all sorts of pressing decisions, like joining Danganronpa and surely some other things.

She didn't expect herself to be considered one of the more reliable characters, but she supposed that Angie thought otherwise. "Simply put, it's because you have no friends!" she chirped. "Kiibo may still have loyalty to Miu. Himiko and Tenko have each other. But you only have me and Atua! It is divine!"

"I suppose so," Tsumugi said. She knew that, but it hurt a little having it thrown back at her. "It's 'cause I'm so plain."

"You are a wonderful vessel for Atua!" Angie said. "Appearance matters not when you are filled with his divine presence!"

"So... what did you want again?" she asked. Angie had summoned her suddenly to her talent lab, and the less time she spent here, the better. The wax sculptures of the deceased students made her skin crawl.

"I'm relying upon you to help me run the Student Council, of course!" Angie said. "Every student council president needs a vice president, right? And who's more full of vice than you?"

"I... I'll take that as a compliment?" Tsumugi said. "What exactly do you want me to do?"

"Nyahaha! As a cosplayer, I know you are full of artistic talent!" Angie struck a pose. "That's why your first order of business is to make a drawing of me!"

"Huh? Why, exactly?"

"'Cause Atua says so," Angie said. "Since I am his vessel for artistic pursuits, usually I don't end up depicted. But this time, he's requested that you make a drawing of me to prove yourself! Yes, yes!"

"Well, alright..." Tsumugi said. She gathered up some of the art materials in the lab. She usually just drew clothes on top of blank figures. The bodies themselves were the people who would audition. She only handled costumes and talent ideas, while stylists did hair and other details. But how hard could it be to draw someone?

She set up her easel, put together her pencils and erasers, and turned to Angie who had stripped down to her bra and panties.

"Angie!" she shrieked. She would not get the show's rating hiked up. The audiences would accept blood and death, but boobs were too much. "Keep your clothes on!"

"Eh? Why?" she asked, genuinely confused. "Aren't the best pieces of artwork nude portraits?"

"I never agreed to draw you nude!" Tsumugi said.

Angie's face darkened. "Why not? Why could it be?" She cocked her head. "Are you defying the will of Atua?"

"No! I would never!" Tsumugi said. She had to think of something, fast. "Rather... it's because Atua is speaking to me right now! He says that you need to keep your clothes on for the drawing."

"You hear the voice of Atua? That's wonderful!" Angie said. She picked up her clothes, slipping them back on. Tsumugi breathed a sigh of relief. "Okay, this time it will be a clothed portrait. You can start when you're ready."

Tsumugi began sketching the figure. Angie had struck a prayer-like pose; she didn't move a muscle, hardly even to breathe. This drawing would be mostly treading old ground. She felt as if it were just yesterday that she designed Angie's outfit. It was rare that foreigners wanted to play in Danganronpa, and she wouldn't waste the opportunity.

There was also the benefit that she was already a strange character when she auditioned. On the audition tape, Angie had claimed that she had never watched a single Danganronpa episode, but her god told her to come here and accept a role on the show. It felt like all Tsumugi had to do was give her a fun talent and costume.

It scared her again just how real the talents were able to become. Angie could barely write legible Japanese characters on her audition form, but the wax figures that she'd created seemed to be blinking and breathing. She felt tempted to reach out and touch one of them just to see if they were living flesh. There was Kaede, holding that damn optimistic smile as she sketched, as if trying to forgive her. And for what? Kaede had auditioned! She had wanted this! Tsumugi gave her a wonderful death, and the fact that everyone was so upset about it made her blood boil. She supposed all great geniuses were misunderstood during their lifetimes.

Then there was Rantaro, just as smug and silent as the real one. It felt as if every time she looked away, he had moved an inch closer. Every time Tsumugi thought about Rantaro, it surprised her again how easy it was to kill. It felt like it would be hard. Like Rantaro would desperately cling to life, fighting tooth and nail-- or like she would hesitate, like it would take an immense amount of willpower to jump over the last hurdle in her mind and kill him. But in the end it had been so, so startlingly easy.

Tsumugi forced herself to steady her breathing. If she let her thoughts go on like this, she would have a panic attack. She had only managed to sketch Angie's basic form and she would need to get her mind off of her demons in order to finish the sketch. "Hey, Angie?"

"Hmm?"

"Um..." She paused. To be honest, she thought the small girl had fallen asleep. "What would you do if you weren't an artist?"

"That's easy!" Angie gave a slight smile, not breaking from her pose. "I'd do whatever Atua wanted me to do."

"Well, it's just hypothetical. Like... what do you think Atua would want you to do?" 

"I don't know his divine will. If his presence is filling you to make this drawing, it would be easier for you to ask him, not me."

