danganronpa v2: sacrificial fates

by makochiu

Summary:

"Ah, right. This is Team Danganronpa’s Neurology branch, dedicated to the analysis of memory and restructuring of the brain. We are dedicated to constructing the desires of the real people who enter the Danganronpa universe into fictitious remedies for their ailing souls… in that sense, we construct their Ultimate Real Fiction. And today, we will be exploring a beloved trope that fans have been requesting the return of - the Ultimate Survivor. With our two sacrifices, [REDACTED] and [REDACTED], we will be creating a form of… meta satisfaction for the viewers who requested the return of this, in a sense."

[ OR a piece that explores the headcanon of Tsumugi being another sacrifice, and how Team Danganronpa brutalised the minds of their casts. ]

Testing, testing, one-two, reload.

 

Ha, do you think you’re funny or something?

 

Well, we are Team Danganronpa…

 

More like their lackeys.

 

Shh! This is basically our proof of work to the higher ups. We need to take these logs so they know what’s been done correctly, what hasn’t been done at all, and the faults in the system. Don’t you remember the Season 32 disaster, just after we started this up? We gotta have accountability across the board to ensure it never repeats.

 

Who could forget a disaster like that? The memories coming back and the characters protesting to the screens… our ratings were atrocious, I was sure we’d be shut down. It worked way smoother when we just had actors playing a part - that guy who played [REDACTED] is still my drinking buddy.

 

Yeah, lucky you. I still have to deal with [REDACTED] trying to sue the whole franchise for endangering kids because we didn’t warn [REDACTED]’s actress about her role. Don’t they know its mature media? Kids think they’re tough and mature, so kids have to learn how hard this world really is. I have no sympathy for crotch spawns who think they deserve an easier life.

 

Oh man, I remember that! Man, I would’ve just split [REDACTED]’s head open myse-

 

Okay, okay, I think alcohol’s still in your system. You’re getting a bit too graphic there.

 

My bad… These regular people are at least easier to deal with than actors, even if we have to restructure their whole minds, you know? We can basically design them to be obedient little cunts who just do what we tell them to and when.

 

Yeah… speaking of, we’ve actually got to start our log, not just chitter chatter over it.

 

Man, I hate all these formalities. Can’t wait ‘til we can get to the killing again.

 

Tch, yeah. That’s the whole point, ain’t it?

 

I just love the angst that comes with it, man. Everyone’s dumb enough to sign themselves up for that exact suffering, too!

 

And we get to toy with their brains!

 

Yeah! Speaking of…

 

Ah, right. This is Team Danganronpa’s Neurology branch, dedicated to the analysis of memory and restructuring of the brain. We are dedicated to constructing the desires of the real people who enter the Danganronpa universe into fictitious remedies for their ailing souls… in that sense, we construct their Ultimate Real Fiction. And today, we will be exploring a beloved trope that fans have been requesting the return of - the Ultimate Survivor. With our two sacrifices, [REDACTED] and [REDACTED], we will be creating a form of… meta satisfaction for the viewers who requested the return of this, in a sense. We will begin with our first vict- sacrifice, Codename: Rantaro Amami.

 

---

 

It began in pulses. Like an echo, it hummed low yet continuously within the back of his head, as the world around him became a watercolour haze. Eventually, as the world grew brighter, a luminary of the stars which turned him towards the wake of Hell, the pulses began to tear. Severed flesh screamed for forgiveness. The back of his head, cracked open so cold touches could invade the warm, wet familiarity of what gushed out of him, found itself unravelled. Needles pierced the membrane of his stability as fingers rummaged through what remained. He screamed.

They had told him before he went under that it wouldn’t hurt.

They lied.

They rummaged through him, as if they found pleasure in caressing each line of rotten flesh, and sent shockwaves through him with each tilt of the needle. Though his throat burned, he still cried.

 

Someone.

Anyone.

 

Save him.

 

Save me .

 

Only when the bright white faded did it all cease, his head flopping straight down. Wires were gouged out of his bloodied, mottled skin, and his head had a bandage wrapped around it. A bandaid on a gaping wound. Quite literally.

 

As the scientists raised his chin, they glanced towards each other.

“The last survivor didn’t scream that badly. You only inserted the needles,” one said, peering over a clipboard. Upon it lay an array of requests from the literary side of the team. Crossed out were commands about romantic subplots and desires - allegedly, some people had recently auditioned with visual chemistry that motivated them greater than the META promises of the Survivor finding love ever did. Instead, the commands reiterated the obvious. He could not emerge with memories of his Survivor nature. He would have to choose to trust himself, the past self that had already fulfilled his Survivor Perks and signed the forms for further brainwashing; of course, he wouldn’t remember how they threatened him and her with similar deaths to the mastermind if they didn’t comply, either.

