Danganronpa 2: Goodbye Despair

Super Dangan Ronpa 2: Farewell Despair Academy  (スーパーダンガンロンパ2 さよなら絶望学園, Sūpā Dangan Ronpa 2: Sayonara Zetsubō Gakuen), often shortened to "Super Dangan Ronpa 2" or "SDR2", is the sequel to Dangan Ronpa: Academy of Hope and High School Students of Despair, and was released on July 26, 2012 for PSP, iOS and Android.

Plot
The game is from Hajime Hinata's point of view as he starts his first year at Hope's Peak Academy. As he walks into the school building he is overcome with fatigue, when he recovers he finds himself in front of a door. He has the strong urge to open it, and once he does he finds himself in a classroom full of his new classmates.

They suddenly find themselves locked in the classroom and a pink bunny, Usami, appears before them, claiming herself the class' teacher. Suddenly the classroom around them falls away to reveal a paradise-like island. Usami tells them they are on a school trip and they are to befriend each other to gain hope shards and make their hope grow. Just as they get used to the peaceful island life, Monobear appears and takes control of the island, announcing that the students must participate in a life of mutual killing if they wish to escape.

Hinata Hajime

 * Voiced by Minami Takayama
 * Hajime Hinata (日向 創 Hajime Hinata) is the protagonist of the game. Due to being unable to remember his title, he is known as Super High School Level ??? (超高校級の「???」).

Nagito Komaeda

 * Voiced by Megumi Ogata
 * Nagito Komaeda (狛枝 凪斗 Komaeda Nagito) is an generally peaceful boy who is focused on getting the students to show as much hope as possible, even if it means for him to be killed. His title is Super High School Level Good Luck (超高校級の「幸運」)

Chiaki Nanami

 * Voiced by Kana Hanazawa
 * Chiaki Nanami (七海 千秋 Chiaki Nanami) is a laid-back girl who seems to often be sleepy. She is a heavy gamer and thus was given the title of Super High School Level Gamer (超高校級の「ゲーマー」)

Fuyuhiko Kuzuryuu

 * Voiced by Daisuke Kishio
 * Fuyuhiko Kuzuryuu (九頭龍 冬彦 Kuzuryuu Fuyuhiko) is a violent boy who is the successor of the largest Yakuza family in Japan. He is Super High School Level Gangster (超高校級の「極道」). Despite his title, he has a baby face.

Ibuki Mioda

 * Voiced by Ami Koshimizu
 * Ibuki Mioda is an upbeat, energetic girl who is the lead guitarist in a popular girl band. She goes by the title of Super High School Level Light-Music Club Member (超高校級の「軽音楽部」).

Kazuichi Souda

 * Voiced by Yoshimasa Hosoya
 * Kazuichi Souda (左右田 和一 Souda Kazuichi) is a rather timid student who is prone to overreacting. His title is Super High School Level Mechanic (超高校級の「メカニック」).

Gundam Tanaka

 * Voiced by Tomokazu Sugita
 * Gundam Tanaka (田中 眼蛇夢 Tanaka Gandamu) is a mysterious and dramatic student who speaks in cryptic sentences. He owns four hamsters who are the 'Four Dark Gods of Destruction' and is given the title of Super High School Level Animal Breeder (超高校級の「飼育委員」).

Byakuya Togami

 * Voiced by Akira Ishida
 * Byakuya Togami (十神 白夜 Togami Byakuya) is the heir to a successful family business and sees himself superior to others. He has a strong sense of responsibility to protect the other students. He is given the title of Super High School Level Heir (超高校級の「御曹司」

Mikan Tsumiki

 * Voiced by Ai Kayano
 * Mikan Tsumiki (罪木 蜜柑 Tsumiki Mikan) is an easily intimated young nurse who takes pride in her work and is often clumsy. Her title is Super High School Level Nurse (超高校級の「保健委員」)

Hiyoko Saionji

 * Voiced by Suzuko Mimori
 * Hiyoko Saionji (西園寺 日寄子 Saionji Hiyoko) is popular with men due to her cute and innocent looks. However, she has a malicious and patronizing personality. She is Super High School Level Traditional Dancer (超高校級の「日本舞踊家」)

Akane Owari

 * Voiced by Romi Park
 * Akane Owari (終里 赤音 Owari Akane) an energetic, friendly student who is quick to lose her temper. She also likes food. Her title is Super High School Level Gymnast (超高校級の「体操選手」)

Nekomaru Nidai

 * Voiced by Hiroki Yasumoto
 * Nekomaru Nidai (弐大 猫丸 Nidai Nekomaru) is a strong and muscular student who is passionate about sports. His title is Super High School Level Manager (超高校級の「マネージャー」)

Teruteru Hanamura

 * Voiced by Jun Fukuyama
 * Teruteru Hanamura (花村 輝々 Hanamura Teruteru) is a talented cook who is known for his lewd remarks. He is given the title of Super High School Level Chef (超高校級の「料理人」)

Sonia Nevermind

 * Voiced by Miho Arakawa
 * Sonia Nevermind (ソニア・ネヴァーマインド Sonia Nevermind) is a polite and cheerful girl who is a princess from overseas. Her title is Super High School Level Princess ((超高校級の「王女」)

Mahiru Koizumi

 * Voiced by Yū Kobayashi
 * Mahiru Koizumi (小泉 真昼 Koizumi Mahiru) is a sensible girl who likes to take photographs. She was given the title of Super High School Level Photographer (超高校級の「写真家」).

Peko Pekoyama

 * Voiced by Kotono Mitsuishi
 * Peko Pekoyama (辺古山 ペコ Pekoyama Peko) is a very serious and stern woman who shows little to no emotions. She was given the title of Super High School Level Swordswoman (超高校級の「剣道家」).

Synopsis
WARNING: Spoilers beyond this point!

Prologue
The game opens with Hinata Hajime standing outside of Hope Peak's Academy, after he explains a little about himself he enters the building. He then finds his fellow classmates inside a classroom, but before proper introductions can be made their teacher Usami appears and transports them to an island environment using her magical staff.

Everyone is naturally shocked and suspicious of Usami's motivation and reasoning for bringing them here but Usami tries to calm them down, telling them that they are all safe and were brought to the island to collect hope shards by befriending one another. Hinata faints from the shock of the sudden change of environment and later wakes up on the beach, with Komaeda watching over him asking him if he's alright.

Hinata isn't too interested in talking to Komaeda but Komaeda is able to explain the situation and some things he missed while he was unconscious. Komaeda reveals his Super High School Level talent to be Good Luck and asks to know Hinata's but Hinata is unable to answer him due to not being able to remember it himself. Komaeda reassures him that his memories are gone due to shock, but they will return with time. Deciding to meet his class mates, Hinata heads off with Komaeda to find them.

Once Hinata introduces himself to everyone, Usami calls them to the beach to give them all presents for being friendly to one another. While her first gift goes unappreciated (it was an Usami keychain) her second gift are swimsuits which seem to win the students over, even Hinata who was very suspicious of her intentions. However just as everyone is having fun in the water the sky darkens.

A silhouette of a bear appears on one of the nearby tv screens telling everyone to gather at Jabborwock park. Usami appears frightened but asks the students to allow her to go on ahead to deal with the problem. Everyone is left feeling uneasy but decide to head to Jabborwock park where they are introduced to Monobear. Usami attempts to fight Monobear but is taken down easily, has her magical staff destroyed (which causes her to lose her powers) and is transformed by Monobear into Monomi. Monobear takes control over the island now that Usami has been left powerless, and introduces his rules: Monobear creates giant robots to keep areas of the island closed of from the students. Monomi says she will take on Monobear and protect the students at all costs, even if it means sacrificing her own life. Monobears shoots her Monobear's "little sister" down with a machine gun in front of the students leaving only her ribbon behind but just like Monobear she has back ups so she returns slightly later. Hinata goes to his cottage and screams in frustration before going to bed.
 * To leave the island, you must kill someone.
 * If someone is killed, there will be a school trial.
 * If the murderer is exposed, s/he will be punished and everyone else will continue living on the island.
 * If the murderer is not caught, s/he gets to leave the island and everyone else will be punished.

Chapter 1
The next day everyone assembles at the restaurant and, deciding the group needs a leader, Togami appoints himself one. He also shows everyone a weird statue like device that showed up at Jabborwock park, it has a huge timer that's counting down to something that will happen in about twenty-one days.

That night Monobear calls for everyone to assemble at Jabborwock park again, where he and an unwilling Monomi perform a comedy routine. Monobear reveals to the group that Monomi is working for an organisation called the Future Foundation and that they are the ones responsible for erasing their memories of their school life. Monomi does not deny this but is reluctant to explain the reasons behind these actions. Monobear also tells the group there were only supposed to be fifteen students, but there are currently sixteen present, meaning one of them is a mole for Monomi.

The next day Togami announces that they're going to have a party that night after Monobear's night-time announcement, to help everyone get to know each other. Komaeda suggests they have their party at an old lodge next to the hotel which the group agrees to.

Monomi happily gives them permission to use the lodge (which was previously off-limits) for their party. However the lodge needs to be cleaned. To decide who will clean it Komaeda suggests they draw straws that he brought with him. Komaeda himself is made to clean the lodge and Hanamura agrees to do the cooking for the party.

That night Hinata arrives at the party, Togami checks him for any possible weapons and then lets Hinata through. Hinata notices two duralumin cases next to Togami, one is for dangerous objects he finds and he won't say what's in the other. Togami suggests the meat skewers are dangerous as well and confiscates them. Not satisfied with the safety standards of the lodge he investigates the kitchen where he confiscates all the knifes, forks, skewers and anything sharp. There's a list of utensils in the kitchen but upon inspection it is revealed there is still a skewer missing. Hanamura reassures him that it has been missing all along so Togami ignores it. The only other thing of interest in the kitchen is a large piece of meat with a large bone in it that apparently isn't getting served to the group.

The group decides that the sharp weapons must be kept in a safe place, so Pekoyama volunteers, saying she can watch over the weapons in the lodge's office. Grabbing some food she heads off to the office with the weapons. Komaeda suggests someone stand guard outside the lodge in case Monobear decides to show up, so Nanami and Monomi volunteer to stand guard. The remaining duralumin cas is guarded by Togami. With the preparations made the party begins.

Everyone is enjoying themselves at the party, eating the great food and socialising. Nidai attempts to go to the bathroom several times but is unable to due to the door being locked since the beginning of the party. Mahiru takes a bunch of pictures of the group at the party. Incidentally the only person absent from the party is Kuzuryuu but he is later seen talking to Nanami after he decided to take a walk. While everything is going great at the party, the lights

suddenly go out, leaving everyone freaked out. They come back on not to long after, and Akane complains of a strange smell coming from the back of the room.

They lift the table cloth of the table at the back of the room and discover Togami's corpse laying face down in a pool of his own blood, having been stabbed to death. Lying next to him are a bloody knife with a strange luminous green liquid on the handle and a pair of night-vision goggles. Monobear arrives and gives them the case file on the victim. And so the first murder investigation begins. Eventually Monobear calls them to the elevator to be taken to the class trials.

At the class trial the evidence begins to incriminate Komaeda more and more. Eventually he reveals that while he did plant the knife under the table and did plan on murdering someone his plan was foiled by Togami using his night-vision goggles (that were in the duralim case he was guarding). Togami was able to disarm Komaeda but in doing so accidently attracted the attention of another murderer. Someone who knew of Komaeda's plan and chose to wait for the moment Komaeda would attack, using the luminous green paint on the knife as a marker. So as it turns out Togami was not stabbed with the knife but with the missing skewer that was placed inside the large piece of meat in the kitchen, disguised as a bone.

Hinata is able to deduce that Hanamura is the killer. Hanamura explains that he found out that Komaeda was planning to murder someone from the beginning and using his good luck was able to be chosen to clean the lodge which allowed him to plant the knife. Hanamura saw him and asked that he explain himself. Komaeda says that he wants to bring hope to the group, it doesn't matter if it is to a killer or the survivors just as long it will bring them hope, even if it where to result in his death. Despite Hanamura's pleas, Pekoyama brings up that while he may not have meant to kill Togami he still planned on killing someone.

Hanamura is voted the culprit. Despite Hanamura's claims that he killed to try to protect his classmates from what Komaeda was planning, it is revealed that he was worried about the "motive" that Monobear had presented to them before: their missing memories. In a flashback, it shows that Hanamura's mother is sickly and he was concerned about her being left on her own when he had left to attend Hope's Peak. While Hanamura claims that he hadn't believed that their memories were gone, Hinata thinks that he actually believed it the most. If a few years had indeed passed, then what happened to his mother and their restaurant?

Before his execution he calls out for his mother.

Hanamura's execution starts out very reminiscent of Leon's in the first game. A large chain comes out of nowhere and grabs Hanamura by the neck dragging him outside onto the

beach where he is chained to a post. Monobear appears piloting a helicopter and fires a bunch of missiles at Hanamura, they explode covering him in beaten eggs, then Monobear fires a huge missile at him which explodes, this time covering him in flour. With the chain that's attatched to Hanamura revealed to be attatched to the helicopter Monobear is piloting, he then proceeds to fly off into a volcano (filled with oil) where he drops Hanamura turning him into a crispy snack. The survivors are shown to have seen the whole thing via a projector and just stare in silence and horror.