Of course, Tsumugi didn't give a damn about Atua or any god. The most she cared about angels were the ones in Evangelion. She told herself that she didn't care enough to be religious. There was also the small, nagging voice that told her that no matter how much she prayed, she would never be saved.

"That's why I'm asking," she said, lying as if it were second nature. "Atua is asking what you would do if you could do anything. If you weren't bound to his divine will."

The thought genuinely startled her. Angie broke the pose, resting her head in her hands, thinking hard.

"Angie? Are you okay?"

The voice that came out of the girl was far, far smaller than the one that Tsumugi was used to. "I... I would go back to my island and figure it out."

"Do you want to go home?"

"Nyaha... I don't want anything that isn't Atua's will," she said, her voice hollow. "But... if you asked me if I could do anything... I'd just wanna see everyone again."

Tsumugi finished the drawing, feeling like she understood the other girl a little better. She showed Angie the drawing. "Here it is!"

Angie jumped to her feet, as animated as ever. "It is absolutely divine! You did excellent work! Did you feel Atua's presence?"

"Yes. I sure did."

"Is it not wonderful? Is it not amazing?" Angie beamed. Just as quickly, her face fell. "I would be nothing without Atua. Nothing."

"Y-yeah. Me neither," Tsumugi said.

Angie let her keep the drawing-- she said she already proved herself, and her duties as vice president of the Student Council would begin tomorrow. Unsure of what to do with it, Tsumugi took the drawing back to her empty room- which had sat nearly untouched since the season began- and left it on the desk.

The next day, Angie was murdered. The trial came and went. Tsumugi arranged for her remains to be sent back to her island.

---

X.

Miu Iruma was someone that everyone tended to stay away from, not just Tsumugi in her attempt to become a wallflower. Yet, often, Miu wound up finding her way to one of them.

"Hey, you fuckin' virgin!" she called out, grabbing Tsumugi's arm. "I gotta test something out on you!"

Tsumugi just ignored her. The other girl smelled like a mix of sweat and motor oil. If her bloodshot eyes said anything, either she had been up all night working, was currently high, or both.

Her ego deflated like a punctured balloon. "D-don't j-just ignore me like I'm... like I'm worthless garbage," Miu sputtered. "Nobody else will help me, n-not even Poo-ichi, and it won't work on Kiibo..."

If Tsumugi ignored her any longer, the other girl might start groveling on her hands and knees. Not that she knew this because she had interacted with Miu for more than minutes at a time; she just knew everything about her.

(She wasn't pretty or smart enough to be Junko, and nowhere near analytical enough, but in this made-up lie of a world, she knew all.)

"Well, first, tell me what it is," Tsumugi said.

"Hell fuckin' yeah!" Miu said. "You're not gonna regret it!"

"I didn't agree yet..." she said. "It would be foolish to agree without knowing the terms. That's how things go wrong in the beginning of horror mangas.”

"I-it's not a whore manga," Miu slurred. "F-fine. It's a Grade-A, Miu Brand invention, the kinda thing that'll really help people. It gives you a manicure while you sleep."

Tsumugi cocked her head. "That's it?"

"Y-yeah."

"No explosions?" she asked, to which Miu shook her head. "No sex toys?" She shook her head again. "No exploding sex toys?"

"Look, grandma tits, I'm not that kind of gal!" she snapped. Tsumugi gave her an incredulous look. "Or maybe I fuckin' am, but that's not all I make! Inventions that do stuff while you sleep will revolutionize this shit-eating world! We waste so much time snoozing away, that's why it's important to put that time to work!"

The cosplayer looked at her nails. They were growing back in, no longer bloody and jagged. To think, she hadn't done them since she bashed Rantaro's skull in.

Tsumugi chased the thought out of her head with a smile. "That doesn't sound so bad at all. I'll be happy to help you."

Miu beamed like an excited puppy, the words leaving her mouth next not matching the image at all. "This is gonna blow your tits clean off your ass. Let's make like a tree and get the fuck outta here."

They headed to her lab, where Miu had hooked up a cot to some kind of machine that looked like a mix between a sci-fi creation and a stand at the mall. The machine part- a computer terminal of some kind- connected to a robotic arm, ending in a beautifully maintained faux-flesh hand, which rested near a variety of nail care products. "Alright, lay down," Miu instructed.

Tsumugi laid down and stayed still as Miu attached a few sensors to her scalp. "Perfect! Now go to sleep," she said.

"Uh... excuse me?"

"Do you have dick in your fuckin' ears?" she spat. "I said go the fuck to sleep."

