Danganronpa- Lone Survivor

Lone Survivor- Mondo Owada

"It was a man's promise...I can't let Daiya down. I just can't. I'm so sorry."

He had done it. And more importantly, he had gotten away with it. 

It had been almost a year since Mondo escaped the killing game at Hope's Peak academy. It had been the roughest, most emotionally turbulent period of his life- even more so than after Daiya had died. Because just like he had never meant to cause his brother's death, he never meant to cause the deaths of all his classmates. 

Somehow, despite being under scrutiny from the SHSL detective, nobody had pieced together that Mondo had killed Chihiro. Even when Togami spoke up to implicate him, nobody bought it because he was the prime suspect. Mondo should have felt proud- that somebody like him, somebody of only average intelligence, was able to outsmart them all. 

But he didn't feel proud. He felt sick. Like a coward.

Because in that moment he could have confessed. He could have spoken up, said that Togami was right- that he did kill Chihiro. But he realized the alternative was death. Death to him, death to his gang and death to everything him and his brother had dedicated their lives to. And he wasn't able to face that. And all of his classmates had to pay the price for his selfishness. 

He'll never be able to get their wails out of his head. The looks of betrayal from them after they realized he had been lying to them the whole time. How Togami snapped at them all, saying if they had only listened to him instead none of this would be happening. Their panicked pleas for life as they got dragged off, one by one, to be slaughtered. But worst of all, by far, had to be the reaction from Kiyotaka. The only friend he had made in there. Because Kiyotaka didn't get angry, or yell at him, like the others. He cried- what he said were tears of happiness, that his "first real friend" would be able to survive. 

And that broke Mondo's heart most of all. But it didn't break his spirit.

Despite everything, he decided to take a page out of Chihiro's book upon exiting into what was left of society. He faced his demons head on- because he saw what happened when he held them all back. How many lives were lost just because he felt inferior, because he felt helpless. 

So when he was approached by the Future Foundation and offered shelter, he accepted and decided to join their ranks to help take down Junko Enoshima (who had escaped the school amongst the mass panic of the executions). He decided he wasn't going let the deaths of his friends be for nothing- and that even though he had directly killed one and caused the deaths of the other, the whole thing was still the fault of Junko. And for that, she had to pay. 

He dedicated every fiber of his being to the Future Foundation. They were all hesitant to let him join at first- after all, he was a biker gang leader who had just witnessed the deaths of all his classmates. They thought he might be a loose cannon or a liability to the cause. But he shocked all of them by being incredibly driven, and focusing on nothing else. 

But there was another reason he dove into it all headfirst, and immersed himself in it. It was too painful for him to be left alone with his thoughts. He needed to be occupied at all times to keep himself together. In the middle of the night, during the times he was plagued by sleeplessness, he was at his worst. Vulnerable, emotional. The closest he had ever come to ending his own life were during these lonely hours, the times when there was nothing to distract him from the crushing reality of what he had done.

But he couldn't kill himself, not yet. He mad a man's promise both to his brother, to keep the gang together, and in memory of his friends, to bring down Junko. He needed to fulfill both- and that is what kept him moving forward.

So he scoured the country looking for remnants of the Lucky Diamonds. Luckily, they came across the captives in Towa city and he was reunited with his right hand man, Takemichi. The day he saw him alive was the first time he had felt any happiness since his departure from Hope's Peak. But it didn't last long, as he was also greeted with the sight of the loved ones of the people he killed- parents, siblings, cousins, friends, pets. Almost all of them had lost the one most important to them at his hands. Slowly he made his way through all of them- apologizing and saying he would do everything in his power to avenge them. 

The hardest one to talk to, by far, was Taichi Fujisaki- Chihiro's father. Because with the others he had to deal with the reality that it was his escape that caused their demise, with the understanding he took no direct action. Most of their anger was still directed at Junko. But not with Taichi. Mondo looked him in the eyes and apologized with everything he had for killing his son. He had crushed his skull with a dumbbell, not Junko. All of the anger should be at him. Yet Taichi wasn't mad at Mondo- he was just as understanding and kind as his son was. Their meeting ended with the two hunched over on a bench, both simultaneously crying and comforting the other as they did. 

Overall, Mondo is bruised but not broken. He'll never be able to take back what he's done- and he knows that. He embraces a future in which he can make the world a better place in memory of all those he has lost.