Chapter 2
After the execution, Monomi is able to destroy one of Monobear's robots that were defending one of the islands. The group head to the new island to investigate. There they find a building that looks like a ruined Hope's Peak Academy, interestingly both Monomi and Monobear both say they can't enter. Other locations on the island are a pharmacy, a library and a diner, near which there is a small path that leads to the beach with a small beach house.

At the library Hinata speaks with Sonia and Pekoyama: Sonia who is enthused about the occult and horror tells Hinata about a serial killer by the name of Kirakira, who kills in the name of justice. She even translates the killer's speech for Hinata. The three of them also investigate a brochure of the island and are interested to find that in Jabborwock park where the statue was there used to be a building and yet there is no trace of it now.

Afterwards Hinata heads to the beach and is shocked to hear Ibuki scream. He rushes to find out what happened but only finds Akane and Nidai in an intense but friendly sparring match. After a few days Monobear calls for everyone to assemble in the park where he gives them their new motive. The new motive is an arcade game called Twilight Syndrome, naturally everyone claims they just won't play it.

The group, feeling uneasy around Komaeda because of his murder attempt, subdue him and tie him up in the old lodge. Mahiru asks Hinata to bring Komaeda food so he doesn't starve to death, so Hinata heads off to the lodge and speaks with Komaeda for the first time since the first class trial. Komaeda tries to tempt Hinata into playing Twilight Syndrome so he can find out this trial's motive and Hinata leaves the lodge angrily. However Hinata's curiousity gets the best of him and he decides to play the game.

The game involves a few girls - A, B, C, D and E. Before the game starts there’s a disclaimer saying that this is nonfiction and involves actual events and people. It starts on Day 2; D shows A, B and C some photos. One of them rips up the photos and tells her to delete the data for the others. They were at the crime scene before the police were; it’d complicate matters if they were to get involved. The game then skips to Day 4 - The girls enter a classroom and find E lying dead against a wall, killed by a blow to the head with a baseball bat. Oddly, it gives a game over here with the words “gokaishita” in hiragana. (Reads as “you’ve misunderstood”.) Hinata is understandably confused and heads back.

The next day or so, Souda tells Hinata to meet up with him alone at the supermarket because there’s something he wants to discuss. He heard that the girls were going to have a girls-only beach party later that day at the beach near the diner and he wants Hinata to go with him, because he doesn’t want to be alone and none of the other guys were likely to go with him. He even swimming trunks for Hinata. Hinata agrees to go with him, so they start waiting it out at the diner one hour early. Souda’s plan is to catch the girls heading towards the beach and say it’s a coincidence that they’re going to the same place and if he and Hinata could go with them.

Before they enter the diner, they meet Kuzuryuu who says he just happened to be passing by, both Souda and Hinata decide not to press the issue further. Sometime later both Hinata and Souda spot Hiyoko crying and running past the diner at full speed, coming from the direction of the beach. Later, Pekoyama walks in drenched though still with her sword equipped, saying she’d gone for a short swim. According to her she’d swum for 3 hours trying to look for any way to get to the other blocked-off islands, but didn’t manage to get anywhere. Later, Akane walks in covered in blood, she’d been sparring with Nidai so it's no big deal. Nanami walks in, wearing her swimsuit, alone - apparently she’d walked all the way in her swimsuit because changing in the beach house isn’t allowed and she didn’t want to have to carry the extra clothes later. She brought a board game for everyone to play with, though…then Sonia finally walks in, and destroys Souda’s expectations because she shows up in a wetsuit. Souda manages to convince the girls to let him and Hinata join in the beach party, and Souda dashes off to the beach house to prepare the drinks and whatnot.

As Hinata’s heading towards the beach house however, the announcement sound plays... A dead body has been found. The person who found the body was Souda, and the victim this time was Mahiru, who’d refused the invitation to join the beach party. She was found leaning against the wall next to a blood-covered baseball bat, just like E was in the game...

Due to Mahiru’s position looking very similar to E’s in the game, Hinata figures that he needs to look into Monobear’s game further and asks Nanami to help since she’s a Super High School Level gamer. Of course, she’s played this game before and tells Hinata that “gokaishita” doesn’t read as “you’ve misunderstood”, but rather “five times down”. That is, hit down five times at the start screen to access the missing days and reach the true end.

On the way to the arcade machine they bump into Komaeda, who just finished playing the game himself. And so, they uncover the missing days. Day 1 starts showing A, B, C and D at the school entrance. D takes a photograph at random and the four of them walk down the corridor. There’s the sound of breaking glass coming from upstairs and they run up, meeting E who’d come from the other side. The sound came from the music room, but the door’s locked, so they send a girl down to the staffroom to obtain the key. When the door’s opened, they send A in to have a look, and in the far end of the room they find a girl collapsed against the wall, an overturned fish tank, and a broken window.

The girl is dead, killed by a blow to the head. They all knew her; apparently her swimsuit had been stolen a short while ago. There were rumours that there was a pervert going around so they figured that he must have been the one who did it - he killed her after he was spotted, locked the door and escaped through the window. On day 3, D shows E a photograph of a broken vase. She says she knew E was the one who did it, and she cleared up the broken vase for her. E did it to protect a friend who was constantly being bullied by the victim… D throws the photograph away, and a guy F picks it up after he leaves, and is angry that they did something like this to his sister.

The credits roll, and this is where Nanami says Hinata would probably be most interested. The names of the people involved scroll: Tsumiki, Saionji, Mioda, Koizumi, Kuzuryuu, Kuzuryuu. The names of their classmates... Hinata meets Komaeda again, who, having asked the relevant people to gather at the airport, invites Hinata and Nanami to talk to them. Tsumiki (Mikan), Saionji (Hiyoko) and Mioda (Ibuki) are present. Mikan and Ibuki say that Koizumi (Mahiru) had asked them to meet up. Hiyoko denies it and runs away. Hinata and Nanami decide to check out Mahiru’s room for clues, and there they find a familiar envelope containing the presents for the first person who cleared the game.

These are photographs…and they’re exactly the same photographs that D took inside the game. The one on the first day at the school entrance shows Mikan, Hiyoko and Ibuki. There’s a photo of the dead first victim. There’s a photo of the broken vase. And finally, there’s a photo of E’s body, in exactly the same pose as in the game. Hinata heads back to the beach house, with Komaeda still following him. Mikan tells Hinata that from the state of the body, she understood that Mahiru died immediately on being hit, so the body must have been moved. She also found a note in Mahiru’s pocket, supposedly from Hiyoko, telling Mahiru to meet her at the beach house at 2.30pm, and also to keep it a secret and not meet her before the stated time.

On the floor near the body is a cartoon mask and a  yellow gummy. Komaeda shows Hinata a gummy packet he got from Hiyoko’s room, which is supposedly filled to the brim with these. It contains 4 flavours, though not lemon.

And so, the second school trial begins... Eventually Hinata is able to deduce who the killer is in this case and suprisingly it's Pekoyama. Pekoyama sent both Mahiru and Hiyoko notes, seemingly from each other. She asked Mahiru to come to the beach house at 2.30pm and Hiyoko at 2:00pm. Hiyoko arrived at the beach house at 2:00pm. She was made to sleep by some medicine from the pharmacy and stuffed in the closet. Mahiru arrived later. Pekoyama beat her over the head with a bat, she then washed the blood off her body with bottled water from the fridge. She then hid inside a surfing board bag until Hiyoko woke up and left crying.

After that, she got out and laid a gummy on the floor. She left via the window in the toilet stall, using her sword to give her the height boost to climb out and retreiving it with the sword case. As she wasn’t able to dry off in such a short time, she pretended she’d been swimming. Everyone asks Pekoyama why she did it, her response? A speech about justice and a declaration that she is the serial killer Kirakira! This is why there was a cartoon mask left at the crime scene.

At this revelation everyone asks to start the voting. Sonia has her doubts, however but does not bring them up until after the voting is finished. Kirakira was presumably Spanish because the magazine she translated from was in Spanish. There’s no way Pekoyama could be Kirakira…and of course she isn’t. It was all in her plan to have everyone vote as soon as possible, because the vote can’t be changed after the culprit’s been voted for.

The truth according to her, is that she was working for Kuzuryuu the entire time; Kuzuryuu should be the real culprit and she was just his tool. They pretended to have nothing to do with each other up until this point, but in actual fact, she was taken in by Kuzuryuu’s family when she was a child to be his sword and shield. They grew up together, and she will do anything to protect him. If Kuzuryuu claims at this point to have ordered Pekoyama to kill Mahiru, making him the killer, then Kuzuryuu leaves the island. The remaining students including Pekoyama will be executed for making the wrong choice. If Kuzuryuu doesn’t, Pekoyama is the killer, and she’ll be the only one executed, but the remaining students cannot leave the island.

In essence, Kuzuryuu will live in either case, Pekoyama dies, and depending on his choice he has the possibility of leaving the island. So here is the actual series of events: Kuzuryuu played the game and is the first person to clear it. He receives the photos and gets angry, particularly because he remembers nothing and is shocked to see a photo of his sister, dead. Kuzuryuu sends the photos to Mahiru.

Mahiru thought about playing the game, and on the occasion she visited Komaeda to give him food, Komaeda tempted her into playing it. Mahiru felt uncertain about how to make amends if the video turned out to be true and wanted to talk to Mikan, Hiyoko and Ibuki about it. She was invited to the beach party but turned it down because she wasn’t in the mood to go. Kuzuryuu, not receiving any kind of reply from Mahiru, got frustrated. He sent both Mahiru and Hiyoko notes, seemingly from each other. He asked Mahiru to come to the beach house at 2:30pm and Hiyoko at 2:00pm. Hiyoko shows up at 2:00pm. She was knocked unconscious by some medicine from the pharmacy and stuffed in the closet. Mahiru arrived later. She spoke with Kuzuryuu over what had happened with his sister: she apologised for her death but said that he had been wrong to kill the girl if he indeed had.

Pekoyama, however, was the one who killed her. Kuzuryuu told her to escape, and Pekoyama said she’ll take care of it. She’ll probably be found out, but she’ll take care of it. Kuzuryuu leaves before Pekoyama blocks the door with Mahiru’s body. She then prepared the crime scene, body and escaped in the way Hinata previously deduced.

Kuzuryuu is unable to say he ordered Pekoyama to kill Mahiru, however… He feels like he’d be really treating Pekoyama as a tool if he did that. And he says that through all these years, Pekoyama never realized that he never wanted her to be his tool, he just wanted her to be by his side. He starts to cry and begs her not to leave him by himself. Pekoyama’s execution begins. She’s surrounded on all sides by soldiers. Monobear controls hermovements like a puppet and has her cut them down one by one with her sword. Kuzuryuu, concerned, tries to push his way through, but Monobear stops controlling just as she cuts through a soldier and to him, slashing the right side of his face while cutting through one of the soldiers. Kuzuryuu faints. She drops her sword and holds him, kneeling on the ground (presumably protecting him with her body). Multiple soldiers surround them and start to attack and Pekoyama dies. All the other students are horrified because Kuzuryuu was involved too. Monomi declares, however, that he’s still alive if gravely injured…and according to the school rules, Monobear is responsible for seeing to it that he lives because only the culprit should be executed. Kuzuryuu is sent off to some unknown hospital.

Chapter 3
After the execution, Monomi is able to destroy yet another of Monobear's robots, allowing the survivors to enter a new area. In the new island there is a hospital (where Kuzuryuu is recovering from his wounds), a cinema (where a movie titled "The Wizard of Monomi", based in "The Wizard of Oz", is airing), a live house, a motel and a dump with techonogical objects. After Kuzuryuu leaves the hospital (but now he wears an eyepatch to cover his damaged right eye), the group notices a creepy memorial with Koizumi's photos - it was set by Saionji in her memory. Kuzuryuu also apologises to Saionji for Koizumi's death. To try to cheer up everyone, Mioda invites her friends to a concert at the live house where she plays her hit song. Everyone is visibly shocked (her song was more like screamo than light music) and suddenly some people collapse. After being reunited in the cafeteria, Monobear explains that he has unleashed a new motive to kill - the Despair Fever, extremely contagious and with different effects for each person. At night, Owari tries to confront Monobear, but when it attacks her, Nidai takes the hit. He's then taken to an unknown hospital, because the hit wasn't meant for him.

Mioda, Komaeda and Owari catch the disease and start living in the hospital under Tsumiki's care, while Kuzuryuu and Hinata guard the hospital. Souda manages to connect two monitors - one in the  dump and another inthe hospital, allowing them to communicate. Kuzuryuu and Hinata guard the hospital for a few days while the rest of the group is staying at the motel. Hinata also watches "The Wizard of Monomi", a very violent version of the original tale. One morning, Hinata wakes up with Tsumiki hugged to his body. She apologises and goes to take care of the sick. Hinata then goes back to the hospital's lobby and the monitor switches on by itself, showing an image of a person on a blue robe hanging themself. He notices the curtain behind the person and runs away to the live house, finding Mioda's hanged corpse. He then runs to the motel and tells everyone what he saw. When the group arrives to the live house, Mioda's corpse is on the floor and Saionji's dead body is tied to a column, along with a bag of gummy bears.

The investigation starts and Nanami and Hinata start picking up clues. Sonia tells them that she feels responsible for Saionji's death: she was having trouble tying up her kimono and Sonia suggested that she went to the live house, where there was a big mirror. They also notice a broken drum stick at the floor, rests of glue at the door and one of Tanaka's hamsters retrieves a piece of the paper that covered the columns.