"I... can't just fall asleep on command," Tsumugi said. It didn't help that the room looked like something out of a sci fi anime. "Can't you just have it give me a manicure while I'm awake?"

"But..." Miu asked, her eyes watering. "Then... then how am I supposed to test that it'll activate when you fall asleep?"

"Pardon me for saying so, but... Couldn't you just test it on yourself tonight?"

Miu yelped, looking away. She sputtered, trying to form an excuse, but Tsumugi saw right through it. The inventor kept her nails relatively short and never bothered much with painting or decorating them, likely in case they got in the way of her work. However, she must have noticed that many other girls had well-maintained nails. This was her roundabout way of trying to make a friend.

"Miu... if it's alright with you, I'd still like to test your machine. But I don't think I can just fall asleep on command," Tsumugi said, giving the other girl a gentle smile.

"W-well... then..." Miu started. "Maybe I could read you... a bedtime story? Or sing you a lullaby?"

That sounded oddly endearing. She hadn't written maternal instinct into Miu's character; briefly, Tsumugi wondered how much of their true selves still gleamed through. "I'll have to decline. How about you simply run the machine while I'm awake to test the fine motor functions? Assuming there are no issues, I could come back tonight and sleep here."

MIu's jaw dropped. "Really? You'd do--" She bit her lip. "I mean, damn right! I knew you'd pull through for me, you virgin plain jane!"

Which, in Miu's language, translated to a 'thank you'. The machine worked exactly as intended, and Tsumugi left her lab with a wonderful set of nails. She returned to her room and began preparing an overnight bag, picturing the smile on Miu’s face. The audience would love a sleepover scene.

---

XI.

The team really went all-out with Maki's talent lab, Tsumugi thought.

Her character was one of her finer works. The girl who appeared on the audition tape had been quivering like a fawn. Yet Idabashi's work was indisputable, and now Maki was just as deadly as Mukuro Ikusaba. Tsumugi felt truly proud.

"Are you satisfied now?" Maki asked, standing with her arms crossed. "I would notice immediately if a single dust mote were misplaced in this room."

"Just a moment," Tsumugi said, taking another picture using a camera from the warehouse. "It may be of use in a future case to note exactly how certain locations were before being tampered with. Since your talent lab has so many weapons in it, I thought..."

"Fine," Maki said. "I said I would do whatever it took to gain trust, and this is a small price to pay."

Tsumugi hummed an anime opening as she worked. It was an easy lie to tell. One of the producers had asked her to take some pictures of the set for the website. The Nanokumas were too hard to direct to take quality stills of any one specific location. Maki had been the only person to notice that Tsumugi was taking pictures at all, but she could just say she lost the camera or improperly developed the photos if questioned.

"You don't have any swords in this room," Tsumugi said. She must have been bored if she was asking questions to which she knew the answers. She thought inserting herself into a fictional world would be more fulfilling, but the drudgery of day to day life remained, a black cloud hanging over her head that the others didn't care to notice.

"I don’t use swords," Maki said.

"You're more of a rogue type of character, anyway," she said. "Even if you do have a high DEX modifier, however, your STR isn't half-bad either. Could you use a sword if you had to?"

"If I had to." Maki blew a lock of hair away from her eye. "But I don't like to use them."

"Oh? Why not?"

She glowered. "It's not important."

"You're right. I don't want to invade your privacy," she lied. "Just... a plain jane like me doesn't get to interact with a real assassin that often. I can't help but feel like a little kid 'cause I have so many questions."

"Questions about murder?"

"Murder is bad!" Tsumugi said. She smiled. "But... in fiction, assassins are the coolest characters, like Assassination Classroom! I always wanted to be like those characters, cool and confident and not afraid of anything!"

Maki couldn't help but let out a dry chuckle. "We're not all like that. Some of us aren't the type you'd want to interact with, even if you didn't know our true identities." She glanced to the side. "We simply are united because we do what nobody else wants to. That's all. "

"But still!" Tsumugi said. "Maki, you're really cool! That's why I wanted to know about the sword thing! I want to get to know you better."

After a moment, she sighed. "I suppose that you won't let this go. The reason I dislike using swords is because I botched a mission using one. It was my most remarkable failure.”

"Huh? You... failed?"

She nodded. "The target, like you, had some... different interests. I traced him to a convention. I hid the sword perfectly inside a carrying case. Yet people thought I was in cosplay and swarmed me, taking all kinds of pictures of me. If anyone of them had discovered the sword..." She shook her head.

"That's horrible! That's not what cosplay should be all about!" Tsumugi shouted. "Cosplay is about becoming a character, not about walking in to kill someone!"

"That's... that's your objection?" Maki asked, cracking a grin. "I told you, I do what needs to be done. If you have an objection to that, we don't need to speak of it any further."

