Danganronpa Ultra Despair Hagakure

Chapter 4 [Nakajima Kanon]

I was rolling around in the living room by myself, hiding under the kotatsu, when I heard the door in the entry hall open–I thought Mom might have come, but the person who came into the living room was a man I’d never met before–huh? I thought, and next thing I knew, I was already being restrained, and lost consciousness.

When I woke up, I was in a tidy room that looked like a weekly apartment or something–and after that, I was held captive all alone for half a year.

I had nothing but free time, and nothing but my memories of Leon-oniichan to keep me going; aahh, I wonder what he’s doing right now? I wonder if he’s worried about me? Thinking of nothing else but that, somehow, I managed to make it through the seemingly endless days of captivity… But I didn’t really.

A little while after I was locked up, Onii-chan was killed by the Future Foundation. After I was freed from captivity during the Monokuma’s attack, after I was forced to participate in the children’s pointless game, and shortly after I was released into the city, I found that out.

I had been hiding in the cramped public restroom of a public park when a thin file on the toilet tank caught my eye. I wasn’t expecting much when I opened it, but I was assaulted by the worst possible reality.

“About the School Life of Mutual Killing”

“An ultra-exciting game played out by 16 students of Hope’s Peak Academy’s 78th class. The rules are simple. You can live out the rest of your life inside the school, but if you want to get out, you must kill one of the other students. This ridonkulous ultra-game has claimed the lives of the following 10 people–”

Among those ten names, I saw Leon-oniichan’s name. Of course I didn’t accept that as reality straight away, thinking it must be a lie or some kind of mistake–but there was even a photo of his time of death stuck into the file.

Tied up with rubber tubing,

Looking like a beat-up dust cloth,

Onii-chan’s,

–Corpse.

“…Ahaha.”

It HAD to be a lie, or some kind of mistake. Of course, I doubted the reality of it countless times, but–but, reality stayed firm. There was absolutely nothing for my doubts to grab onto.

No matter how you looked at it, that was Onii-chan. It was Leon-oniichan. It was Leon-oniichan’s corpse.

I innocently turned the pages of the file. I was attacked by yet another mocking reality.

“About the Survivors of the School Life of Mutual Killing”

“The following 6 super-kewl students survived by lifting the other participants up as sacrifices and using them as stepping stones. (Names and profile details of the 6 students.) Having graduated from the Academy, making use of the characteristic heartless cruelty of humanity, they became affiliated with the Future Foundation. With their own interests in one hand and their fame in the other, they serve as the truly magnificent face of justice!”

Why do I still exist?

…That was my first thought.

I mean, Leon-oniichan was my whole world… Why was I still breathing, and why was my heart still beating? Wasn’t he the one making it beat Why did I still exist? Why wasn’t I going to stop existing? No… The answer was obvious. Because, the one who died wasn’t me, it was Leon-oniichan. In that instant, I was living in a dead world. That’s all there was to it.

I

was

in

despair.

That’s

all

there was

to it.

And yet, even so, why was it that–for some reason, I couldn’t shed a tear. I couldn’t feel a single drop of moisture. Was it so strong of a shock that my emotions froze over? Or was I just such a frigid woman that I wouldn’t cry even if the world had ended? If what we call emotions are just a response to the world around us, were there not any emotions to be felt in a dead world?

At any rate–I should follow Onii-chan to where he is now. There’s no meaning to living in a world without Onii-chan. I pressed my hand against the door to the public restroom, ready to throw myself to the Monokuma lurking outside.

But–in the next instant, I realized.

Not yet. I can’t die yet. Because there are people alive right now who deserve to be dead.

There’s those bastards who killed Onii-chan, living carefree, acting like they’re the face of justice. There’s those pieces of trash misrepresenting their own human thoughtlessness by saying the same old pretty words about overcoming the deaths of their peers, or about carrying the burden of those deaths.

–I can die after I kill those guys.

I vowed this with as much intensity as if I had carved the words into myself with a knife.

But I wouldn’t kill Hagakure.

No, there were many factors that coincided so that I didn’t kill him. At first, I mistook him for a civilian. Some kinda civilian with a hairstyle that looked like a scrub brush was about to be killed by the unwanted legacy of the School Life of Mutual Killing, Monokuma.

So I saved him. I only found out afterwards.

He was one of the remnants of the School Life of Mutual Killing–Trash #1, Hagakure Yasuhiro.

I really thought I might just kill him on the spot, but–

“Using a word like ‘choberiba’? Way uncool.”

Those words, sounding like they’d been traced in detail from my memories of Onii-chan, left me a wailing, sobbing wreck. I conflated Hagakure with Leon-oniichan. I ended up putting off and putting off killing him in my indecision.

Yeah, it seemed like he was after my Daddy’s money, and despite being from the Future Foundation he couldn’t protect me at all, and he was just way uncool in general, but it was BECAUSE of those things–he didn’t even seem like a member of the Future Foundation at all, and that’s why I passed up the opportunity to kill Hagakure.

Talking to this guy dulls my drive to kill… Maybe I should overlook this guy… I even started feeling like that

However–with a brooding expression, Hagakure said, “…Uhhhh, soooo, how do you feel about the Future Foundation? Any thoughts?”

I understood instantly. He stole my notebook and looked inside of it, probably back when I let him take care of my bag while I went to the bathroom.

He saw what I’d described. My body moved reflexively. I planted a kick to his side, and used that opportunity to pin him down onto the railroad tracks. I placed my hands around his manly neck. I pushed both my thumbs against the Adam’s apple that looked like a burial mound.

–Now was the time.

I was killing Hagakure Yasuhiro. I was killing the man that I once conflated with Leon-oniichan.

“…Keyah–”

I heard a sound I’d never heard before coming from Hagakure’s throat.

That sound allowed me to keep my composure. I hallucinated that my eyeballs went to rise above me. I saw the illusion of a bird’s-eye view of the scene. I knew that his Adam’s apple was slowly sinking into his flesh.

“…”

Right now, I was killing this man. This was for Leon-oniichan’s sake–or was it?

No, technically, the reason I was killing Hagakure was because he saw inside that notebook. Surely if Hagakure made it out of the city and contacted the Future Foundation, he would inform them about the contents of that notebook. If that happened, then I’d have to start all over with my revenge, my reason to live, everything. In order to keep his mouth shut, I had no choice but to kill Hagakure.

I knew that Hagakure’s pupils were dilating. I knew that Hagakure was inching closer and closer to death. I knew that I was falling into becoming a murderer. My field of vision shook. My gaze drifted off to the side. A sharp pain coursed throughout my body.