RATED: MA18+ | GRAPHIC VIOLENCE | PSYCHOLOGICAL HORROR | MATURE THEMES
The holographic cherry blossoms didn't smell like anything.
Hakuri Enoshima noticed this first—standing in the courtyard of Neo Hope's Peak Academy's Singapore branch, surrounded by digital petals that fell in perfect spirals, carrying no fragrance because they weren't real. Nothing here felt real. The architecture was too clean. The sky too perfectly blue. The seventeen other students too carefully curated in their excellence.
"Ultimate Mediator, huh?" The voice belonged to someone behind him—bright, sharp with curiosity. "That's a fucking joke, right? You look like you'd punch someone before talking to them."
Hakuri turned, already annoyed. The student was short, maybe five-foot-nothing, with hair dyed electric blue and eyes that catalogued him like a threat assessment. Her uniform was modified—sleeves torn off.
"And you look like you'd stab someone while talking to them," he shot back. "So I guess we're both disappointing our titles."
She grinned—sharp and dangerous. "Tsukino Mihari. Ultimate Infiltrator. And you're right. I would." She said with a curious expression.
"Morons, please." A third voice—calm, dripping with condescension. "We've been here for six minutes. Could we at least wait until orientation ends before the death threats?"
The speaker was tall, immaculate in his uniform, with silver hair styled with precision that suggested either vanity or obsession. His eyes were cold behind designer glasses.
"Saigyoku Natori," he continued, not bothering to offer a hand. "Ultimate Corporate Heir. And before you ask—yes, my family owns the third-largest tech conglomerate in Asia. No, I don't care about making friends. Yes, I'm better than you."
Hakuri felt his fist clench. Three conversations. Three people he already wanted to hit. This is going to be a long year.
The remaining students were scattered across the courtyard—each one radiating the kind of specialized excellence that made Hope's Peak legendary:
A student with paint-stained fingers arguing with someone about color theory. A massive muscular student who looked like he could destroy a car watching clouds with curious-like wonder. A twin set—two students—finishing each other's sentences about quantum mechanics. Someone in a surgical mask taking everyone's measurements with their eyes.
Seventeen Ultimate students. Plus Hakuri. Eighteen total. All trapped.
He'd realized it during the walk from the entrance. The doors they'd come through? Sealed behind them with security that shouldn't exist in a school. The walls? Too high. Too smooth. No way to climb. The windows? Reinforced smart-glass that could probably withstand a rocket launcher.
This isn't orientation. This is a cage.
"Attention, students!" The voice came from everywhere and nowhere—speakers hidden in the architecture, each word crystal clear. "Please proceed to the gymnasium for your welcome ceremony! We have so many exciting announcements to share!"
The voice was cheerful. Too cheerful. The kind of manufactured happiness that made Hakuri's skin crawl. Tsukino caught his expression. "You feel it too, right? Something's wrong here."
"Everything's wrong here," he muttered. "Question is whether we're paranoid or perceptive." "In my experience? Both."
The gymnasium was excessive—a space designed for a hundred students that currently held eighteen. Their footsteps echoed on polished floors that reflected the lighting with mirror-like precision. At the far end, a stage stood empty except for a single podium.
And on that podium: a white rabbit mask.
Just sitting there. Porcelain-white, with red accents around the eye holes and a too-wide smile painted across the muzzle. Like something from a festival. Or a nightmare.
"What the hell is that?" someone whispered. Hakuri had caught his name as the ultimate cloud watcher, Goemon something—sounded genuinely confused. "Theatrical shit," Saigyoku dismissed. "Probably some tradition. Hazing ritual for first-years. Ignore it."
But Hakuri couldn't ignore it. The mask seemed to watch them despite having no eyes. The smile seemed to widen despite being painted on. Wrong. Everything about this is wrong.
The lights died.
Absolute darkness—the kind that makes you question if your eyes are even open. Someone screamed. Multiple people started talking at once, voices climbing toward panic.
Then: spotlight. Center stage. Illuminating a figure that definitely hadn't been there three seconds ago.
They wore the rabbit mask. White suit, pristine and crisp. Hands clasped behind their back in a posture that suggested either military training or theatrical performance. The mask tilted, surveying the students with empty eye-holes.
"Welcome!" The voice was distorted—run through a modulator that stripped identity, rendering it neither human or beast. "Welcome to Neo Hope's Peak Academy! Welcome to your new home! Welcome to the beginning of the most important experience of your short, short lives!"