"And... people should always ask permission before taking photos! I hate that more than anything in the world!" Tsumugi said, her jaw clenched, gripping her camera tight. "I'm so sorry that happened, Maki."

"It's in the past, now," Maki said.

Tsumugi released a breath she didn't know she'd been holding. "If I may ask one more question on the matter..." she started. Maki's ears perked up. "Did people really think you were in a cosplay? Your eyes and hair do kinda make me think of some characters I know, but not enough to freak out over."

"Ah, well... I suppose they thought I looked like a character of some kind. I was wearing a uniform for a local school..." Maki shrugged slightly. "I'm unsure."

If only she had glasses and had a decent wig, she would have looked just like Peko Pekoyama, the Ultimate Swordswoman. Maybe if she found a pair of empty frames sometime, she could recreate it.

"Well, that's all." She held up her camera, smiling. "Thanks for your time, Maki. Let's spend time together again soon."

"If you'd like," Maki said. She seemed deep in thought as Tsumugi left the lab.

---

XII.

At breakfast, Tsumugi had taken to occupying her mind by counting Kaito's coughs. He would say he was just choking on his food, and Shuichi would actually believe it, and Maki would say he needed to be spoon-fed like a baby. The audience must be eating up this friendly banter, Tsumugi thought, doing her best to pretend to eat.

She had taken to collecting the dirty dishes now that Kirumi was gone. It wouldn't be good if the set were cluttered with filth, and the mindless labor of washing dishes helped take her mind away for a little while. To her surprise, Kaito walked into the kitchen just as she began to fill the sink with hot water.

"Oh, Kaito," Tsumugi said. "What are you doing here?"

"I came to speak to you!" he said, leaning in the doorframe. "I noticed you've been picking up the slack on the chores. Just don't feel like you've gotta do that, alright? Some of us oughta be taking turns too."

"I don't mind, really," she said.

"Well, I mind! It's not good for us friends to take advantage of friends anymore!" he said. "That's why I'll be taking over today. No ifs, ands, or buts!"

True to his word, Kaito took her place at the sink and began scrubbing. Tsumugi wasn't sure what to say. "It seems a little below an astronaut to be cleaning dishes," she said. "I'm just a plain jane, so it suits me a bit better."

"Hey now, don't talk down about yourself. You're the Ultimate Cosplayer! That's nothing to shake a stick at," he said, grinning. "Besides, I'm used to all sorts of chores. Even once I'm in space, I'll still need to clean and perform maintenance."  

"I suppose that's true..." she said. "You have to know how to do a lot as an astronaut."

"You've gotta know how to do everything, in case the worst happens. I know wilderness survival in case I crash land back on Earth," he said. "I did some training at a farm so I could learn how to grow my own food. There's been some interest about growing plants on other planets!" His eyes shone like stars as he spoke. "Grass is the obvious choice, because it grows everywhere and it's hardy. Once that works, we could be on our way to terraforming and colonizing Mars!"

"Colonizing, huh?" Tsumugi said, cocking her head. "You sound so sure about all this."

"Of course I'm sure! I'm Kaito Momota, Luminary of the Stars!" he said, as soap bubbles popped on his arms. "Humans can do anything we set our minds to! That's why I know that we'll be on Mars before you know it!"

"It would be kind of scary to be out in space." He glanced at her as she spoke. "Being so far away from everything you've ever known... nothing but blackness around you... we take it for granted, but everything we love is here on Earth." She waved a hand sheepishly. "Although, I suppose it wouldn't be a big deal for someone like you, who doesn't get scared."

"What are you talking about? Of course I get scared!" he said, more intensely than she would have expected. Then, meekly: "I get scared a lot."

"You do?" she asked. "You always act so proud."

"Well, yeah... 'cause being scared isn't an excuse to give up. People rely on me. Astronauts work in very tight-knit teams, so there's no room for dead weight." He put on another grin, clenching a soapy fist. "But feeling that fear is only proof that I care about their well-being! If I wasn't scared, then I wouldn't be a good teammate! That's why I count on that fear to propel me further!"

"I see... that's very insightful, Kaito," Tsumugi said. "It's like embracing your Shadow and acknowledging your true self!"

"Huh?"

"Oh, it's nothing," she said, giggling.

Soon enough, he had finished the last dish and drained the water from the sink. "There we go. All done!" he said. "I'm gonna set up a rotation schedule! I'll get my sidekick, Shuichi, to take on tomorrow! It'll be an extra part of our training!"

"Does he know about this?"

"Nope! But I know he'll say yes!" he said. "I'll work out the details, no sweat! You take care of yourself, Tsumugi!"