The trial starts and Hinata's conclusion is that Mioda didn't kill herself: both she and Saionji (who was killed because she became a witness) were killed by Tsumiki, who took the Despair Fever after taking care of Komaeda. The video was actually recorded in the conference room of the hospital - the curtains in that room look very similar to the ones in the live house.

Tsumiki then rejoices with the feel of despair, and feels happy because she'll be able to meet with "her loved one". She also tells the group about the "Future Project", the ones supposedly controlling the island in the shadows. The group doesn't feel very happy about this (because she killed Mioda under the effects of the Despair Fever), but then Tsumiki's execution starts. She's on a hospital bed, when a nurse Monobear uses a giant vaccine to transform the bed into a giant arm. He pumps the liquid of the vaccine into the arm, and it becomes a rocket, flying into the sky.

Monobear then congratulates the students and gives them a gift: Nidai is back, but due to the horrible condition of his body, he's now into a cyborg body.

Chapter 4
After Mikan’s execution, Monobear tells everyone that someone they’ve been waiting for is back and they can meet him at the beach. Everyone runs off before he can continue. Once they arrive at the beach the group is surprised/horrified to find that Nidai is now a robot. According to Monobear, his wounds were so severe that to keep him alive, he needed to be turned into a machine. Nidai is not too fussed about it, but Akane is mad and once again tries to attack Monobear, who once again pulls out a bazooka, which is blocked by Nidai again. Except this time he’s perfectly undamaged by the shot. Also, the mechanics involved gave him a lot of random features: Monomi shows up to say she removed one more robot so another island is open.
 * 1) A sleep mode switch at the back of his head/neck.
 * 2) A radio clock that’s incredibly accurate. Comes with an alarm.
 * 3) He can dispense drinks from his eyes.

By now everyone is wary about going to new places because it means more possibilities for murders to happen, so Monobear tempts them into going by saying they might obtain files regarding the Future Foundation, their full profiles, and boat parts. So, they head to the new island.

After visiting each of the new areas, they wind up at the roller coaster. Souda vehemently protests getting on it (he has motion sickness) but much to his dismay he's dragged on with the others. As he promised before the fact, Monobear hands over the fileon the Future Foundation. It contains information regarding another series of murders among school students and the survivors…that is, of the events and students involved in the original Dangan Ronpa game. Everyone is particularly interested by the fact that Togami is listed in it and Hinata wonders if this is the incident that caused him to be so cautious about everything, but that’s about all the information they’ve got.

Monobear promises to hand over the student profiles if they all go to the Surprise House. Hinata, who knows nothing of his special ability, is of course interested in this. There’s also interest in possibly finding out who the traitor is. Hinata suggests they all go to the Surprise House, and so they board the train there. However they are gassed and they're knocked out on the train.

When they wake up, they’re in an indoor park with strawberry motifs on the walls. Monobear tells them that there's going to be no way out of here. It's here that it's revealed that Souda suspects Hinata to be the traitor, because of Komaeda mentioning that he thought Hinata was. They split up (Sonia and Gundam, Kuzuryuu and Owari, Souda and Komaeda and Nanami, and Hinata and Nidai) do some exploring in this area called the Strawberry House.

There are 3 floors; a lounge and five bedrooms on the second floor; two of them high quality (soundproofed and luxurious), one of normal quality, and the other two of low quality (cold and not very nice to rest in). In the lounge, there is a telephone with a single button - it has a picture of grapes on it. There is also a clock. - On the first floor, there is a room with a somewhat unsettling picture of a clown’s face on it - this is the Final Dead Room. According to Monobear, whoever enters it must play a game, and their life depends on it. However, if they pass, they will obtain the ultimate weapon.

On the first floor there is also a long passageway that leads to a door with a picture of a strawberry on it. On pressing the nearby switch, the door opens into a circular room called the Strawberry Tower. The ceiling seems to extend infinitely. The Strawberry Tower contains another door on the opposite side of the room with a picture of grapes on it. Both doors are flanked by large stone pillars. However, the grapes door won’t open at all - Nidai tries until the handles almost fall off.

On the left side of the entrance to the long passageway, there is an elevator. The lift is extremely quiet and anyone riding it can barely feel the movement. It opens into another house with grape motifs - this is the Muscat House. Tanaka found a boat part…or so he says, but it’s actually a tiny motor. Monobear didn’t exactly say it was a boat that could be used to escape the island.

The Muscat house turns out to be very similar to the Strawberry House - three floors, except the floors are hexagonal instead of rectangular. There is an information room on the third floor, but it contains nothing of note. The second floor contains bedrooms and a lounge, just like in the Strawberry House. The phone in the lounge has a picture of a strawberry on its button - both phones are connected, so people can communicate between areas. The first floor, however, doesn’t contain anything resembling the Final Dead Room. There is also long passageway on the first floor leading to a door with a switch - when this switch was pressed for the first time there was a short delay before the door opened into a circular room (Muscat Tower) much like the Strawberry Tower. On the opposite end this time, there is a door with a picture of a strawberry on it. Once again, it doesn’t open. Both the picture, and the colour of lighting on this floor are different to that of the Strawberry House.

On the right side of the entrance to the long passageway is the elevator from which the Muscat House was accessed. Nanami theorizes that both Houses are joined via the Towers; the Muscat Tower and Strawberry Tower are essentially the same room. The room has movement sensors that won’t allow the other door to open while anyone is in the room, however, so she leaves her student pass inside and tries to access it from the Strawberry Tower. And of course, the student pass is still there, proving that the Towers are one and the same. So, the mental floor plan is of both houses on opposite sides of a single tower, each connected to the tower by a long passageway.

Monobear states a few other things: there will not be any morning/night announcements because he doesn’t feel like it and it probably won’t matter to them anyway, since there aren’t any windows or anything. Their motive is"kill each other or starve to death". Unless they kill someone they won't be fed, and they won't be allowed out until after that either. Everyone decides they’ll try to bear it out and see if they can find an exit.

First, they divide up the rooms - the girls decide to stay in the Muscat House, and the boys take the Strawberry House. The girls settle on their rooms by discussion - Nanami and Sonia take the high-quality rooms, and Akane takes one of the low-quality rooms (she says she’s used to it; this is actually really good compared to where she used to live). The boys settle on the rooms by rock-paper-scissors. Komaeda, with all his luck, gets a high-quality room. Tanaka gets the other. Kuzuryuu gets the normal one and Souda and Nidai get the low-quality ones. Sonia offers to let Hinata stay in the Muscat House with the girls and Souda protests, claiming it could be dangerous as Hinata could be the traitor. However, he gets snapped at and told that none of the girls think that Hinata is the traitor (even Owari says "even I can't be fooled by this guy"). So, Hinata takes up the other low-level room in the Muscat House because he's just grateful to have a place to stay.

The hunger is bearable at first, but steadily gets worse after a day or so. To make things even worse, Monobear starts morning exercise sessions at the Muscat Tower at 5am, and everyone is obliged to go. After a while, the hunger wears away at Hinata, who finally decides to check out the one place that no one’s been - the Final Dead Room. He’s sure there must be something there but just as he reaches the door, Nanami stops him, and persuades him not to go in. With nothing left to do, Hinata heads to bed and tries to sleep. A loud noise, a bit like an earthquake, awakens him at some point, but it dies down quickly.

When he checks the clock in the lounge he sees it’s almost time for Monobear's Taiji and drags himself down to the Muscat Tower with the girls, where he finds the next victim... Nidai is found dead on the floor at the Muscat Tower. A large amount of oil is splashed over the floor and one of the pillars is broken lying on the ground nearby. There’s also a hammer. According to the Monobear file, a large number of areas on RoboNidai are damaged, but the decisive blow was to the head which is badly dented. The strawberry door has a chain wrapped tightly around its handles.

Monobear says that Nidai can’t be fixed, so he’s officially dead. That’s not the only thing new - when Hinata and the girls head to the lounge and pick up the phone, the boys tell them that the switch to the Strawberry Tower is broken. The elevator between Houses is also broken and is stuck at Muscat House, which means that they all appear to be completely separated from each other. Souda immediately takes on the task of fixing the elevator. In the meantime after gathering all the accessible clues, Hinata and the girls can’t do anything but wait.

The viewpoint changes, and now Komaeda is the player character, with a very clear change in dialogue. Komaeda has his own thoughts on how this might work, and he also decides to do some investigating on his own. First, he asks Kuzuryuu to check the clock in the lounge, and when the Muscat House is accessible again, check the clock there. When Kuzuryuu asks why he doesn’t just do it himself, he says it’s because he might not be around to do it. Second, he asks Souda to take a compass (embedded in a macgyver knife he brought in from outside) into the elevator when it’s fixed, and observe what happens to it. Finally, the actual investigation. He heads to the one place that no one has been observed to enter yet…the Final Dead Room.

Monomi is stuck inside for some reason. The door is blocked so he can’t exit. Here there’s a small escape-the-room game - solve puzzles to receive more puzzles to solve for the purpose of opening the door. Komaeda completes all the puzzles but the door doesn’t open immediately on solving the last puzzle, instead a small pedestal shows up in the middle of the floor with a revolver on it. This is the real game - Russian roulette.

Komaeda cheerfully picks up the gun, and asks Monomi for the rules. According to her, one bullet goes into the barrel. Then the person puts the gun to their head, pulls the trigger and hopes to not die. Komaeda is uncertain, though - that’s not much of a game, is it? Especially someone with his luck. Shouldn’t it be a little more high risk, as in, five bullets in the gun? Despite Monomi’s protests, he loads four more bullets into the gun and puts it to his head, saying that his luck will definitely hold through. He pulls the trigger.

The door opens. Komaeda, having just won a round of Russian roulette with a 1/6 chance of survival, steps through into the next room, Monomi following closely behind. Of course his luck held, he is Super High School Level Good Luck. He meets Monobear on the other side of the door in a secret room called 'Octagon'.

Monobear hands him the student profiles as a reward for passing, and he quickly flips through it, to the page he was most interested in…and he finds that Hinata has no special ability. Hinata wasn’t admitted to the school based on a special ability, he entered the school as a normal student, into the Reserve Course. Komaeda is notably disappointed at this.

The Octagon is a long narrow room that wraps around a large central rectangular pillar (that is also the walls of the previous rooms). There are various kinds of weapons in there - swords, bombs, even a fridge containing poison. At first glance, the ultimate weapon is nowhere to be seen. There’s a tiny window at one end of the room, however. It’s so small as to seem entirely meaningless, but Komaeda takes a glance through it and then bursts out laughing. Somewhat madly. Suffice to say for now…he found the secret of the Houses. On the other end of the room, there’s a trapdoor in the floor. Komaeda opens it, and here the viewpoint switches back to Hinata’s.

Back in the Muscat House’s lounge, Hinata’s waiting with the girls. Komaeda suddenly appears out of nowhere and Hinata asks what he's doing here. He doesn’t explain for now. Also, he asks about the rules for Russian roulette, and Hinata says it’s one bullet. He can’t believe Komaeda’s luck… However, Komaeda’s attitude has changed, and he's acting much more disdainfully than before. They share information and Hinata is told about his not having a talent and how he's just a stepping stone for the true talents in Hope's Peak. Nanami stops their conversation before they really start to argue.

Souda seems to have been able to fix the elevator, so the group heads over to the other side. According to Souda, the compass needle turned 180 degrees as he was riding the elevator.

Komaeda suggests that Souda fix the Strawberry Tower switch using parts from Mecha-Nidai, for the sake of gathering more clues. No one likes the idea, but it’s done anyway because the clues are important. When the switch is fixed, the door opens despite the fact that the chain around the door handles wasn’t removed from the other side. Souda also notices that the layout of the murder scene is exactly the same as when it’s viewed from the Muscat Tower door.

Some miscellaneous clues: The clocks in the lounges both showed 5.30am. The clock in Mecha-Nidai’s chest showed 7.30. Kuzuryuu was in the lounge at 5.00am according to the clock, and spent about half an hour there alone. He saw Nidai head downstairs. Around 5.30am, there was a loud sound and the clock started ringing unbearably loudly. Souda, and Tanaka came to the lounge while he was trying to make it shut up. There was a door handle on the ground. There were also wires wrapped around Nidai’s body and leg. The one wrapped around the leg ended in a loop. With that a large stone Monobear head bursts through the floor and they students enter it to be taken to the next school trial.

Hinata figures out that the culprit for this case is Gundam Tanaka. He obtained access to the Octagon, where he found out about the real structure of the Houses. That is…the Houses are connected by the tower, but stacked on top of each other, with Strawberry on top of Muscat. The tower is really a giant lift, but only the floor moves, with the different pictures on the wall being easily changed projections. This is why there’s a delay in the time taken to open the door.

The Octagon is located in the space around the first level of the Strawberry House: it has eight sides, hence Octagon. The trapdoor leads to the third level of the Muscat House. Once he gained access to the Octagon, Tanaka was able to move back and forth at will. He gathered the required tools from there as well. He set the clocks 2 hours ahead in both houses. This would cause Nidai to leave his room earlier than everyone else. He broke the elevator at the Muscat House, then challenged Nidai in the Strawberry House. According to him, Nidai apparently also had the intention of killing. He used one of his hamsters to press the button on the back of Nidai’s head, causing him to go into sleep mode, then set Nidai’s alarm to wake him up some time later. Tanaka then tied Nidai up and looped a wire around a door handle in the Strawberry Tower, the one Nidai had weakened when they first arrived in the Tower.

