Chapter Text
“So in the end…we still don’t know what was true or not,” Maki concluded, a thoughtful weight to her words as she glanced around at the rubble of their destroyed school. Or at least, what they had believed had been a school. She looked up at the massive hole K1-B0’s destruction had made in the academy’s glass dome, bright light shining through it that prevented the three of them from seeing what was beyond. “The fictional world ends here, and the real world lies out there. Perhaps just beyond here is the truth.” She looked back down at the ground. “But, maybe it isn’t.”
“Maybe it’s all still fiction in that world, or...” Himiko thought aloud, hopelessness seeping back into her voice. “Maybe Danganronpa still continues in that world, or…”
“Or maybe he outside world is the same as this world,” Maki suggested, letting out a slight chuckle that surprised both Himiko and Shuichi. “It might be a world…filled with lies.” Maki ignored the thought that what she just said sounded a lot like the mantra of a certain purple-haired menace and instead smiled at her two companions.
“Well…” Himiko raised a finger to her chin, considering Maki’s suggestion. “If we can get out from here, we’ll know for sure.” The two girls looked to Shuichi for agreement, only to see the detective was still deep in thought.
“Yeah…” Shuichi finally spoke again, voice trailing off. “But I feel like…there’s not too much meaning in truth and lies…”
“Nyeh? What do you mean?” Himiko asked. Shuichi gave a thoughtful hum.
“I mean that…” He began, attempting to put his thoughts in cohesive order. “Even if something is a lie, even if it’s fiction…If it has the power to change the world, then it must contain some kind of truth. Aren’t we proof of that?” He gestured to the three of them as thoughts of their fallen peers flashing through his mind. “In this fictional world, we overcame all these fictional struggles…but those things changed us. And we were able to change the world. So it doesn’t really matter where the truth ends and where the lies begin. If lies can change the world just as well as the truth can…then lies…are just another way of telling the truth. Some lies can lead the world to hope…some truths can lead the world to despair…so I don’t think anyone can really say which is more right in the end.”
“I guess it’s not important whether it’s a truth or lie,” Himiko agreed. “Just what it leads to…”
“Yeah, that’s what I believe,” Shuichi confirmed with a smile, happy to see his rambling thoughts were being understood. “We stand with one foot in fiction, and one foot in reality.” The trio all looked back up at the opening in the glass dome, their exit into the outside world.
“Then, we need to see for ourselves whether this fictional world has changed the outside world,” Maki said, taking one last look around the destroyed compound they were leaving behind. “And what we can do from this point on…”
“You’re right,” Himiko decided, sounding more determined than Shuichi had ever heard her be. “We can’t stay in this fictional world forever. It’s already over. We gotta take all the experiences we earned in this world and go on to the next.”
“Yeah, let’s go. We’ll see what this world gained, and what it lost, and all the rest. Let’s find out, together.” Shuichi looked between his companions for confirmation that they were ready to move forward. Himiko responded with a smile but Maki was still staring off into space. Shuichi now noticed the assassin had tensed up, unblinking as she looked off into the distance.
“Maki? Is something wrong?” Shuichi asked. Maki’s gaze was intense, the same look she gave when it was guaranteed to be followed by sharp words or deadly action.
“Look over there,” She spoke, her voice even but laced with caution as she pointed at something behind Shuichi and Himiko. The two followed the direction in which she pointed and finally saw what had her on edge.
A man stood a ways away from their small group, or at least Shuichi assumed he was a man. The figure, dressed in a dark suit and sporting short brown hair, regarded them from afar. What gave Shuichi pause were the translucent red squares floating around the man, like pixels from a videogame. Even from afar, Shuichi could see his eyes matched the vibrant red of the squares.
“Who is that?” Himiko whispered, clearly uncomfortable with the sudden presence of a stranger as she pulled her hat down to partially shield her face.
“Um…ex-excuse me?” Shuichi called out, tentatively raising one hand in a sort of half wave. The man looked between the three of them, observing.
“Don’t mind me, I’m merely here to retrieve you three,” The stranger finally spoke. Out of the corner of his eye Shuichi saw Maki take a step forward, her hand twitching by her side likely preparing to grab a weapon that she unfortunately didn’t have. The man tracked her movement, gaze settling on her as if he decided she was the one he needed to keep an eye on.
“Retrieve us?” Himiko repeated. “But wait-”
“Who are you?” Maki cut in, taking another step forward so she had Shuichi and Himiko slightly behind her. “Do you work for them, the showrunners?”
“I was listening to your conversations before and I’m honestly quite impressed,” The man said, ignoring Maki’s question. “For all the points you’ve guessed wrong, you’ve also made a startlingly high number of accurate assumptions. It’s also good to see your final thoughts here are on the side of hope. That’ll make things easier later.” The man raised one of his hands, curling some of his fingers in towards his palm so his grip resembled a gun.
“Make what easier? Please, tell us what’s going on,” Shuichi begged as he reached out to try and pull Maki back towards them.
“Please remain still,” The man requested, still ignoring their questions as he closed one eye and pointed his finger gun in the direction of the group. “The less traumatizing this is now, the less damage we’ll need to fix later.”
Before Shuichi could even get a word out and ask what he meant, the sound of a gunshot rang out. There was no gun, just the man’s hand mimicking the shape of one, and yet the effect was clearly real because what else would cause Maki to suddenly slump to the ground beside him. Shuichi felt his heart stop as he stared down at Maki’s body, blood steadily pooling beneath her head where a seemingly imaginary bullet had passed cleanly through. He faintly registered that Himiko let out a scream before the sound of another gunshot preceded Himiko’s body collapsing beside Maki’s, their blood mixing together on the ground by Shuichi’s feet.
Shuichi couldn’t scream, he couldn’t even breathe. He merely stared down at their bodies, unmoving and silent, waiting for them to get back up, waiting for the nightmare to end. Because that was what this was, a nightmare.
It had to be.
They escaped.
They beat the game
They were leaving to face the outside world together.
This couldn’t be happening.
As those final thoughts ran through Shuichi’s mind he registered one last statement come from the stranger who had shot and killed his friends. The sound of another gunshot, a foreign pressure in his head, his senses fading to black as he fell to the ground beside Maki and Himiko, and three final words that were spoken with a tone that couldn’t be described as anything else but bored.
“World destruction complete.”