"You too, Kaito," she said, waving as he strode out of the room. Her hand fell limp as she listened to his coughs until he was out of sight.

---

XIII.

The audience would never see the stars on the set that closely. They were there for decoration, and so Team Danganronpa never bothered to put in constellations.

Tsumugi wasn't one to actually look at the stars, anyway, so much as use them as an excuse to get lost in her own thoughts. Nobody would reprimand her for daydreaming about what her own execution would be like if they thought she was stargazing. But not everyone felt the same way. She should know, because she wrote them.

"Oh! Hello, Tsumugi!" Gonta said, waving.

She thought about pretending not to notice him (why bother, she knew everything he would say, she wrote him, she owned him) but finally gave in once he stood next to her and she realized he wasn't going to leave. "Hi, Gonta."

"Gonta likes looking up at the stars," he said. "They look just like tiny bugs, but actually very big."

"That's true." She glanced over at him. It took so little to reduce Gonta to a state of childlike wonder. Tsumugi wasn't sure whether she'd lost that quality or if she never had it to begin with.

He frowned a little. "Gonta still can not see constellations... maybe Gonta not trying hard enough."

"Maybe they're gone," she said, shrugging. "How do you know that they're supposed to stay?"

"Oh... like clouds?" Gonta asked. "Makes sense to Gonta."

Easy to trick, too. No wonder Kokichi had such fun with it. Of course, that type of volatile strength and blind trust was what made Gonta so fun to write. She remembered sketching the big goofy grin on his face when creating the concept art for his character. She had looked for that same smile during the audition tapes, a smile that would make her heart swell, a smile that would bring the audience to tears when it was shown for the last time.

The thought didn't make her feel happy anymore.

"Are you upset?" Gonta asked.

"Huh?" she asked, caught off-guard. She hadn't really been upset in a long time. She had cried after the class trials, sometimes trying too hard in hopes of feeling something, but nobody noticed her shoddy acting.

Even then, she could only keep up the waterworks for so long. It was a scripted death, of course, since it was fiction. There was no reason to get sad over it, she told herself, again and again, Rantaro’s dead eyes staring at her when she closed her own.

"Gonta, can I tell you a secret?"

"Gonta good at keeping secrets," he said.

"You can't tell anyone. Not even Kokichi, or any bugs."

"Not even bugs?" Gonta asked, his eyes widening. "That serious?"

Tsumugi nodded, and Gonta's face set in determination. "Gonta promise. Gonta no tell anyone even if it hurt."

Of course, she trusted him. It was in her character. "Do you ever feel like you made a mistake that you can't ever fix?"

"Mistake?" he asked. "Like a big mistake?"  

"Well, yes, that's what I mean," she said.

He thought about it for several moments, the light of the stars twinkling in his glasses. "Yes... Gonta made many mistakes. Gonta not very smart. After get lost in woods, Gonta had no contact with humans for long time. If that never happen, Gonta be much better gentleman already. But..." He smiled. "Gonta meet kind people and learn much about bug friends because of it, and now get to be here with friends like Tsumugi and Kokichi. So it all okay now."

She put a hand to her cheek. "So you mean... even if it was a bad thing, you're still happy about it?"

He nodded. "Or, Gonta accidentally hurt bugs sometimes because of strength... but it only means Gonta knows how to control strength better now. No friends get hurt anymore."

"I see," she said. Even if it wasn't something she didn't know, hearing it from an actual living person and not the cold pages of a script in front of her seemed to stir something in her.  "Gonta, is there anything that would make you just... give up?"

"Gonta never give up!" he said, pumping a fist. "So long as people and bugs always in world, then Gonta always there to protect them. It’s what a gentleman would do."

"What if everyone you thought were your friends... weren't your friends?" she asked. Seeing he was confused, she added: "What if everything that happened here was a bad dream, and none of us were real, except for you?"

He looked down at his feet. "Well... Gonta would be sad, because friends would be gone... but Gonta would be happy too. Because then it means that Gonta got to spend time and be happy with friends anyway."

"But it wouldn't matter. None of us would be there."

"Happy feeling still be there," Gonta said. "Memories still be there."

She gazed up at the stars and, for a time, tried to actually look at them rather than past them. They were beautiful, seemingly eternal, shining bright for those on Earth for ages after they'd gone supernova.

But they were just a screen. Beauty on a screen. Eternity on a screen. Everything could be simulated on a screen, even life. Even joy. Even Gonta.

"Is everything okay? Did Gonta say something wrong?" he asked.

Tsumugi remembered to put on a smile, the most important part of cosplay.  "No. You were very helpful, Gonta. Thank you."

