Danganronpa: Goodbye Despair

Chapter 41: BYE BYE OUCHIES

Third Class Trial (Final Part)

Monokuma: "Now then, though it may be obvious at this point... you got it right once again! That's three in a row! That's right, the true identity of the horrifying blackened who killed two girls was Mikan Tsumiki!"

Akane: "You gotta be... shitting me. Are you saying... Mikan, the one who nursed us back to health... was the one who killed them? Don't joke around with me, Mikan! Did you lie to us all along?! Were you planning to kill them from the start while you were nursing them?!"

Mikan: "Hah... hahahaha!"

Kazuichi: "D-Don't just laugh, say something! This is going nowhere!"

Mikan: "Hahahahaha."

Kazuichi: "T-This chick..."

Fuyuhiko: "This is nothing like Peko... she's actually... gone mental!"

Nagito: "There's nothing we can do. She's no longer the same person. She's... no longer the Mikan Tsumiki we knew."

Hajime: "Huh?"

Nagito: "Based on my predictions... she might've caught it too. She probably had the Despair Disease, which was the motive for this case."

Gundham: "Mikan too? That would make four people in total."

Nagito: "I know because I was looking at Mikan for so long. She was the one taking care of me after all. My consciousness kept drifting, but even so, when I did catch a glimpse of her, her expression was... full of despair. A despair so devoid of hope that not even a single fragment of it remained."

Hajime: "H-Hold on... did you say... Mikan also had the Despair Disease? Then... that means she was..."

Nagito: "Huh? Hajime, has something crossed your mind?" What crossed Hajime's mind was the time he woke up in bed with Mikan in the on-call room, and then again in his cottage this morning.

At first, he thought his body was hot and heavy because of Mikan sleeping next to him, but then again, he didn't feel hot and heavy before she arrived. Also, there was that time when he felt Nagito, Akane, and Ibuki's foreheads in the restaurant, and that's when they had extremely high fevers. Mikan was the same, she was showing the same symptoms while she was sleeping.

Hajime: "That's right... Mikan felt really hot at that time. Now that I think about it, that must've been a high fever... just like those who were affected by the disease."

Sonia: "Then... because of that disease, Mikan was..."

Nagito: "The symptoms that she felt must've been deserving of the name, Despair Disease. Losing all hope... and harbouring despair for all hope. Because of the Despair Disease, she was likely overcome with despair. That's the reason why... she can still laugh in such a hopeless situation."

Mikan: "Hahahahahahaha."

Nagito: "Which means the Mikan standing before us is no longer the Ultimate Nurse. She's a completely different person now that she's infected by the Despair Disease. She's a human who deserves to be called the Ultimate Despair!"

Hajime: 'Ultimate... Despair?!'

Mikan: "Hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha."

Nagito: "That's the reason why... I cannot forgive this. I mean, killing someone for the sake of despair, instead of for the sake of hope... there's no way I can forgive this."

Mikan: "For the sake of despair? Haha, that's completely wrong!"

Nagito: "Wrong? Wrong... what's wrong?"