He then went to the Muscat House and visited the Muscat Tower, lowering the floor in the tower by 3 stories and suspending Nidai in mid-air. The door opened because the movement sensors weren’t triggered. He returned to the Strawberry Tower, but because Kuzuryuu was in the lounge, he couldn’t return to his room without being noticed. When the clock rang, he joined Souda and Kuzuryuu because it’d look suspicious to return to his room at this time. Unfortunately for him, he forgot that he shouldn’t have been able to hear anything from his room, which was perfectly soundproofed.

When Nidai's alarm woke him up, he struggled, causing the weakened door handle to break. Nidai fell and landed head-first onto a pillar, causing it to topple and break, which is the cause of the loud sound the girls heard. Tanaka’s reasoning was he didn’t want to give up right there. Rather than wait and die of starvation, he’d rather try to do whatever he could. Everyone begrudgingly votes Tanaka guilty and his execution begins.

Tanaka stands with his pet hamsters in a desert plain. He puts his crying pet hamsters on a

nearby rock and steps out on the desert sand. In the distance, Monokuma drives a herd of stampeding animals in his direction. Using a stick, he draws an elaborate magic circle in the sand, and just before the animals run him down, he claps his hands and the circle starts glowing. It does absolutely nothing, however, and the stampede knocks him flying. He lands on the ground, bleeding, next to his hamsters. He opens his eyes just once, smiles at them, and then dies. Some animal angels float down and lift him upwards while the hamsters watch from the ground.

Chapter 5
After leaving the Surprise House, everyone returns to the hotel and gather at the restaurant as usual in the morning. Sonia notes that the restaurant feels really empty now. For some reason they hear Nidai’s voice…as it turns out, Souda spent the night working on something, and he shows it off proudly - a little RoboNidai, he created from Nidai's left over parts. Akane immediately claims it for herself and while Souda protests a little, he eventually lets her have it, since he made it to cheer her up.

Nanami mentions that she hasn’t seen Komaeda, and wonders about him. Everyone else seems kind of afraid of him now, especially after his attitude change shortly before the previous trial. Kuzuryuu remembers Komaeda mentioning that everyone was representative of hope, except for Hinata. Hinata explains that he’s not from the main stream classes, but from the reserve classes in school, revealing to the others that he had no SHSL talent like they do. No one particularly minds this (and are relieved that this probably means Hinata isn’t the traitor), but Hinata is upset because he thought from the beginning that he must have some kind of talent. He wanted to enter Hope's Peak Academy because he wanted to be able to hold his head up high, to be able to be proud of himself…and then was placed on the reserve course.

Monomi shows up covered in blood and reveals she defeated the last robot, giving the students access to the last island. Surprisingly, they’re all ready to go check it out - after the last case, they’ve decided that instead of running away, they’re going to fight back against Monobear and Monomi and the Future Foundation. With that said, everyone heads out towards the last island. It looks like a slightly futuristic industrial city with buildings, cranes and other machines. The group come across a large factory, specifically a factory that makes Monobears…or to be more exact, Monobear plushies. Life-sized Monobear plushies…made from coconut trees. Monobear shows up and says it’s a plan to make money and also there’s a lot of other Monobear merchandise in the warehouse next to the factory. Inside the goods warehouse there are many stacked boxes. They contain things like, Monobear calendars, Monobear sandbags, Monobear guitars... There are also books (a nude photo collection, but as Hinata notes, Monobear is nude to begin with), character song CDs and Monobear cardboard stands. Mononbear shows up to say he’s planning to set up a chain store selling merchandise of himself. Monomi shows up a little bit afterwards to say the business will totally fail because there isn’t any merch of her. Monobear beats her up. Nanami suggests she and Hinata leave.

Back inside the factory there’s a staff kitchen that is inaccessible at this time. Outside there are army facilities that hold loads of army vehicles, a tank, some trucks, and a helicopter… The same helicopter that was used in Hanamura’s execution (which Hinata punches in anger, to no avail). One truck is loaded up with firearms, even rocket launchers. For a group of small islands, there’s a lot of weaponry.

Sonia finds an interesting document in the seat of one of the vehicles and shows it to Hinata. They are Future Foundation documents, mentioning about them taking ownership of the islands and a plan to redevelop them. It seems like the Jabberwock Islands were originally a tourist destination but closed down due to bankruptcy, leaving them deserted. The Future Foundation took over the islands from there and decided to use them as the location for a base as it wouldn’t receive influence from a certain event (which is not detailed). Sonia also recalls that the brochure from the library mentioned a building in the middle of the central island, which doesn’t exist. Apparently that building was to be used, but how can they use a building that doesn’t exist?

Meanwhile Souda is at Watatsumi Industrial - a company that produces electronic/machine parts. The largest business in the Jabberwock Islands, has about 100 or so people. This building is their research facility, so says the pamphlet Souda found. His biggest concern is that it doesn’t look like a place that makes parts… On closer inspection of the machines in the background, it seems like a four-legged animal robot (one of Monobear’s robots) and an android are being made.

Souda says he found a computer nearby and checked it out, and found an email in someone’s inbox. It mentions that riots are happening on an international scale in many different places. These riots were sparked off by a student riot, which snowballed when people’s dissatisfaction about social status came into play, and it spread all over the world. Despair spread and the world headed towards destruction. Souda doesn’t believe any of it though. Kuzuryuu asks Hinata to meet everyone at the street stalls to discuss what they've found.

Once again everyone decides that Komaeda isn’t worth caring about and starts reporting their findings. Future Foundation info first - no one is sure how much they can trust the information they’ve found. Sonia is sure that they’re the enemy, but Kuzuryuu isn’t so sure, after all Monomi is under the Future Foundation, but is against Monobear, who got the students to kill each other… They consider the possibility that both the Future Foundation and Monobear are their enemies, and then Souda starts being paranoid about the traitor. Sonia asserts that there is no traitor, Monobear is lying and they should trust their friends.

Komaeda shows up and is disappointed that they’re running away from the truth. Hinata asks where he’s been all this time. Komaeda jabs at the fact that they’ve been mentally running around in circles before saying that he’s been looking for some people who might already have reached the islands. Which surprises everyone… The people he’s looking for are the survivors of the first school killing incident. Hinata asks if he’s referring to Togami and  and his friends…. But Togami’s already dead?

Judging by Komaeda’s reaction, he’d expected everyone to already have guessed about Togami, but apparently not, so he poses a question - Togami survived all of the events of the first high school killing, but died in the very first case here on the island… Isn’t that weird? No one gets it and just says Komaeda is weird and they don’t like him.

Komaeda looks a little sad at being told he’s hated but says that’s the price for knowing the truth. He refuses to reveal what truths he’s found, however… He’ll only tell after he finds out who the traitor is. That’s the only thing he hasn’t been able to find out. Even if he has to give up his life in the process, he’ll reveal who the traitor is. And then, if he gets rid of all the despair on the islands, perhaps he’ll be called SHSL Hope.

He heads off at this point, telling everyone else that if they meet Monobear, let him know that there’s no need to give any more motives. He’ll do it as flashy as he can, since it’s going to be the last anyway. Everyone gets paranoid after he leaves because it totally sounds like he’ll go after the traitor. Hinata wonders if there’s even any point. If they’ve all lost their memories then wouldn’t the traitor also forget they’re the traitor? Souda decides that they need to restrain Komaeda.

At the restaurant in the morning Souda announces his plan to capture Komaeda. It’s very simply, one person lures Komaeda and two others catch him. He’s the director, and Kuzuryuu and Akane will do the capturing. He asks Nanami to lure Komaeda in, but she refuses, saying that she doesn’t approve of the idea of tying him up. Souda eventually convinces her to agree by saying that it’s for the sake of not having any more people killed. Sonia and Hinata are free to do whatever because Sonia says she wants to go somewhere (it’s an order) and asks Hinata to follow her. Souda is jealous. He dismisses everyone, saying that the plan will happen that night.

Hinata meets Sonia in the hotel lobby - it seems like her plans for the day involve the Future Foundation documents she found before. Her theory is that the building that was slated to become the Future Foundation’s base was changed at the last minute, and so isn’t on the central island and that it's probably the place that’s now called the Ruins, because of the logo on the door. They go check the ruins out once more, but then return after not finding any new clues, though with a greater interest in finding the password that will open the door. After spending some free time, the evening comes. Hinata’s doorbell rings, and thinking it’s probably Souda or Sonia he opens the door… But it’s Komaeda.

Hinata asks Komaeda what he’s here for, and Komaeda asks him back - aren’t they the ones who are looking for him? It looks like he already figured out about their plan. He also has something to discuss with everyone so he says he’ll play along. He still doesn’t know about the full details of the plan so he’s interested in finding out and gets Hinata to lead him to the lobby. As soon as Komaeda steps into the lobby, Akane captures him.

He’s disappointed that they’re all concerned about such trivial things and then says he’ll start his plan to destroy the Jabberwock Islands. There’s a huge explosion (ironically Souda, who went for the safest position, was nearest the blast) and when Hinata next opens his eyes he sees part of the hotel lobby destroyed and in flames. Komaeda, who’s managed to get free, laughs maniacally. This is the beginning of the end, the beginning of the destruction of the Jabberwock Islands! No more need to cower in fear and suspicion because it’ll all be destroyed! Also this is a demonstration, the real thing involves even more explosives. He’s put them up all over the islands, and if they were to be all activated at once it’ll surely blow everything up! They’re time bombs, set to explode the day after the next at noon.

Komaeda says he’ll tell where the explosives are if the traitor will reveal themself. By this point Monobear and Monomi have both shown up and Monomi says that the traitor is unable to reveal their identity. Not “won’t” but “can’t”. Hinata tries to get Monobear to stop Komaeda from blowing everything up, but the “no person can kill more than two other people” rule doesn’t take effect unless it’s actually broken. Komaeda believes that it’ll all turn out fine, because he believes in everyone and he believes in his luck. Then he leaves, and everyone is left terrified.

Curiously the damage is reverted by the next day…The next morning everyone except Komaeda (as expected) gathers at the restaurant. Kuzuryuu asks if Hinata’s fine after the blast. Hinata’s mostly ok. Souda thinks his eardrums might have burst. Nanami asks what they should do next. The situation is worrying. Komaeda says that if the traitor will come out with it it’ll all be ok. Hinata notices Komaeda and freaks out a little. Komaeda is there to remind everyone that the bombs are set to explode the next afternoon, but offers them a hint for the bombs’ location: it’s in a place that they haven’t already been. The hint is, of course, to encourage the traitor to confess after seeing how hard their friends are trying. Also he’ll be waiting in the restaurant in case the traitor is ready to talk. Souda stops Akane from beating Komaeda up and the group leave the hotel in search of the bombs.

The first place they think of looking is in the ruins, but that’s inaccessible because of the password. The other place they can think of is the Mouse Castle on the theme park island, so they head there first. The previously locked door is bombed to pieces. On the floor there is a printed message: To the experiment subjects. The password that will lead everyone to the future is (scratched away). The logical deduction is that the explosives are hidden in the ruins, but without the password they can’t enter. Sonia runs off to search for the password, Souda runs in the opposite direction for the same purpose, Kuzuryuu also heads off presumably to do the same, Akane seems to be intending to hunt down Komaeda, Nanami follows her in case she does something stupid. The day ends after a futile search for clues.

The next morning Hinata gets a bad feeling about Komaeda hanging out in the restaurant and heads there, and as expected, Akane did go after him, and she only stops attacking him after Nanami slaps her. Sonia tries to get the password out of Komaeda, but Komaeda says that he moved the bombs already. There was only something familiar-looking in there so he figured it’d be pointless to continue hiding them there. The bombs are now…in a place they haven’t already been. They won’t be too hard to find if they split the job. He’s sure it’ll all go well, because he believes in everyone and he believes in his luck. Then he leaves.

As Komaeda suggested, they split the job. One person takes one island, Hinata’s responsible for checking out the theme park island, which incidentally has one place they haven’t checked - Monomi’s house. The door to her house is open and Hinata heads inside. Monomi shows up and panics when Hinata tells her the door was open, it looks like someone broke in. On asking her about the details, she says she doesn’t think Monobear would break into her house since he has all the power to… Well, not need to. So it’s likely a student did it, even if she doesn’t want to suspect anyone. Her treasure box is missing and she asks Hinata to tell her if he finds it, it’s a shiny pink treasure box.

On inspecting the TV screens it seems like Monomi used these to watch the students, up until Monobear came along and broke her magical staff at least, then they lost effectiveness. Monobear is so powerful that he doesn’t need the surveillance cameras to know things, so Monomi thinks that the video feed is likely directed to some outside source. When Hinata presses her for more information she just cries, and Hinata thinks she’s just about as untrustworthy as Monobear. Monomi then asks Hinata why he’s exploring alone, instead of with everyone else as usual Hinata remembers why he’s here, and tries to ask Monomi if she knows anything about the bombs, but Monobear shows up and drags her away.

After checking out all the locations on the island without finding anything new, Kuzuryuu appears to tell Hinata that the bombs have been found - they’re in the factory on the last island, and he’s getting everyone to gather there. Hinata should go call Sonia and Nanami. Hinata goes to call Sonia from the central island, but she’s nowhere to be seen - according to Monobear (who showed up randomly again), she’s at the army facility. So he goes to find Nanami. She reacts so slowly it’s amusing, but heads off to the factory. Then he goes to get Sonia, who’s also reacting weirdly unconcerned... It seems she has some business to do, so she’ll go over soon.