His smile shone the brightest out of all the heavenly bodies out that night. "Gonta happy! Gonta not very smart, so usually Gonta useless..."

"You aren't useless. You'll be a fine gentleman one day," she said.

"Gonta will! Gonta will be fine gentleman!"

She walked away, not looking back at him once, lest she drop her smile. Of course he would never become a gentleman. If he survived- and that was a big if, with Kokichi tearing her script apart- then he would just go back to being some ordinary high school loser anyway. But she decided to humor him and protect the sparkling star inside the void she called her heart, just for a little bit.

---

XIV.

With Gonta's passing, they were being whittled down to their final few. Even though she had gone out of her way to make herself unnoticeable, Tsumugi still felt amazed that she was alive. She stared at herself in the mirror until she felt about herself the way a word felt when repeating it over and over. She wasn't necessarily happy she was alive, but she wasn’t sad either. She wouldn't kill herself, unless it would make for a good trial, like Sakura Oogami's suicide. She just didn't necessarily feel like she would resist if something or someone tried to kill her.

Her writing sometimes got out of hand. For example: with Tenko's death, Himiko had been working out and trying to 'live life facing forward'. She was just meant to be the token lazy-but-cute girl that people would want to take care of. This fascinated and scared Tsumugi. How could Himiko just break out of the bounds of her own character like that? She would love to know, maybe for her own sake. 

Tsumugi knocked on the door of Himiko's research lab. "Mind if I come in?" she asked.

She'd been in here less and less frequently. Even though all the equipment had been returned since the magic show, it seemed like she couldn't quite look at all of it. Still, she came by often to feed the doves. "Uh-huh," she answered.

The cosplayer just watched as Himiko dutifully fed each bird and changed the newspaper lining the cage. "That looks like a lot of work. Do you need any help?" she asked.

"I got it," Himiko said. Two of the birds had perched on either shoulder while she cleaned the cage. "I don't need help anymore."

"I understand," Tsumugi said. The sight of the doves on the small girl's shoulders warmed her heart a little. "They love you. Birds tend to like me, too. I think it's because I don't move often, so they think I'm a statue."

Himiko chuckled. "Looks like they don't mind you. They got scared when Tenko helped. Cause she was always jumping around."

"I see." Even after replying, Himiko's words hung heavy in the air. The magician had a faraway look in her eye. "Are you... feeling any better? Since it happened?"

"Nyeh... kinda," Himiko said. "I mean... everything keeps happening so fast that I can't fully keep up."

That's how the audiences like it, Tsumugi thought.

"And... I've been letting my feelings out, like Tenko wanted. But I'm also trying not to let them overwhelm me." Himiko held out a finger like a perch, which one of the doves hopped on to. She placed it back in its cage. "That's not what she would've wanted. Since she can't be with me and live her life... it's like, I gotta work hard and do my best for the both of us. And for all our friends that died."

It wasn't an unusual sentiment. She should've able to forsee this character development. So why didn't she? Because she didn't expect anyone else to grow out of a situation like hers? "I think you're doing a wonderful job. Everyone would be proud of you," Tsumugi said, smiling.

"Well... I hope so," Himiko said, fiddling with her hat. "I think a lot about what would've happened if Kaede's plan worked, and she killed the mastermind. Like... what if the game ended before anything bad happened? I would've had all my friends still, but..." She stroked the dove's head, thinking. "Would we have stayed in touch if we got out of this place? Would I still just be lazy? Would I appreciate Tenko? 'Cause... I didn't while she was still here."

Tsumugi refrained from calling her ideas an 'AU'. "I suppose we'll never quite know, so it's probably not worth dwelling on," Tsumugi said. "Maybe... even if Kaede got the mastermind, the killing game wouldn't have ended, anyway."

Himiko scratched her chin. "Nyeh... they could be controlling this game with long-acting curses that would work after the caster's death... it all makes sense," she said.

“Do you think Tenko would want us to kill the mastermind? If we had the chance?” Tsumugi asked.

“I’m not sure what she would say,” she admitted. “But… even if it’s their fault so much bad stuff happened… I wouldn’t want the Mastermind to die.”

“What? Why?” Tsumugi said, eyes widening. “Aren’t you mad? Didn’t Tenko want you to let out your feelings?”

“Nyeh… I am mad. I’m really upset,” Himiko said. “But… if one of us killed the Mastermind, it would just be what they wanted. I’m going to forgive the Mastermind once we get out of here, and there’s gonna be nothing they can do about it.”

Even after the conversation ended and they both parted with big smiles, the words echoed in Tsumugi’s mind. Himiko had negative feelings but still chose to move on, to grow. ‘Forgive’ the Mastermind. It was Hope, right? But wasn’t it also Despair to not kill her and put a close to it all?

