Danganronpa: String Theory (DrV3)

EXECUTION #2

⚠️ tw/ descriptive gore, death, and violence ⚠️

❀ 〰〰〰〰〰〰 ❀ 〰〰〰〰〰〰 ❀

The chain around Shuichi's throat feels like it could be strong enough to separate his head from his shoulders, something vaguely amusing considering why the chain is around his neck in the first place.

Beside him a few meters away, he can hear Prairie struggling against her own chains as well. It's too dark to see anything and the force pulling him makes it hard to even try attempting to turn his head.

He wonders what's compelled her to follow him into the execution floor. He's been awful to her, after all. Is she so fond of him that even after everything, she would choose to save him?

Whatever it is, at least she will be the last thing I see if she fails to save me.

And yet, something about that assumption of her lingering fondness feels illogical. The chances of her affections for Shuichi remaining is probably close to zero right now. Based on signals Kokichi and Rantaro have started giving off, it seems Prairie's fondness will soon be better spent on somebody else.

Shuichi considers his situation.

He gave up time with someone he genuinely liked...for what? The prestige of Danganronpa? Looking from the outside in, maybe it seems like a crazy trade. To Shuichi however, it was the correct choice. There was no better option, just the one: play the game.

The Killing Game is important. Shuichi can't remember how, but he knows it's true. That realization isn't the same as the confidence he had in the memories he got from the flashback lights. Those lights were presumed trustworthy, but with critical cognitive thought, the foundation of those memories proved flimsy enough to question once other memories began to crop up.

His parents are not in the business of acting or film, nothing to do with Hollywood-type material, at least.

His uncle isn't a detective.

But Shuichi himself is. Maybe not the kind given prestige and attention like in the movies, but one he did cultivate on his own even if it wasn't "Ultimate Talent" worthy.

He remembers what set him on his path, the disappearance of his young mother. A vision of red hair, dyed from the hue of his own, who supported him through his childhood as a single mother...and her subsequent disappearance one night she went out to work.

But what happened after that? He was thirteen in that memory. Did he ever find her?

Was the time frame between her disappearance and his entry into the Killing Game gone for good? As for his current title...back then, it wasn't worthy of the Ultimate Initiative's gaze, but he's the Ultimate Detective right now. So he must have done something in that time to have gotten the title.

Chances are he will never get answers for any of the things on his mind.

Because when it comes down to it, it's the present that matters. He volunteered to be a part of this after...sacrificing his memory to escape the Ultimate Hunt.

That's the problem right there, staring him in the face callously.

He is the Ultimate Detective, but he had to lose his memory briefly if his memory of asking to play the role of "Ultimate Detective" is true. Why would he ask that if that's what he inherently was? If the Ultimate Hunt was fiction?

Does he have a detective Uncle and Hollywood parents? Was he raised by a single mother whose disappearance led him down the path of becoming a detective?