Hinata heads to the factory first, meets everyone, and heads inside. The bombs are loaded onto a truck with the engine left running - when the gas runs out the bombs will explode. Souda won’t be able to dismantle it in a short time because most of the setup is inside a sealed metal box, and for as long as the box remains unopenable he can’t do anything. The gas can’t be topped up because the opening’s been fused shut, and driving it out isn’t an option because the wheels have been chained (and because Kuzuryuu is adamant about not driving without a license). The only clues are the card reader on top of the box and the laptop on the stopped conveyor belt. When Hinata touches the laptop, a video message from Komaeda plays.

He congratulates them on finding the bombs, and says that it isn’t that hard to defuse the setup - just tap the student pass on the card reader and it’ll shut off by itself. However, the reader will only react to the traitor’s student pass…he’d been watching everyone’s movements and knows who the traitor is now, but is sad that they won’t tell him directly. So he hopes the traitor will do him a favour and step out now. The message ends here… Everyone panics. Even though it makes sense to test everyone’s passes, it might be dangerous if it were set to explode when someone else who isn’t the traitor tries their pass.

Nanami, saying that it’s stupid to fight over something like this, goes ahead and taps her pass on the card reader…it doesn’t accept her pass. “Looks like…it’s wrong.” The others are nervous about trying their passes and it seems like there’s going to be some mutual suspicion going around, but Souda notices that the engine is dying. The gasoline’s almost run out, earlier than expected, and everyone scrambles for the exit…then Sonia shows up and says those aren’t bombs. Then they explode.

They’re fireworks.

The laptop starts playing another video message. Komaeda says there’s no way bombs that could blow up the islands could possibly exist- and if there were, he wouldn’t be touching them. Nanami figures that the ones he used in the hotel were from the Octagon in the previous chapter. Komaeda wonders if the traitor has come clean with it yet, and guesses probably not. He’ll be waiting in the goods warehouse nearby, to see if everyone’s guessed correctly.

Akane, Souda and Kuzuryuu swear to kill him, and Nanami, Sonia and Hinata follow to stop them. Outside the warehouse, Akane hears some music playing from inside, and when she tries to open the door it only opens a little. She kicks it in. The warehouse is entirely dark, and there’s very loud music, something like a hymn is playing. Then suddenly a fire starts, catching onto the curtain at the back. Everyone panics yet again, Sonia suggests getting the fire extinguishing grenades/bottles from the staff kitchen in the factory. She remembers there were other fire extinguishers in the room but this amount of grenades should be more than enough to stop the fire, so everyone takes them and runs back to the warehouse.

Everyone throws them at the base of the curtain, but they break on the ground so the liquid doesn’t hit the curtain, so there’s no effect on the fire…then the sprinklers come on and the fire’s finally put out. Monobear appears and tells everyone to wait until the smoke leaves via the ventilation before checking out what’s inside. Hinata gets a really really bad feeling as he heads inside.

There’s a terrible smell of smoke and the curtain at the back is burnt up, which reveals some extra space behind that no one knew was there previously. When Hinata heads in, he sees what he was fearing… Komaeda lying face up on the ground, spread-eagled, gagged with masking tape. His wrists and ankles have ropes tied around them - the one around his right wrist is slightly burnt. There are multiple stab wounds on his thighs and left upper arm, and a knife pierced through his right hand completely. Most shockingly, there’s a large spear piercing his belly at 90 degrees to the ground plane. No one can believe that Komaeda could possibly have died (no one believes it until Monobear’s announcement), and also can’t believe that someone actually killed him. They actually feel sad for him because it’s just so…cruel… Monobear shows up, talks a bit, tells them that this is the last trial because time is almost up according to the clock in Jabberwock Park. So everyone gets to work. The last murder investigation begins... While investigating Komaeda's room, Hinata and Nanami find Monomi's treasure box, which has a diary inside but Monobear declares that Monomi cannot write. They also find a bottle of poison inside the fridge in Komaeda's room.

In the bookshelf in Komaeda’s room, there’s a file containing the students’ profiles. It’s the one that Komaeda received in the previous case. Though unlike what Komaeda told Hinata, it contains everyone’s profiles and not just Hinata’s alone. It’s true that Hinata’s from the reserve course, however the file doesn’t contain any specifics about their lost memories. It also contains information on all 16 participants, including the traitor, who isn't a student. Presumably the information was collated at the time they entered school.Hinata notices that the file doesn’t contain Togami’s name… And on Monobear’s (who suddenly appeared) recommendation, they check out his page and it’s all a mystery. There’s only one phrase: Super High-School Level Imposter (swindler, conman...etc). In other words Togami wasn’t the real Togami. He was someone who didn’t have a name or home, and his actual age and gender weren’t even clear. He wasn’t anyone, so he could become anyone. That was his talent. And because no one had any memories, they didn’t recognize him.

The bell for the trial sounds. Monobear makes it clear that this is the last one they’ll have to go through. Monomi appears with a serious face before they enter the courtroom she seems prepared to face whatever despair comes up next. In court she doesn’t even react to Monobear’s physical abuse like she normally would. The fifth school trial begins.

The original theory was that someone tortured Komaeda to make him cough up the traitor’s name, then killed him. However, it’s made clear that no one could possibly kill him, set up the Monobear panels, then leave the room. In other words, the only person who could have inflicted those wounds was himself. Furthermore, the masking tape would prevent him from talking anyway, so it definitely wasn’t interrogation. He ran the spear through himself by dropping it from above - using the whip, he dangled the spear above himself then let go. This explains the blood mark on the beam above. It also explains the part on the whip that wasn’t covered in blood and the way the blood covered his left hand because that was where and how he was holding it. He must have used something to fix the knife to run it through his hand, this something was the Monobear plush. That explains the bloodstains on the plush.

The door was blocked by the Monobear panels, that fell neatly in a row much like dominoes. That was the setup, Monobear panel dominoes. At the end, near the base of the curtain was the lighter. Logically speaking, the fire should have been caused by the lighter being knocked over. The MP3 player was there to cover the sound of the panels falling.

The process as currently deduced…

1. Komaeda slung the whip portion of the spear over the ceiling beam.

2. He tied a burnt rope around his right wrist, then tied his legs and then left wrist.

3. He pulled the whip, raising the spear above himself.

4. He taped his mouth and proceeded to stab himself with the knife.

5. After which, he used a nearby Monokuma plush to hold the knife upright and pierced his hand with it, then swung his pierced hand to throw the plush far away.

6. Finally, he let go of the whip, dropping the spear which killed him.

Nanami, however, has her doubts for one, Komaeda’s actual cause of death isn’t specified in the Monobear file. And in all the previous cases where something wasn’t mentioned, it was important. So everyone decides that there’s still time and decide to think it through before voting. It’s suggested that something that didn’t cause a visible wound might have killed him and then Hinata remembers the poison in Komaeda’s room. There’s a problem, however, there wasn’t a container of any sort in the warehouse, so how could the poison have been transported?

In addition to that, Komaeda’s hands weren’t free so he couldn’t have drunk it himself. Logically speaking, he’d have to inhale it, but that still doesn’t solve the transportation problem. The realisation hits when someone mentions the fire extinguishing grenades. Those are bottles holding liquid there’s no other way. The foil cap that was discovered in Komaeda’s room was from one of the grenades (confirmed by Sonia, who checked under the cap), and the gas mask and gloves should have been from when Komaeda was switching around the contents.

When the poison bottle was thrown at the curtain, the heat from the fire evaporated the poison. The gas is heavier than air, so Komaeda would have inhaled a large amount of poison gas while lying on the ground he’d only have released the spear at the time he died. The sprinkler dissolved the gaseous poison and everyone was standing during the inspection so they weren’t affected. In other words, the poison killed him. The poison was in one bottle out of many fire extinguisher grenades…and no one knows who threw that particular bottle, except Monobear.

Here’s the revised sequence of events:

1. Komaeda prepared a poison bottle by replacing the contents of a fire extinguisher grenade. He put the replaced grenade back where he got it, next to the other identical grenades.

2. He showed up at the restaurant and taunted everyone with the bombs.

3. While they’re panicking over the bombs, he set up the Monokuma panels near the door, set down a lighted lighter at the end near the curtain, and blasted loud music to cover up the sound of the panels

4. He slung the whip portion of the spear over the ceiling beam.

5. He tied a burnt rope around his right wrist, then tied his legs and then left wrist.

6. He pulled the whip, raising the spear above himself.

7. He taped his mouth and proceeded to stab himself with the knife, after which he used a nearby Monokuma plush to hold the knife upright and pierced his hand with it, then swung his pierced hand to throw the plush far away.

8. The fireworks went off and everyone came to look for him. On opening the door, the Monokuma panels toppled.

9. The panels knocked over the lighter, and to extinguish the resulting fire, everyone went to get the fire extinguisher grenades.

10. The thrown grenades broke, including the one that contained the poison, which vapourized and killed him.

11. Finally, his hand relaxed and let go of the whip, dropping the spear.

It seems like there’s no choice but to give up but Nanami says there must have been a reason he did this. Thinking back, there were two things that Komaeda believed in (so much that he said it twice): the students and his absolute luck. So, if he were to rely on his luck, who would he be going for? That’s also an easy one, he’d be going for the traitor, of course. He’d been obsessing over it. He was relying on his luck when he hoped that the traitor would be the one to pick up the poison bottle. In fact, the entire setup was based on luck and trust.

He trusted that everyone would look for the bombs, would find the bombs, would see his message, would go find him, would try to stop the fire…would kill him. It’d be hard to believe that this is a coincidence. The most interesting thing is that he likely doesn’t even know who the traitor is (that is, he was just bluffing). So the next thing is determining who the traitor is but Nanami, who deduced Komaeda’s true plan, is already asking everyone to vote her as the killer.

She’s almost outright saying she’s the traitor and in fact, asks Hinata to prove that she is. One clue is in Monomi’s notebook which is actually Nanami’s notebook. On day 16, something happened (Hinata trying to go in the Final Dead Room) that only Nanami and Hinata would know and that was written in the notebook. The other clue is that Nanami knew that the bombs were fake,  she could only have obtained this information from Monomi, who watched Sonia attempt to use one. Obviously, no one wants to vote for Nanami, not just because it’s risky but because she’s been nice to everyone all along, and is pretty much the peacemaker of the group, they can’t understand why it has to be her. And they’re of course unsure about relying on Komaeda’s luck. Not having any other choice, though, they vote for her and Komaeda’s luck holds.

Monomi decides that she’ll take down Monobear, and tries to explode him multiple times, but she has far fewer spares than Monobear does. Nanami says it’s okay, and there's no need to keep fighting. Monobear

decides that the execution this time will involve Monomi and all her spares as well! Both of them leave their last words to the group. They both had good intentions - Nanami wanted to protect everyone no matter what. It’s not that she wouldn’t confess to being the so-called traitor, it’s that she couldn’t. Monomi finally says something teacher-like: "There’s no need to become a hero. It’s okay to not need to be considered worthy by someone else. That causes you to blame yourself and blame other people…and because of that, become jealous of some other people…but you know…that’s not the way it is. Even if no one else considers you worthy, it’s okay to just become someone who can be proud of yourself! That’s because…you yourself are your biggest supporter! If you can come to like yourself…that “love” will continue to support you for the rest of your life."  With that, Nanami and Monomi are sent to their execution. It begins with Nanami and all of the remaining Monomis being attacked in a space invader themed attack by Monobear. Nanami notices an exit and grabs the remaining Monomis to make a run for it. The escape into a hallway where they are chased by a giant metallic pacman, a few Monomis are destroyed but Nanami is once again able to escape into another room with the remaining Monomi's. However, they are blocked from proceeding any further in the room by a thick glass wall and cannot not turn back due to a shutter closing over the door. All of a sudden Monobear starts dropping tetris blocks using a crane. The remaining Monomi's are destroyed as he surrounds Nanami with the blocks before finally crushing her. Thus ends the last trial.

The next morning after waking up, something buggy happens and Hinata dashes out of his room. The first person he sees outside: Nanami. She talks as if nothing happened, and Hinata acts as if this is perfectly normal - it seems like the laptop that Komaeda used had another video message on it that was locked until after the trial was over. Everyone’s at the restaurant, so Hinata should go there and see what it’s about. Then right after that, she just disappears.

At the restaurant, Hinata meets the remaining students. Sonia was the one who brought the laptop back - she found it while on a walk with Tanaka (and his hamsters). Souda complains about this for a moment before everyone starts watching the video message.

Komaeda starts by wondering who’s watching the message, the traitor, or the surviving students? If the traitor’s watching, then he’s achieved what he’s set out to do; if the students are watching, then he failed. Not that it matters to him since he’s out of the game now. He doesn’t know who he’s addressing, so he’ll talk to either. He mentions that there was something important in the file that he received from Monobear. He figured that it would cause trouble if the students were to see it, so he destroyed it. He talks about what he destroyed, but it comes out all glitchy, so no one understands (they don’t seem to notice it, however).

In the meantime, dead students carry on the conversation. Finally, he gives the password that was scratched away from the stone in Mouse Castle.“11037”. Komaeda says that if he should successfully rid the island of despair, let him be called SHSL Hope. Nanami suggests everyone hurry to the ruins before the timer at Jabberwock Island runs out, which they do. The world itself is becoming strange. Dead students keep joining in the conversation as if nothing happened (the screen gives a graphical glitch every time they appear), and no one seems to find it strange. After entering the password into the door at the ruins, everyone heads in to see a court. At this point, it seems like all the dead students disappear - Sonia wonders where everyone’s gone. Then the timer hits zero and the contraption goes off. The chapter ends.