“Well, they do say that it feels ten times worse when you receive it…” the scientist on lobotomy duty turned to their peer with a grin. Needles dangled in the air as they chided, “Wanna try?”

“Ew, no! It’s still got his juices on it!” Sure enough, red chunks slithered down the piercingly sharp end. “Just focus on making sure he doesn’t remember when he wakes up.”

“Aww, but it’s so fun-” the floppy head jittered. Both scientists whipped their heads to face him. One tilted the chair to face them fully, ensuring the necessary wires remained in his pierced skin, and tapped his cheek a few times. “Hello?”

“Hnnnn…” he groaned. Like a cheap toy, his head bobbed up and down. Dried lips severed, and bile gushed with red chunks through his teeth. Clipboard cast to the side and tissues dotted around his mouth and lap, the scientists ignored his first plea. “Who are you?”

“Seriously, you must’ve done something wrong, he shouldn’t be throwing up bloo-”

“ Who are you?!” Clenched fists complemented a guttural growl. Eyes rolled forward, from the depths of his stained skull, and webs of bloodshot agony wove across their whites. Fixed on the strangers, he growled again, “Who are you? Who are you?”

“Calm down, we’re just-”

“Who are you?! Why am I strapped to this chair?” The green hair which had once been one of his charm points—the Adventurer with a soft spot for his younger sisters, who looked out for the women around him despite the idea that he got around permeating their first impressions—had dyed itself the same tone as vomit with the sweat seeping through it. It poured down his tanned, thinned face, along the bloodied white robes they had cast over him in fear of sickness or complication. Both scenarios had been accounted for. “Let me go! Let me go!”

A fierce slap echoed through the room. Gasps followed in a killing harmony. “That’s enough of that, Amami.”

“Amami…?” His terrified eyes widened further, prepared to gouge themselves out. That’s right, he was Rantaro Amami. That was all he knew. Everything else, like TV static, seemed to have been tucked away in dormancy.

 

He knew there was more to his tale.

 

But…

 

“I can’t… remember…” as he spoke, the scientist with the clipboard hurried their pen across the page. “Why can’t I… remember anything…?”

“Good, it worked-”

“What worked?!” Shadows overcast his eyes. Fear shifted to desperation in his gut, and he made a croak of the throat as he swallowed his bile once more. “What have you done to me?”

“What you asked us to do,” their hands found his shoulders, a slight shake rattling his bruised skull. “You are Rantaro Amami. You will forget this ever happened between us, but for now, we need you to cooperate-”

“I’ll forget you? Does that mean I’ll get my actual memories back?” He had gained a reputation in the 52nd season for being cool, composed, and managing to at least maintain that facade through the whole season. Including when the mastermind was revealed. 

This man writhing in his seat exposed all superficiality. His wide eyelids gasping for air and his parted lips boring holes of hatred into those ahead of him… they exposed him for a liar, a fraud, a fictitious entity. The scientist simply sighed, mumbling pathetic , and turned to their coworker. “I think he needs another attempt. We can’t take identification photos like this - not for the Monopads or the teaser trailer.”

“Got it.”

Outstretched hands approached Rantaro. His heart fell to the floor as he spat all that rotted in his throat: “No! No, please! Please, please, please, plea-” with the click of a button, all the wires in his body pulsed. He flopped forward as if he had never been alive at all.

 

“Don’t you feel bad?”

“Not at all. He needs to behave - him and the girl’s obedience is crucial for this subplot to work.”

 

The girl in question had already been awoken. She stirred with much less hesitation, instead glancing side to side. Glass blocked her access to the other scientists, and though she had witnessed Rantaro’s jaw unhinge and the pus-ridden words which seeped out, she hadn’t reacted.

After watching what they did to quell disobedience, how could she?

Her heartbeat rattled in her ear. Inconsistent beats strummed the lining of her stomach, every sudden beat tearing another layer. She couldn’t throw up the metallic taste that draped across her tongue, nor could she shake the stinging tears behind her wide lenses.

With blue hair sticking to her sweat-laden skin, pale and mottled with undertones of grey, she simply watched as the first scientist walked in. They said, “Hello, Shirogane.”

Shirogane. Tsumugi Shirogane. That’s what her file must have said—she couldn’t remember, and she could only assume that boy didn’t, either. But, she feigned complacency with a nod, “Hello.”

“To warn you, you will forget this ever happened. I can imagine it must be… quite disorientating, knowing that your memory is being messed around like this…” disorientating didn’t even scratch the surface. When she glanced over at the boy with the green hair, at the piercings lining his ears and the tan to his skin, an emptiness lay hollow in her stomach. It was as if she were reaching for something in the dark - there was something, it was calling for her so desperately, but no matter how she navigated the dark, it wouldn’t appear. What had they experienced together? 