Without either one of those categories, Tsumugi didn’t know what to think. She fell asleep with her script clutched to her chest, sweat rolling down her forehead like the blood had when she first put on Team Danganronpa’s Junko wig.

---

XV.

It wasn't hard to work herself up to challenge the Death Road to Despair. Others had motivated themselves picturing sunny skies and open fields; she had pictured the looks on their faces seeing nothing but miasma and death.

They wound up at the door to the outside world. Once it was disabled, they pushed it open to what they thought was freedom. Nobody noticed that Tsumugi was the only one to hold her breath before the door opened.

Even though she had steeled herself for it, the destruction and subsequent decay of Earth still managed to surprise her. She supposed total annihilation was the only thing she hadn't desensitized herself to. What actually scared her, after the initial surprise wore off, was how little she missed the planet.

Of course she knew that it was all fiction. Yet if it turned out the Earth had been destroyed while she was in Danganronpa, she wasn't sure she would care. The world had never done anything for her but drive her to escape into her own worlds. Besides, there was nobody she would miss. Sure, the loss of their audience would be frustrating. But she would probably keep playing nonetheless, even if it were true. She'd never had any other choice.

Tsumugi let herself collapse with the rest of them. If nobody else closed the door, she would do it herself, claiming that she'd had a burst of Hope or something. Letting everyone die here would be too boring of a conclusion. She'd only gotten to drink in a little of their Despair.

Yet someone else did it for her. The door closed, and people gradually began to pick themselves back up.

“Congrats! You finished the killing game!”

She would recognize that gleeful voice anywhere: Kokichi. He looked genuinely enthralled, eyes sparkling, face split open by a twisted grin. And as the story progressed, his fake reveal of being the Mastermind was even more enthusiastic than any of the Enoshima audition tapes that she'd ever seen. He’d taken her hard-wrought script, tied the pages together and had started playing jump rope with it. And as much as she wanted to hate him, she couldn’t.

It wasn't just his disobeying the narrative that bothered her-- he was having so much fun with it. He drank in their Despair like champagne. He dangled Kaito's limp body from the Exisal's hand as if it were a pet toy and they would all leap at it.

Why couldn't she be this happy, even if it were a lie?

Shuichi handed over the remote to the hangar and then it was over. Kokichi led the Exisals out, and the rest of the students filed out one by one. Tsumugi had to admit that the power of Kokichi's lie, even if she knew it were false, still overwhelmed her. She felt tired, exhausted, broken.

Or, maybe she was absorbing the mood from the others. Her 'friends'. The thought of calling them 'friends' felt wrong, unnatural, the way you could only say you admired a character from a distance. If they weren't real, you couldn't feel empathy for them. Truly, then, the misery weighing down her soul was all her own.

---

The next few days passed. Or they didn't.

It didn't bother her that there was no Monokuma on the announcement. There were no events during the day, regardless. Nobody left their rooms anymore. Even if Tsumugi pressed her ear to them, she didn't hear so much as shuffling or snoring. As if nobody had a restful sleep or stretched their legs so much as laying down, waiting to die. It certainly wasn't Hope, or they'd be up fighting to beat Kokichi.

But it also wasn't exactly Despair, with a capital 'd'. It may have involved despair, with a lowercase 'd', but not the type the audience craved. The participants- her 'friends'- hadn't eaten in days. They hadn't showered. They hadn't spoken.

There was simply.

Nothing.

...

Tsumugi let herself lay down in bed, staring at the ceiling. There were no voices. No friends. No murders. No Danganronpa. It felt like the first time in years she had been alone with her thoughts, but the emptiness of her own head startled her. When you peeled away Danganronpa, there was nothing underneath. Ever since she went to that convention, she had never come back. Every second, even in her sleep, had been Danganronpa. There was nothing else but Danganronpa. She'd given her life to Danganronpa.

The thought of letting herself lie down and die didn't sound half-bad. Her body felt unbearably heavy. She knew they were all fake, but now the ghosts of the dead students returned to haunt her. The way Ryoma laughed when watching anime with her. The gentleness of Gonta's movements. The concern in Tenko's eyes. The drawing of Angie still on her desk.

It was all fake. She knew it was all fake. And she had fun, she always had fun with her fiction. But then the movie ended or the game was over, and she'd stare at her face in the blank screen. And then she didn't feel anything.

So why was she so miserable?

In the end, it wasn't Hope or Despair that caused her to get up, but obligation. The audiences would get bored if nothing happened soon. She needed to make a Flashback Light to get things moving again. Moving her body felt like dragging an anchor on a chain, but she found her way to the classroom and began preparing a special Flashback Light.

