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goshdangronpa · 7 months

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We’re almost done discussing the first chapter of “I DISAGREE: An Ibuki Mioda SDR2 Protag Swap AU.” We’ve already discussed the first victim of this alternate killing game. We’ve already broken down some important parts of the trial. (Links included for newcomers who don’t want spoilers!) Now, we must reveal the story of the killer - and what happens once that story comes out.

I'm Brave but I'm Chickenshit: The First Blackened

Well, you already know it’s Kazuichi Soda. I revealed it at the end of the previous installment in this series. No surprises in this post. Nope, none at all.

When Kazuichi tries to remember the past few days, what comes up doesn’t feel like a memory. More like an off-kilter movie starring himself… or perhaps a nightmare that seems unreal but feels vivid. When he reflects, he sees some quixotic freak trying to live out a hero fantasy. Yelling for Monokuma to wrestle him, offering to restrain Chiaki while the others check up on her, attempting daring physical feats before being restrained himself - the very thought of such needless risk chills him now. But he can’t deny that this other Kazuichi was (some distorted and disturbing version of) the kind of person he always yearned to be.

Then, late last night, he awoke to a noise from outside. The chair that had been propped against the door handle had been removed. He was finally free to leave his room. When he slammed it open, he found that Chiaki’s door was open as well. This was bad news: the patient’s violent impulses had only worsened with the disease’s progression. For someone so dangerous to be outside of her ravaged room, on the loose and probably on the hunt … Kazuichi couldn’t let this stand. He needed to rally the troops and help them find her.

Suddenly, he spied, leaning against his doorway, a sword. Its origin was unknown, perhaps unknowable … maybe even divine. Yes, this blade must have been intended for him to wield against evil. No need to rouse anyone else from their slumber. He shall handle this himself.

The brave knight found his foe at the front entrance, struggling to unlock the door. Grinning, he leapt toward her and repelled her away, blocking her escape and protecting the other half of the island’s residents. Unfortunately, watching movies of samurai and ninja and knights doesn’t count as training in the weapon. Kazuichi’s clumsiness with the sword enabled her to dodge his parries and swings. She got behind him, then scurried up the steps that lead to the restaurant. On its other side, he realized with a gasp, there’s an outdoor stairwell that can bring her right to the cottages.

He chased. He confronted. He cornered. At last, he killed.

The victory of the moment vanished in the same instant as the target’s soul. Between blinks, Kazuichi stopped seeing a bloodthirsty fiend. He then saw Chiaki Nanami, a quiet and chill girl who got sick and acted differently. Though he couldn’t fully trust anyone under these circumstances, he’d felt that she was harmless enough, even pretty cute. Now, he was holding what looked like a sword, and it was right through her stomach, and the blood wouldn’t stop gushing down the stairs.

Terrified, he impulsively removed the blade and chucked it into the air. The splash it made as it landed in the swimming pool (from far away - guy’s got muscles!) spooked him. Afraid that the sound may have awoken potential witnesses, he fled back to his room, where he awaited his fate. Maybe he wouldn’t even make it to morning. What had prompted him to impale the girl, he recalled with a wince, was that in a last act of desperation, she’d slashed him across the chest with her nails (they’re normally filed short for optimal button-pushing, but she’d been growing and sharpening them at the hospital). He was bleeding, too ... really badly. Knowing he was dead either way, he fainted.

Morning came. Kazuichi was alive, his wound bandaged. He zipped his jumpsuit. He couldn’t breathe a word. Not until another seemingly harmless and pretty cute girl, Ibuki Mioda, urged him to damn himself.

He gets more sympathy than expected. So does Chiaki, which is good. Everyone now understood the nature of Despair Disease. Neither patient was in the right frame of mind. Neither would’ve really wanted to kill. He arguably even saved their lives at the cost of his own. Which is heroic! But, Hiyoko observes, he also failed to speak up when Peko, Fuyuhiko, and Byakuya were all this close to being falsely convicted. So he nearly negated his own sacrifice to what he would’ve known, subconsciously or otherwise, to be his benefit. A coward to the end.

“Can you blame me?” he shouts, no longer caring how he came off. “I don’t want to die, either.”

But die, he must. The votes come in. Monokuma bangs the gavel. Ready or not, it’s punishment time.

Kazuichi’s execution sees him yanked into the air by a claw and dropped roughly onto a conveyor belt. On the other end is a killing machine, a mess of gears and pointy objects and belches of flame straight out of Saw. With walls on either side, he can only run against the flow, as fast as his long legs can take him. Miscellaneous parts and machinery threaten to trip him, and Monokuma (dressed in appropriate safety gear) ramps up the belt’s speed. For the climax, you ever see that part from the movie Modern Times where Charlie Chaplin is caught between moving gears? It’s that, but less silent comedy slapstick and more horror movie mangling.

No one’s happy with this. Least of all because they still couldn’t conclude who among the staff could’ve helped him escape. Someone on the outside had to open the patients’ doors, drop off the weapon, and bandage Kazuichi’s wounds. Speculation runs wild: Byakuya must've done it because he knew where the sword was kept. Ibuki must've done it because how else could an airhead like her solve this mystery? The whole medical staff must've done it because they couldn’t think of a more painless way to stop the disease.

Ibuki takes some pride in saving everyone’s skins, but the agony of the execution and the distrust of her peers severely bums her out. She wishes she could go back to the gates of Hope’s Peak so she could turn around and leave. Or to that fateful morning when the disease first struck, so she could tell everyone what she knows now and maybe change the outcome. She’d even settle for earlier this morning, when she found Mikan beside her in bed again, looking all snug, feeling really warm …

Oh. Oh, shit.

Next week.

PREV: The First Trial

NEXT: Mikan Tsumiki, Ultimate Despair

#I DISAGREE: An Ibuki Mioda SDR2 Protag Swap AU #danganronpa #super danganronpa 2 #sdr2 #goodbye despair #ibuki mioda #kazuichi souda #chiaki nanami #fan execution #I've really built up a backlog and with each week of doing this I'm getting itchier and itchier to just release everything at once #then I end up completely rewriting a post and I'm reminded all over again why I'm staggering releases like this #alas poor Kazuichi! I had other ideas for this character ... but I also really liked these #Chiaki was always gonna bite it at the start though #the cost of making a side character into a protag is finding a way to make the original protag into a side character

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