What were they going to do to the two of them when they were done with their ‘talks’? The overly clean smell of chemicals permeated the lining of her nose and she sniffled; she prayed they didn’t take it as an attempt to stifle her held-back tears. With her throat clogged, she mumbled, “It’s okay. Just… tell me what I need to know.”

“No, no, you have to tell us stuff,” the scientist pointed to the boy across the glass. “That is your… friend, Rantaro Amami. Does the name ring a bell?”

“No.”

“Good,” he then flashed a series of images. Of people. Faces that tugged at heartstrings which didn’t quite seem to be there anymore. Phantom urges. That’s what they call it, when you have a surgery to remove something but it still feels like it’s there. If she could feel that, then she knew something had been taken in the first place. “Any of these 14… students? Do you recognise them?”

“No. Not at all.” A growing cluster of aches formed in her throat, and she cleared it slightly. She had to obey. She had to. “Who are they?”

“It doesn’t matter, you’ve given us the answers we need,” with the clipboard being thoroughly updated, it seemed she had done all she needed to. Sleep would befall her aching limbs again, and she would be awoken with no recollection of any of this. “You’ve done well, Shirogane. You’re going to be part of something great, you know.”

“I am?”

“Yes. You’re going to be part of the 53rd season of Danganronpa. A crucial part, in fact,” with a smirk, the scientist feigned jazz hands. ‘Danganronpa’ tugged at her mind greater than anything prior. Why did she recognise that word? What had Danganronpa done to her? To him? To those 14 kids? “You’re going to become part of our team, you know. Our mastermind. And we just know you’ll love it, because we know how much you love fiction.”

“I…” the clump of mottled memories leapt from her throat as she choked up blood. Wet eyes stared straight through the scientist, straight to the other boy. She might have not remembered him, nor what this Danganronpa was, but mastermind carried horrific connotations. “I don’t want to hurt anybody, please, let us g-”

“That’s too bad,” they walked over to flick the switch. Her heart rate skyrocketed. Palpitating hands tried to break free of their chains. Her tongue spat the dry blood soaked against it. She widened both her lips and eyes to try and argue.

 

Instead, she screamed.

 

“You don’t have to worry about what you want, our new Ultimate Cosplayer. You won’t remember any of it.”

 

---

 

Both test subjects have been checked. Neither remembers anything, though both show immense signs of distress and resistance.

 

I mean, wouldn’t you? If I woke up strapped to some machine with people prodding me, I’d be pretty annoyed myself.

 

Yes, I know, but… man, if only they knew just what they were gonna be a part of. How they wanted to be a part of it!

 

They’re all idiots. That illusion of choice always messes them up in the final fight - like, “aw man, I wouldn’t have signed up for that! What do you take me for, some murder-loving fanatic?” Like, yeah, you were one. And you always think you’re clever enough to thwart the system, too!

 

Ha, I can’t wait to see how these idiots die, too.

 

Yeah, especially that Rantaro Amami. He pissed me off in the last season… imagine having so many babes at your disposal and all you care about is your damn sisters?

 

Fiction doesn’t always favour the nice guys…

 

Yeah… man, that Tsumugi Shirogane’s a weirdo too. I wish we got cooler survivors.

 

Hey, we’re making a cool plot with the scraps we’ve got. I mean, the sacrifices being the Ultimate Survivor and the mastermind? If that doesn’t get our ratings up, nothing will.

 

Man, imagine if they end up killing each other. Wouldn’t that just be poetic, haha!

 

Damn, it would be.

 

Let’s wait and see. We gotta actually set them up to be tossed back in the game with all our newbies first… remember, Shirogane’s always been a part of our team.

 

How could I forget? Going along with their stories is crucial. We don’t want any fourth wall breaks again.

 

Indeed, indeed…

 

*bzzt* This is Team Danganronpa’s Neurology branch, dedicated to the analysis of memory and restructuring of the brain. We are dedicated to constructing the desires of the real people who enter the Danganronpa universe into fictitious remedies for their ailing souls… in that sense, we construct their Ultimate Real Fiction, blah blah blah. We have finished today’s study of our test subjects. Good night… until tomorrow…

Notes:

tumblr: tousakamis (personal) / makochiu (updates)
twitter: lycorania (updates)

this is... definitely an experimental piece. like, both in terms of the tones of fic i write, but also in terms of the themes and descriptions explored. it might be absolute ass and sound like a kid trying to be edgy, but i just really love the headcanon that tsumugi was ALSO a sacrifice, and they made her think she was always a member of staff. another pawn for the unethical actions of team danganronpa to entertain viewers while forcing the 'characters' to take accountability for that illusion of choice and creation... im a little rusty with my horror descriptions, so they might be really bad...! but, any hits/comments/kudos are appreciated!!