Chapter 0
Inside a boat, Komaeda converses with a mysterious person. The mysterious person is uninterested and bored at the current circumstances.

Komaeda tells the mysterious person about his talent and they reveal that he also harbours that talent along with many others. The mysterious person speaks of how the world is such a boring place with talentless people dragging down the talented ones.

Komaeda wonders if they will meet again one day and then wonders if he will be able to meet the one whom he hates so much. The mysterious person notices his hand and recognises it as a woman's hand and is aware of which woman it is from. Komaeda believes that despite the fact that he cannot control the hand, it has not began to rot and therefore has become one with him. He believes that he has become one with Super High School Level Despair! Komaeda looks out the window and realises they have almost arrived at their destination... The Jabborwock islands.

Chapter 6
The chapter opens with Hinata facing a door that looks just like the one he saw when his first entered Hope's Peak Academy at the beginning of the game. Once again, beyond the door is a classroom. It’s a rather familiar classroom. Hinata wonders why and how he got from the court to the classroom. It just doesn’t add up. Before anything else happens, though, Monobear makes an announcement asking everyone to head to the gymnasium to start the graduation test.

Everyone gathers at the gymnasium, and Monobear shows up. They’re fairly angry at Monobear for shutting them into yet another weird place, but Monobear says this is Hope’s Peak Academy. Did he not mention it before? The school’s already done for. Even if they don’t remember it and don’t feel the nostalgia of being back in school, *someone else* will surely feel the nostalgia!Anyway it’s time to start the graduation exam. According to Monobear, the students should learn about what’s happening outside and decide on whether they want to graduate, or stay behind. In addition, there’s no rush because the *main cast* isn’t here yet. He hints that the students are really just doing this for the sake of buying time. The study materials are littered all around the school. Hinata and the other students need to explore the school to find all of these.

After Monobear leaves, the students wonder who’s behind Monobear. They start to realize that even after the Future Foundation’s people (Usami and Nanami) were gone, nothing changed… So the Future Foundation is likely not their enemy. And perhaps, when Monobear called them the destroyers of the world, he was lying. Everyone runs off to get started. Hinata leaves the gymnasium last, and ends up on the 5th floor.

Hinata spots a book on the floor - it’s about the history of Hope’s Peak Academy, in manga form, written by Monobear:

''The private school Hope’s Peak Academy is a special educational institute recognized by the government that only accepts “high school students with special talents”. Its aim is to train students that will become the “hope” of the country, and most graduates hold important posts in different fields. Students are collected via scouting, and those who do the scouting are Hope’s Peak “educational staff”, who are both trainers and researchers of talent. Hope’s Peak Academy is not just an educational institute…it was also a “research institute for talent”, however Hope’s Peak Academy spent several years worrying over a lack of funds. The Academy, realizing that their research into talent would not be able to maintain itself took the plunge and introduced a certain system; the “reserve course”. ''

''Unlike the “mainstream” for which educational staff scout students, the reserve course took in students through an ordinary exam. Also, the staff that taught the reserve course were “ordinary” staff employed from outside. On top of that, the school fees and exam fees for the reserve course were extremely high compared to those of normal high schools. Even so, the number of applicants were overwhelming. Hope’s Peak Academy opened its doors to “normal people without talent”…and people swarmed in because of the school’s glamour.''

In this manner Hope’s Peak Academy gained a huge amount of funds, and buried itself in further research into talent.It was all for the sake of creating what the school had set out to do since its founding - “a true genius that will become humanity’s hope”

''Just as this was about to be achieved though, a never-before-seen, extremely tragic incident hit the school. It was the incident that was said to have kicked off “the biggest and most despair inducing incident in all human history”, which shook the entire world…''

''Indeed, it is “the biggest and worst incident in all Hope’s Peak Academy’s history”. ''

After experiencing that tragic incident, Hope’s Peak  Academy drew the curtains on its long history, dream yet unachieved.…The End.

Hinata doesn’t believe it (partly since the incident names were so stupid, they had to be fictional). Monobear shows up and says he just doesn’t remember it, and raises an interesting point, the Future Foundation only took away memories of the students’ school lives. However, shouldn’t Hinata have known that he didn’t have any talents since before entering Hope's Peak Academy? It’s strange that he didn’t know. Perhaps it could be because the Future Foundation wanted to hide the fact that Hinata was from the reserve course or perhaps Hinata himself hid away those memories...

In a classroom on the same floor Hinata finds another book: “The biggest and most despair inducing incident in all Hope's Peak Academy’s history”, in manga form, by Monobear.''The biggest and worst incident in all Hope's Peak Academy’s history”, as it is called, was an incident that occurred in Hope's Peak Academy. The incident revolved around a student called “Kamukura Izuru”. ''

''Kamukura was the fruit of the Academy’s efforts, a genius who should also be called the symbol of the school. He had every talent, and was a genius of geniuses. The Academy, referring to this “talent that could be called the hope of humanity”, called Kamukura this…“Super High School Level Hope”''

''For the sake of protecting this talent, the school revealed nothing about Kamukura. As such, even the students in the school knew next to nothing about Kamukura’s existence, but that student, also known as the “symbol of hope”, suddenly caused a terrible incident to happen.''

''The 13 elite students who formed the student council of Hope's Peak Academy…were brutally murdered by Kamukura. However, it didn’t end there.''

''The Academy tried to protect the talented Kamukura, and covered up the incident, but, elsewhere…“A certain student” who tried to use that incident secretly began to take action. That student exposed the cover-up…to the reserve course students, who had been dissatisfied with how the school treated them. This was fuel on the fire, and the reserve course students banded together and revolted against the school.''

That…became the prelude to Hope's Peak Academy’s destruction.

This is the full story of “the biggest and worst incident in all Hope's  Academy’s history”.

''Before long, the incident developed into another even more horrifying tragic incident. It became what later came to be called “the biggest and worst despair-worthy incident in all human history”. ''

Monobear shows up to say it’s ironic that someone talented enough to be called SHSL Hope caused that kind of thing to happen. Hinata thinks of Komaeda’s definition of hope (what he considers to be the real meaning of hope), and Kamukura’s type of hope (talent). Also, it’d have been nice if Kamukura could have given him even just one talent so he wouldn’t have to go to the reserve course.

Speaking of which, was Hinata involved in the rebellion? It seems meaningless to him and who is the “certain student”?

Hinata then heads to the biology lab where he finds yet another book: “The biggest and most despair inducing incident in all human history”, in manga form, by Monobear.

''The biggest and most despair inducing incident in all of Hope's Peak Academy’s history” was only the beginning. The biggest and most despair inducing incident in all of Hope's Peak Academy’s history caused the reserve course students to rebel…''

''At first, it was optimistically thought that everything would calm down soon, but the situation worsened and quickened its pace. The movement happened on the Internet, and formed a community of its own. ''

''Soon, not just students were involved, but came to include people of various races and nationalities in its development and spread off the internet and into real life. ''

''At the beginning of the movement, it involved demonstrations regarding social issues, but as it spread through the world, its abnormality began to show. At some point in time, the motives and modus operandi changed, and left behind only meaningless destruction and violence.''

Strong people killed weak people…

Weak people murdered even weaker people…

Weak people formed factions and lynched strong people…

''As the violence and death spread, people became desensitized. As if time had gone backwards, people took death to become a certainty. The media reports overflowed with death, and people ate as they watched. By the time the world had noticed the abnormality, it was already too late.''

The overpowering “despair” became a huge wave that swallowed up the world in the blink of one’s eye…

''Soon, terrorists and coup d’etats sprang up and caused the despair that is war. It wasn’t war that happened due to the clash of ideals, religion or profits…It was just war. ''

''Pure war. ''

''Therefore, no way to solve the problem was found. However…how did what was originally a students’ movement develop into such a despair-worthy situation? This was because of…the existence of “a certain group of people”.''

It revolved around the “certain student” who led Hope's Peak Academy to its destruction; a group called “Super High School Level Despair”.

''Their talents, recognized by Hope's Peak Academy, were used not “for the sake of causing hope for humanity”…They used their talents “for the sake of causing despair for humanity”. Those who held great power brainwashed ordinary citizens to spread despair… ''

Those who had talent with computers created software to spread despair…

Those who had great influence over people created new ideals to spread despair.

''This is how “the biggest and most despair inducing incident in all human history” was produced. Indeed, as long as “Super High School Level Despair” exists, this despair will not end…''

“The biggest and most despair inducing incident in all human history” will not end…

Hinata refuses to believe a word of it. This is just nonsense, it has to be, but he can’t help but wonder what the world outside is like.

Monobear shows up to irritate Hinata. Hinata should know about this incident, but it’s so tragic that he doesn’t remember it. It’s all the Future Foundation’s fault. They took away his memories. He reassures Hinata that these statements are true and repeats them over and over again. Hinata figures that Monobear is telling them all this so that they’ll become afraid and not want to leave.

Next Hinata decides to investigate one of the classrooms. Kuzuryuu and Monobear are inside. Kuzuryuu doesn’t want to talk to Monobear so he makes Hinata do it instead. There’s no book here because Monobear got tired of drawing them so he’ll talk instead. This time he wants to talk about SHSL Despair.

SHSL Despair, right now their definition of this term is a group of people, but originally it referred to one particular high school girl. Junko Enoshima. As the leader of SHSL Despair, she used despair-worthy methods (filled with charm and humour) to make SHSL Despair. Apparently this group contained some particularly terrifying people.

Kuzuryuu spends a minute being ticked off that a high school girl can create an organization that people actually join. Monobear explains this by saying that people with twisted ideals tend to be particularly charismatic. Junko was one such person, she attracted people, even some with great power over people. However that was only one of the reasons, it seems she also managed to pull in even the people who tried to stop her.

Kuzuryuu asks about what Junko’s purpose was.

It was…her despair. Junko is despair. It’s her definition. She used it to pull people into SHSL Despair, and controlled their despair. They became her puppets. They offered her not just their own despair, but also others’ despair. To escape from the despair that was Junko, they gave everything to despair.

For example, they killed their family and friends, and also destroyed their own bodies. And even worse, they believed that this was what they should do. The reserve course students? All but one killed themselves in a group suicide.

Kuzuryuu gets mad again and yells that Junko is already dead. According to him, there was a book in a blood-covered classroom, a manga about the school murders - the events of Dangan Ronpa. It explained that at the end the students fought back against the mastermind and she killed herself. The survivors left the school successfully. This mastermind was Junko. She placed cameras in the school and streamed the feed to the outside world, to show how despair-worthy it was that the students killed each other for the sake of hoping to live.

Kuzuryuu considers the possibility that someone copied her methods and made their batch do the same thing. When Hinata steps out of the classroom he now finds himself on the fourth floor. Talking with Akane, she mentions that she has the feeling that someone is coming. It’s just a feeling, but her senses have always been really sharp. Leaving her to investigate further Hinata heads to the music room. Inside he  finds a strange, floating object the logo on the strange object is that of the Future Foundation’s.

The Future Foundation should exist in direct opposition to “the biggest and worst despair-worthy incident in all human history”, as it consists mainly of graduates of Hope's Peak Academy.

Hinata is really sure now that “destroyers of the world” was a complete lie. There’s also a hologram in the back, it appears to be an email.

''Regarding the report from earlier: We have received information that there are people who claim to be survivors from Hope's Peak Academy. In addition, on further inspection, there even turned out to be 15 people.''

''It is suspicious that “such a number of people” should appear at this time, but… if they are survivors from Hope's Peak Academy, there is the possibility that “Super High School Level Despair” may have their eyes on them. There is a need to put them into protection as soon as possible, even though SHSL Despair will probably not be able to do much as Junko Enoshima is no longer around…''

''As unlikely as it is, a situation similar to that of the school murders should not be allowed to happen. ''

''Furthermore, if they are survivors from Hope's Peak Academy, we should be able to expect them to become an important part of our numbers. However…at the moment, their particulars are still under investigation, and their locations are yet unknown. We will continue the search for them.''

''On the other hand; we have received a report from the Jabberwock Islands’ research facility that preparations are complete. It also seems that the “New World Project” is also fit to continue on to the testing stage.''

Hinata realizes that the survivors in the email are him and his friends. Also, he’s cleared it up - the Future Foundation is on their side. He just wishes Nanami and/or Monomi had cleared it up with them first. He also deduces that SHSL Despair is behind Monobear, they took up Junko’s purpose and made this happen.

Finally, one more doubt, it should have been fine to have some people around the research facility, so why was the island completely uninhabited? Hinata heads for the staffroom next and inside, finds another email.

''We understand that there are the “survivors from Hope's Peak Academy”. They should be protected, and we wish for you to continue searching for them.''

''However, be wary of the “refugees of despair”. Even though they have lost Junko Enoshima, they are still dangerous.''

''Right now, even after her death, the biggest and most despair inducing incident in all human history is still not over. It may be possible that there may be someone of her level directing behind the scenes.''

''Indeed, until something is done about the refugees of despair, it does not seem possible to put an end to this incident. Therefore, the refugees of despair should be dealt with immediately if they are found.''

Everything is…for the sake of a bright future…

Hinata then checks the blackboard.