Her mind wandered as she input the variables she wanted. Kokichi wasn't so different from herself. They both needed lies in order to cope, to live. If anyone could see through his mask and tell that his tears over Gonta were genuine, it was her. She supposed her lies were simply far more elaborate.

The boy wasn't a bad person. The one who auditioned had been kind-hearted, almost too soft to be in the world. The one who Tsumugi created- like Dr. Frankenstein, molding together parts- was a harmless prankster. Wasn't he? It felt like so long ago that she made the character that she couldn't tell anymore. Was he actually written to be bad, or had the circumstances painted his character that way? Could they have enjoyed watching anime together? Could they have shared a cup of tea? Could they have bonded over their insecurities? Could they? The thoughts swam in her mind until she couldn't even think anymore.

She didn't know, would never know, and was never meant to know. She forced the thoughts out of her mind as the special Flashback Light thumped in the locker. This would make the audience happy-- a callback to Hope's Peak Academy.

Tsumugi looked out the classroom's window, past the barbed wire that Korekiyo had found so strange, past the fake stars that Gonta had admired, trying to see the 'real world' beyond it. It was better she just didn't think about these things; the audience, and Team Danganronpa, had been kind enough to make her a queen. But sometimes, she wondered if even a queen wanted to see what was beyond the bounds of her chess board.

---

XVI.

Did it count as suicide if you were never alive to begin with?

Tsumugi had so many thoughts and questions leading up to the final class trial, but for some reason, this was one of the ones that kept plaguing her. Her first instinct was to suppress it. Her second instinct was to submit it as a potential Monokuma Theatre.

The group had needed to work hard for the last investigation. There had been even more talk than ever before about love and trust and friendship, things that Tsumugi only had experience with in anime and games. Whenever Shuichi told her that she was doing a good job, or Himiko said they all were counting on her, Tsumugi felt like they were speaking in a foreign language.

Team Danganronpa made her this season's Junko Enoshima to reward her. For years she'd done backbreaking labor for Team Danganronpa, and they said this was her little treat. And all at once, sewing machines and concept art gave way to belonging, friendship, kindness. It felt like being tossed into a pool in order to be taught how to swim.

Now, as they descended the elevator to the courtroom, she was struck with the overwhelming urge to give up. To just buckle her knees and just completely, totally stop, like a broken toy. But she couldn't. Before she existed as a human being, she existed as a character, one bound to the show. Her name would be cursed for the rest of eternity if she gave them such a boring ending.

And so, in the eleventh hour, Tsumugi Shirogane decided to no longer exist. Her body would stay behind, but she would need to cast out those last scraps of doubt to play a good Junko. She would insist that she herself had also been fictional. Granted, her brainwashing had been much slower and more unorthodox than the others', but it happened nonetheless.  

She still felt surprised when she looked in the mirror. The little girl who sat hypnotized by the TV for days at a time had grown into a woman. Or rather, her body grew, but her soul stayed in the same place: eyes glued to the TV, too afraid to look away and make it real that nobody was coming home.

That's why she had to do it. She had to become Junko. She needed to become Junko to feel something. Anything.

Right before it happened, Shuichi still believed in her. He pleaded with her to refute him, to prove that she was still Tsumugi Shirogane, that she was still someone they all could love.

She took her last breath. Junko had also loved her classmates. She had also done all of it for them. So, in that way, she wasn't betraying herself or Team Danganronpa at all.

---

Explosions echoed around her.

She remembered, faintly, when Kiibo was no more than a talking head. Now he fired blasts that destroyed massive swaths of the set at once. He overflowed with power- with Hope- and fire rained down around him. It was the true end of the world.

Tsumugi couldn't keep it up until the end, her cosplay. Junko had looked so happy right up to, and during, her execution. Despair was supposed to be something powerful. Despair was supposed to strip you down to your core and thrust in your face exactly what you were, even if it was rotten. But inside her, there was nothing. She didn't feel happy. She didn't feel sad.

She was just so tired.

Monokuma kept waving, standing next to her. Gradually, the memory of a woman called Tsumugi Shirogane would fracture into various rumors and video clips and eventually into faded memories, until there was no one version of her left but millions, none of them completely true. The best thing she could say about her life was that she had been the last Junko Enoshima. Perhaps not the best, but the last one.

With no Team Danganronpa, nobody would remember her. The rumors, the cosplay, the fanart, the videos, the theories, all of them would be gone. Then, she would truly be fictional, never having once existed. And now she didn’t have even a proper execution, debris raining around her, not a single eye watching her.

Tsumugi didn't think she understood.

And then she didn't think anything at all.