Written on the board is the title "Test Subjects" with Hinata and his classmates names written below it. Then there’s the newspaper on the board. There’s a photo of a lady on it, and “ Hiyoko Saionji” is written under the clipping.

Souda has a theory about the photo: Hiyoko had an older sister with the same name. However Monobear asserts that this is in fact Hiyoko,  and that she went into the growth phase. Naturally Hinata and Souda are left confused. Also, if there are test subjects, there must have been an experiment, right?

After heading out of the room, Hinata finds himself now on the third floor. He decides to head into the recreation room. Inside the room there’s a confidential file on the table with the Hope's Peak Academy logo on it.

Regarding the Hope Cultivation Project: 

''Hope's Peak Academy, over several years, did research on “talent”. The Hope Cultivation Project consists of these efforts. It is for the sake of producing  a “true hope” to spread hope in the world; a groundbreaking, ultimate educational program.''

This project has been the aim of the academy ever since its founding, and it must succeed no matter what…

Also, there is another floating email hologram.

Regarding the report from earlier, about the “survivors from Hope's Peak Academy”

''They have been successfully taken into protection. They took various different courses of action, but fortunately all 15 people were successfully protected. ''

It is still not possible to obtain the details from them; how they survived the biggest and most despair inducing incident in all human history is still unknown, but as they are not all unscathed, it is certain that they pulled through terrible circumstances.

For deeper investigation, those of the same generation - “The ones” who survived the school murders - have been entrusted with this job.

''On the other hand, regarding the “refugees of despair”…There have been no effective leads, and we have no grasp on any news. Continue the search, and as they are found, deal with them immediately.'' Everything is for the sake of a future brimming with hope…So, why would the Future Foundation, who protected them, make them kill each other?

Heading outside Hinata realises he's now on the second floor, and things just keep getting weirder and weirder.

Heading into the library first, Hinata finds another email:

Future Foundation, 14th Division

To Naegi Makoto 

''What are you all doing and where are you now? Do you understand? Your actions are a huge infraction of the rules.''

''Why are you protecting the refugees of despair? You all should know personally how dangerous it is to let them live.''

''Calm down and think it through. You’re being fooled. Think about what’s important for the sake of lighting up the world’s hopes.''

''All six of you approved of our ideals, which is why you joined the Future Foundation, right? The Future Foundation saved you after you survived that tragedy, and helped to retrieve your memories.''

''Hand the refugees of despair over to us, the “main division” as soon as possible. Unless they are erased, the biggest and most despair inducing incident in all human history will not end…''

Everything is…for the sake of a future brimming with hope…

Next Hinata heads for class 2-B but end up somewhere quite different: the laundry room. However lying on the table is a tablet that contains more information on the New World Program:

The New World Program, also known as…Psychotherapeutic Communication Simulator.

''The New World Program consists of the newest psychotherapy machinery and the manager program. The development of the New World Program began with SHSL Programmer, SHSL Neurologist, SHSL Therapist etc. … It puts to use the research done by several Hope's Peak Academy talents.''

''By putting the equipment on one’s head all test subjects can experience a “simultaneous simulated world”. In addition, as a special feature of the New World Program information gained from the simulated world can “replace” real world information.''

''As a result, it is possible to cause effects that are completely different from what the real world has caused. However, as it is for psychotherapeutic purposes, other uses are strictly forbidden. It is useful for dealing with brainwashing and possession, however on the other hand, if used with evil intentions there is the danger of destroying the subjects’ personalities.'' Therefore, the use of this program and the handling of information requires extreme care.Hinata freaks out, but decides he needs to keep moving onwards. He leaves the room to find himself now on the first floor, and heads into class 1-B.

Inside the classroom is a strange, floating panel. It reacts to Hinata as he moves closer to it.

Alter Ego says hello and Hinata freaks out a little. Alter Ego or AE, is a program, with artificial intelligence, just as he was in Dangan Ronpa. He’s the program master of the New World Program. He takes care of the world’s construction and management, but only has an observer’s power over the inhabitants. In other words he can’t directly affect the participants.

Under normal circumstances he shouldn’t even been meeting any of them. However, due to a virus, the world became weird. Hinata has problems accepting this. He wants to know where he is, and what the New World Program is.

It seems like the data for the Program wasn’t completely collected before it needed to be used, so it used data from the testing stage, that is, data from the Jabberwock Islands. So if Hinata wants to know where he is, it’s “most likely the Jabberwock Islands”. Some info is different though, like the school they’re currently in. This seems to be an area that’s completely under the virus’ control. AE can’t say much about what’s going on outside since he’s just a program.

Hinata asks what the New World Program is for. It’s meant to make the real world a wonderful place. To put it simply, it’s a program meant to create hope. Everyone’s memories were erased because new memories were going to be put in in their place. Hinata wonders why there’s a need to do this but AE himself isn’t sure why there was such a rush to start up the program that was still in the testing phase. He doesn’t know much about the outside world. Hinata thinks that maybe the program is being tested on him and his friends.

More on the virus, it took over the observer’s permissions. This run of the Program consisted of 15 people and 2 observers. One of these observers was a teacher (Usami/Monomi), the other a student (Nanami). Incidentally, the teacher had some power over the students, but the student had no admin powers at all. The teacher’s admin powers consists of making/managing the rules.

When the virus came in, the world changed from a peaceful world to one like the outside world, filled with violence, death and despair. The virus itself is a mystery, being far more powerful than AE expected. It went as far as to be able to steal AE’s ability to construct the world. There’s no way for the virus to enter the system via a network connection, so someone must have physically brought it in through a memory device. The good news is that the virus has its limits. It can’t touch the system’s foundations. As it took over the observer’s position, it must follow the observer’s rules.

Monobear butts in at this point to prevent AE from saying any more. Then a weird glitch happens, and Hinata finds himself in a weird space. Someone speaks through a strange panel to Hinata, like the one Alter Ego appeared in. Hinata realizes that the person talking to him can’t see or hear anything.

The person says they are talking through AE. He says they’ve been watching the video feed, and everything that Hinata and the other students did. They wanted to go and save them immediately, but because of the virus, they couldn’t. The Program won’t even take a shutdown command from outside now. “That person” made an independent space inside. AE, however, gave him a chance to talk directly, since there’s no time, he believes that there’s someone listening and just talks undirectionally.

First, he apologizes; this was way out of their expectations. He takes responsibility for not noticing the virus. In addition, he didn’t believe that the program was flawless and was unsure if he should use it on Hinata and the other students. But he says that this was the only way to save them! He wanted to save them!

Then he mentions the password in Mouse Castle, 11037. The original plan was for everyone to collect Hope Fragments, and when that was done the ruin doors would open and they would do the graduation exam. Just in case, though, they left the password in a place that the teacher observer didn’t like, though he didn’t expect Komaeda to erase it. There was a reason he set it to that number…a certain person left that number behind to save him when he was in trouble.

Finally, “that person” is likely to be planning to use the graduation exam to make Hinata and the other students despair but as far as possible, they should hold out until they are able to enter the system. Then it’s possible to defeat that person, using their trump card - a special command, “forced shutdown”. Even the teacher does not have the power to prevent it from happening. The only problem is that there needs to be a majority vote for it to work. The person speaking with Hinata says he will do something about that number… then the screen glitches again and Hinata’s back in the classroom.

Monobear seems to notice something weird happened but it wasn’t obvious enough for him to care about it. He heads off. Hinata tries to ask AE, but AE refuses to answer, and Hinata realizes that what just happened is a secret. AE’s job from now on is just to prevent the virus from spreading. Monobear calls everyone to gather for the graduation exam. They all head for the red doors, and the final class trial begins...

Monobear explains the graduation exam. Everyone has a touch panel at their places, with two buttons: Graduate and Stay. If the majority decides to graduate, for the “graduation program” to start, however, the teacher needs to also give their approval for the students to graduate. Once again, Monobear says that he’s waiting for some people to arrive. It’s got nothing to do with Hinata and the other students, who are really small fry in the bigger picture of things…

Since Monobear says they have to know about what’s going on outside, they start the discussion.

First question: what is this world that they’re currently in?

Answer: A program.

Or, as Monobear puts it, a game. In any case, this explains all the weird things - the chicken turning into a cow in the prologue, the infinite food, the weird transitions. This program, as we’ve found out earlier, was made by the Future Foundation. It taps into a person’s brain, so everyone does exist in real life. Right now though, they’re just avatars. Avatars with their memories removed.Without their memories, no one remembers each other, even if they met in school before. So even if their appearance changed, as Hiyoko’s did, they wouldn’t notice it. In any case, everything in this world is fake, no matter how real it feels.

Kuzuryuu asks that if everything is fake, then that would mean that if they get out, their dead friends will surely be alive! Unfortunately, the reality is that the program is really powerful stuff. The reality that they feel in the program is barely any different from the real world, in other words, if anyone dies inside, their brain stops functioning as well. Their body goes on working, so they become something like a shell. They’ll go on sleeping forever. Monobear tells them to direct their anger towards the Future Foundation, because those guys made them do it.

But the point of the program was to create a safe haven. It was because of the virus that infected it that they were made to kill each other. It was not until Usami was turned into Monomi that things became weird.

Second question, what was Usami's purpose in the program?

Answer: An observer.

Usami/Monomi was a non-player character, an AI. There was also one more observer, Nanami. Nanami was also anon-player character. Another AI. She doesn’t exist in the real world. Monobear brings up “destroyers of the world” with regards to the Future Foundation, and it seems everyone has decided that that’s a flat out lie. He defends himself - to them, in this place, they are the destroyers of the world. It’s not explained in detail before Hinata demands that Monobear reveal his true self. But wait! One of the main cast that Monokuma has been waiting for is finally here. He introduces himself as  Makoto Naegi and a member of the Future Foundation.

Souda demands to be saved, but it seems like Naegi is wary of them. While he doesn’t mind saving them, he wants them to be able to understand what sort of situation they’re all in right now.

Q: Why do you think the New World Program was used on you? The Program was also known as the “Hope-reviving Program”. What are your true identities?

A: Both the “survivors from Hope's Peak Academy” and “refugees of despair”.

In other words, Hinata and the other students are the surviving members of SHSL Despair. It seems like Naegi and his friends found them as the survivors, but eventually came to discover that they were the refugees of despair. They were the ones who started the despair event and put the world into confusion. Despair in human form, with not a shred of humanity in them. Spreading despair without any reason or ideals.

Hinata can’t believe it. Naegi says that this is perhaps why Komaeda did what he did. Komaeda found out about this through the file he received from the Final Dead Room. That part of the file was destroyed by him, so no one else saw it. That’s why he tried to kill everyone but the traitor. Knowing that everyone including him was SHSL Despair, and given how he loved hope and hated despair it makes sense now. It was a very Komaeda thing to do.

This all happened because they came into contact with “her” after entering school; Junko Enoshima. For the sake of removing this influence on them, they were put into the Hope-reviving Program. It’s because the program removed their memories that they’re able to act like normal people, while in reality, they’re people who spare no thought in destroying their family, friends and even their own bodies.

Hinata suddenly has a vision (part of chapter 0). It seems like a memory seeped back in. This convinces Hinata that Naegi is right. Komaeda cut off his own hand and transplanted a woman’s hand onto his arm. Not just any woman’s, but Junko Enoshima’s. He was perhaps thinking of letting her live within him. It sounds really unbelievable, but there’s more. This isn’t just what SHSL Despair did, there are some that starved themselves to feel the despair of hunger; offered their family to Enoshima for the sake of killing experiments; forced people to kill themselves in Enoshima’s footsteps, and massacred ordinary citizens in great numbers; transplanted Enoshima’s eye into their socket, perhaps in the hopes of seeing her despair.

If they all follow what Naegi tells them to do they’ll all be saved! That’s what he came to do, that’s what the program is for. They’ve gone so far, even though it deviated wildly from the path that he’d intended them to follow (by collecting Hope Fragments) but they still ended up in this place. All that’s left is to choose to graduate. The only thing is that it’ll erase their memories permanently. By choosing to graduate, the new memories will overwrite the old. Unfortunately, as mentioned before, the dead people will not come back to life.

Monobear shows them a diagram illustrating what will happen. If they choose to stay, they’ll continue to live on the island. Sonia is unsure because going outside means having to face the things that their past selves did. There seems to be a catch, though, Monobear isn’t trying to stop them.

Hinata finds this suspicious and asks to wait, and Naegi gets annoyed, demanding that they hurry up and hit the graduate button. That they should be grateful that the Future Foundation is even still trying to help them, when they should be destroyed. No one can oppose the Future Foundation! Which of course is a contradiction, considering that from a previous email, Naegi already did so by protecting them.

The Naegi who talked to Hinata seemed more likely to be the real one than the one standing before them now. To prove once and for all that this is a fake Naegi, Hinata asks if he can say what sort of meaning the password “11037” holds. Which of course, he can’t. It was Monobear, as expected. Fake Naegi disappears. Everyone is angry of course, but Monobear says that this isn’t the end. It’s time for a form change! Everyone soon realizes this is Enoshima Junko. As for why she’s here even though she’s already dead? This is an AI. She made it before she died. Someone brought her into the program and she made modifications to the graduation program.

Junko provides the group with another diagram, explaining that she modified the program so that if the students choose to graduate their dead friends will come back to life! Kuzuryuu explains that it wouldn't be easy to modify the program due to it being heavily encrypted but since she became an AI she sort of became more knowledgeable about computers. Incidentally another question:

Q: How long do you think it took to modify the program? Hint: It’s in a place that everyone has seen.

Not A: The countdown in Jabberwock Park. She just set the timer for herself as a sort of goal. So nope. It was a meaningless question. Hinata is wary, and wants to know why she did all this. What does she stand to gain from this? She doesn’t give a straight answer and just suggests everyone graduate right now. Just as everyone’s about to hit graduate, though… The real Naegi shows up, telling the students not to hit the graduate button. He wanted to come sooner, but the virus made it difficult to get into the program. In fact it’s likely that Junko was the one who made it possible for him to come in at this particular timing. It doesn’t matter though, he’s here to save everyone, and put an end to this.

As for method of entry he used the same hack that Junko used to get in. This is why he’s still in the form he was in when he entered school, but still retains his memories. However, the problem is that he’s still under Junko’s teacher powers. He knew this, but came in because this is the only way to save everyone. In addition, it’s a lie that everyone’s dead friends will come back to life. Junko changed the “Hope-reviving Program” into a “Despair-regenerating Program”.

The dead students’ avatars were erased which was something Naegi had not expected to happen, but Junko set her sights on. She wanted to overwrite the dead students’ minds with her own AI. The AI that she created with technology stolen from Naegi’s friend. In other words, she wanted to create more copies of herself. Well it’s not like they’ll be totally different people anyway. She has lots of data, lots of data on them, so those copies will be able to act as the people they’re supposed to be. Her real plan though is to turn everyone into Enoshimas!! Take over the dead students first, take over the Future Foundation’s facilities make more Enoshimas! Thing is, though, why didn’t she just kill everyone? It would have saved a lot of time and effort.

Answer? Because she had to obey the teacher’s rules.

''“The teacher will not be directly involved with the students. However, an exception will be made if any rules are broken.” ''

Junko could add rules, but not remove them. It was something she could modify too, but she was already working on the graduation program. So anyway, it didn’t matter to her what resulted from the mutual killings. Just as long as she could have the bodies to take over. This is Junko, she is despair.

She mentions an incident in which people who completely and truly loved her, all killed themselves. Hinata asks if that’s referring to the reserve course students, which of course she is. Junko takes away the futures of everyone who has anything to do with her; Hinata and the other students are victims as well. Once again though, the problem arises. What should everyone do? They can’t hit graduate because that will go according to Junko’s plan. Naegi wants to get all of them out as well so he mentions the forced shutdown. Which can’t be used because there aren’t enough people. The forced shutdown requires over half of the total number of participants to press both “graduate” and “stay” at the same time. The same person also can’t press more than one panel at once. Naegi included, there are only 6 people. Eight are needed. Fortunately Naegi seems to have a plan. Kirigiri and Togami enter the system allowing enough people to vote for a forced shutdown.

Hinata needs to know: what happens if they decide to shut the program down?

Answer: All the data on the program will be erased. Sadly, dead people will stay dead, and in addition, the survivors will return to the state they were in before they entered the program (i.e., return to SHSL Despair). The avatars will disappear. They’re all nervous, even though the Future Foundation trio say they’ll continue to protect them afterwards. Particularly with regards to the fact that they’ll not remember why everyone died they won’t remember what happened in this world, and won’t remember what everyone died for.

Hinata doesn’t want to forget “that person” who existed only in this world and spent her life protecting everyone... In the first place, they don’t even know how the situation even became like this. Why did they become SHSL Despair? Naegi tried to ask them before they were sent into the program, but no one answered him. According to Junko, they were all doomed from the moment they had talent and hope.And then Junko talks about why she keeps calling them “small fry”. She had a bigger aim, that is, to attract certain people to the situation. She used the cameras to send the feed into the outside world in order to attract the Future Foundation. Surely they’d notice if things started happening in the same pattern and once again, they couldn’t come in any sooner because of the virus. In the worst case they could just cut the power, but they didn’t know what would happen to the students.

The students notice, however, that Junko seems to be suggesting that they themselves chose to enter this world, which is true. They themselves went into the world, choosing to act as bait for the Future Foundation they were the ones who caused themselves to kill each other.

To graduate or not to graduate? If the students choose to graduate instead of shutting down, Junko won’t allow the Future Foundation trio to leave; they’ll be stuck inside forever. However, are the students going to be able to choose to shutdown? Naegi and co. believe in them, and won’t let Junko cause them despair. But apparently it’s not Junko who’s going to make them despair. It’s going to be the real culprit this time; Izuru Kamukura!

That’s the founder of the school, isn’t it? And also known as the genius of geniuses? Not even Naegi knows. Kirigiri explains hardly anyone knew about Kamukura. Enoshima continues, the school hid Kamukura to protect him. He caused the school incident to happen which was under Junko’s influence. After the incident, news about Kamukura petered out. Junko asserts that Kamukura, unlike what they might expect, is alive and well... because Hinata is Izuru Kamukura.

It's strange because he’s in the reserve course…because he had no talents…but that’s precisely why the fruits of the Hope Cultivation Project, aka Izuru Kamukura Project after the founder, was carried out on him. They made him, an ordinary student, into a genius among geniuses. They chose him because he wanted to be in Hope's Peak  Academy more than anyone else. They operated on his brain. They made him into a person who consisted only of talent, and because of Junko he fell into SHSL Despair. All she did was affect his mind, it was the school who changed his brain. Kamukura cares nothing about anything not related to gaining talents. Even his memoriesand original personality are suppressed entirely. So Hinata exists only as an avatar now. The program dug deep into his memories and managed to reconstruct Hinata but if he should choose to shutdown, Hinata will disappear.

Hinata remembers speaking with Komaeda as Kamukura. Kamukura was the one who brought Junko into this world… He was behind the reason all the killings happened. Is there a way to save him, to keep him as Hinata? Of course there is, if he chooses to graduate but can he choose? He knows how bad it is to let Junko out, but he also can’t accept the thought that the other option will cause him to disappear. His hope and the world’s hope are different. And as for everyone else, will they be able to let themselves forget? Will they be able to accept that they will disappear? As much as the Future Foundation trio try to convince them to think rationally, they can’t help but despair.

Hinata cannot bring himself to choose. Why does he have to choose? He’s not talented like everyone else. There’s no way he can choose to let the world be destroyed, or sacrifice himself. And the others are also pushed to their limits, they’ve been through so much, and now they’re being asked to just throw it all away. Junko takes that as an answer; that they have no answer. In which case everything is still as predicted, and they can all stay here forever.

Everything seems to reset, Hinata is back on the island with all the other students (the dead ones have came back to life). They all agree that there's no need to forget or be forgotten and things will be good this way. There is also no sign of Junko or the future foundation trio. The conversation loops a few times before glitch Nanami appears. Hinata is able to use her words against fake Nanami's and ends up in Limbo with Nanami. Hinata asks who she is and why she’s here, because she should have been erased. She doesn’t give a straight answer. He wonders if she’s here because of his memories but that doesn’t really matter. It’s kind of terrible isn’t it, to have to decide whether to let the world be destroyed, or let himself disappear. Won’t Nanami hate to be forgotten too? If he disappears, she’ll cease to exist completely, not even in anyone’s memories. She says that’s not true, she won’t stop existing. Even if her existence is completely erased, and no one remembers her, as long as everyone heads towards the future that she and everyone else built together, she won’t totally disappear. She lived, she fought, and she put her life on the line for them, the evidence that she existed will always remain. Hinata is just afraid, afraid of all the responsibilities that he’ll have to shoulder and then Nanami gets serious and tells him to get moving. Hinata wanted to be proud of himself, didn’t he? That’s why he wanted to get into Hope's Peak Academy, right? All this time, he misunderstood something.

The goal is not to have talent. Rather than worry about whether he’s talented or not, he should do something more important, that is, to believe in himself. If he can’t even do that, no matter how much talent he has, he can’t be proud of himself. Surely, this was the way he used to be.

Past Hinata is past Hinata, though. She thinks he can take pride in himself now. Hinata asks which he should pick, his hope, or the worlds? She says it’s his choice, though he’s responsible for whichever he picks. However, if he can’t pick either then he should just create one for himself. The world isn’t a game, he’s not limited to the choices he has. She says that if he tries, it’ll work out. It’s not for someone else, it’s for himself. In any case, it’s about time for Hinata to do his stuff, she’ll help too.

Hinata finds himself standing in a circle with a bunch of Kamukura!Hinatas (their names are written as “Hajime Hinata”). They make the same complaints that he’d been making. I have no talents… I’d even been fooled by Hope's Peak Academy, the school I’d wanted to be in… I don’t want to disappear… I’m not Izuru Kamukura… Like I know what’s going to happen to the world… I don’t want to sacrifice myself… No one’s going to thank me anyway… There’s no way I can win against Enoshima! It’s all the Future Foundation’s fault… It’s not my fault… I can’t choose my future…

Nanami appears to offer Hinata support. Absorbing Nanami's encouraging words Hinata is able to break through his doubts. Whatever happens in the future, as long as everyone keeps going for it, she won’t disappear. Nothing that happened in this world will have been meaningless. Well-timed miracles will happen as long as they keep trying. So, everyone should go forth with all they’ve got, even if they think they might have to throw everything away in the process. She’ll be cheering them on.

In the brightness of the aftermath, Hinata remembers something, and regrets that once again, he missed the chance to say it. Hinata fades in from the darkness back into the main trial.

Using Nanami's words he is able to overcome despair. Hinata embraces his future and proclaims that he will not run away from his responsibilities. Junko is horrified at this revelation and starts a machine gun talk battle and at the end both Hinata and Nanami destroy her argument. Junko is convinced it’s a bug, this shouldn’t be happening, it’s out of her expectations and she has data on everyone enough to even predict what they’re going to say next, so this is saying something. Hinata tells everyone to start the forced shutdown. There are lots of possibilities for the future, but to start, they need to get out. Then, they create the future that they want to see. Even if it takes a miracle, it’s still possible, because it’s not a game, the future can be changed.

Everyone is suddenly motivated to begin. The group accept their responsibilities and are ready to create the future that they want to achieve. Junko is horrified that they’re all willing to sacrifice themselves. It seems to her that they’re just throwing themselves into despair, and she doesn’t get why they can bring themselves to do this. Hinata says this is because they believe in their futures, unlike her. They believe they can create their futures. Naegi thanks Hinata, but Hinata says that he’s not the one Naegi should thank. It’s not the absolute end, but a beginning.

After they choose to shut the system down, Usami appears and destroys giant Junko with rainbows, before disappearing in a flurry of hearts. Cell phone Junko says her last words before disappearing. She thought she wouldn’t feel any greater despair after “that despair”, and it’d just be empty remembering it. Ah, but then she won’t have to hope for despair any more. The Future Foundation trio leave the disappearing world. Togami wonders why Usami appeared, she should have been erased already. Kirigiri suggests it might be just as Hinata said. It’s not an end that had been prepared for them, but one they made. They’re going to keep moving on even if the future is uncertain and so, they’ll have to be trusted with it. There’s nothing they can do now that this world is ending, but there isn’t a need to, really.

The remaining five promise that they won’t forget. Even if they need to force themselves to, they’ll do their best to remember. Also if Hinata says anything stupid later Akane will beat him half to death. Before disappearing, Hinata thanks Nanami, and is glad that he’s finally said it.

“Me too…thank you. I won’t forget…everyone…I won’t forget…ever…From here on as well…I’ll be cheering everyone on, from somewhere. Because…we’ll always be friends.”

And so Chapter 6 comes to an end.

Epilogue
The epilogue begins with the future foundation trio discussing about the survivors. Togami asks if they didn't just return to the previous despair they were but Naegi disagrees, because if that were true they wouldn't have wanted to stay on the islands.

Kirigiri suggests that they chose to stay in the hopes that they could do something for their sleeping friends whether it was consciously or sub-consciously. Naegi agrees. Kirigiri also notes that maybe when they made that decision to stay, they ceased being their past selves.

Togami agrees that it would appear that only soft-hearted people remain now on the islands. Kirigiri mentions that the chances of the sleeping ones returning to normal is pretty much non existent, but Naegi believes that one day they will definitely come back, because even if it's the tiniest possibility, as long as they build towards that future they will definitely achieve it.

Togami calls Naegi naive but Kirigiri reassures him that, that is why they stick with him. Togami agrees with Kirigiri that they'll respect Naegi's judgement this time, but mentions that the difficult part for them has only begun. Kirigiri says that their choice to leave the students alone on the islands will have the higher-ups in an uproar. Naegi says they'll have to work hard to cover it up... Kirigiri asks him how he's going to explain the situation to Headquarters, Naegi says he will think of something on the ferry ride back. Kirigiri tells him not to expect her or Togami to help. Naegi tries to reason with them but Togami tells him he should be grateful they respect his opinion in the first place. The trio discuss the long road ahead of them, in dealing with the still on going Despair Inducing event and that they'll be working together for a little longer. Naegi says that they too, must create their own future and the leave on the ferry. Hinata watches the ferry leave.

In this manner…the incident ended.

''And then, from here on, daily life will begin.That will be absurd, preposterous and irrational, more so than the incident itself… It’ll definitely… always be difficult.  There’s no mystery that will give out its answer…Whether or not there will be a proper end to it is even uncertain. It’s not so much a road, as a sea that stretches out ahead in all directions…We can go anywhere…Or we might not be able to go anywhere at all ' Even so, I continue to live.'I continue to live as Hajime Hinata. ''