"Who the fuck are you?" Hakuri didn't mean to speak. The words escaped before conscious thought. The mask turned toward him. Focused. The smile somehow growing wider despite being static.
"Me? I'm your host! Your guide! Your best friend for the foreseeable future!" The figure spread their arms wide, theatrical. "You can call me Usagi! And you—all eighteen of you perfect, talented, ultimate students—have been selected for a very special program!"
"Let me guess," Tsukino's voice was flat. "We're locked in here, aren't we? This is some kind of sick game. Knowing from that Junko's legacy."
"GAME? Oh no, no, no!" Usagi laughed—a sound like broken glass in a blender. "This isn't a game! Games have rules you can break! This is an experience! An experiment! A chance to prove what you're really made of beneath all those fancy titles!"
The figure started pacing the stage, movements too smooth, too practiced.
"You see, Hope's Peak has a... history. A legacy of violence and despair dressed up as education. Fifty years ago, the world nearly ended because of what happened in these halls. Because someone asked a very important question: What happens when you put ultimate talent in an ultimate pressure cooker?"
"This is insane," Saigyoku stated. "I'm calling security. My family's lawyers will—"
"Your family doesn't know you're here." Usagi's voice dropped all pretense of cheerfulness. "No one knows you're here. You were selected specifically because your disappearances could be... managed. Explained away. Hidden in the cracks of a world that's very good at ignoring inconvenient truths."
Silence. Absolute. Suffocating.
"Now then!" Cheerfulness returning like flipping a switch. "Let me explain the rules of your new life! You are locked in this facility! There is no escape through conventional means! You have access to dormitories, cafeteria, recreational facilities, and various other amenities! Everything you need to live comfortably for... oh, let's say forever!"
The mask tilted again, studying their faces.
"HOWEVER! If you wish to leave—if you desire freedom—there is precisely one exit strategy! You must commit murder! Kill a fellow student without getting caught! The body will be discovered, a class trial will be held, and if you can deceive your peers about your guilt, you alone will be allowed to graduate! To leave! To return to the world beyond these walls!"
"You're fucking joking." Hakuri heard his own voice—distant, disbelieving. "You're actually describing a killing game. A recreation of Junko's legacy."
"I'm describing freedom!" Usagi countered. "I'm offering choice! You can live here peacefully forever—a comfortable prison with everything you need! Or you can take action! Seize your destiny! Prove that your ultimate talent means something more than a fancy title on paperwork!"
One of the twins, Hakuri thought—stepped forward. Her voice was small but steady: "What if we refuse? What if no one kills anyone?"
"Then you live here! Forever! Until you die of old age or boredom or the slow realization that you've wasted your ultimate potential in a golden cage!" The mask leaned forward, intimate. "But you won't refuse. Humans never refuse. Given enough time, enough pressure, enough motivation—someone always breaks. Someone always kills. History proves this. Psychology proves this. Danganronpa proves this."
"Danganronpa?" Multiple voices, questioning.
"A legacy! A tradition! A game that's been played three times before with various results! Each time, talented students were pushed to their limits! Each time, despair won! Each time, hope died screaming!" Usagi's laugh echoed through the gymnasium. "And now it's your turn! Class 87-BR37! Will you break the pattern? Or will you fulfill it?"
The lights came up. Full brightness, sudden and blinding. When Hakuri's eyes adjusted: Usagi was gone. Just vanished. The stage was empty except for the mask, sitting on the podium exactly as before.
And on each student's wrist: a digital bracelet they definitely hadn't been wearing thirty seconds ago. Black metal, seamless, with a holographic interface displaying their name, title, and a single number: 18.
"What—how did—" Saigyoku was staring at his wrist, tapping the bracelet, trying to remove it. "This is impossible. There's no locking mechanism. How is this on me?"
"Nano-technology," the twin brother stated flatly. "Microscopic assembly. It built itself on our skin while we were distracted. Medical-grade construction. Probably monitoring vital signs. Definitely tracking our locations."
"Can we remove them?" someone asked.
"Not without removing the wrist," Tsukino said grimly. She'd pulled a knife from somewhere, testing the bracelet's edge. The blade couldn't even scratch the surface. "This is military-grade containment tech. The kind they use on war criminals."
Panic started spreading—students talking over each other, voices climbing toward hysteria. Someone was crying. Someone else was already trying the doors, confirming what Hakuri had suspected: locked, sealed, impossible.
They were trapped. With each other. With Usagi's words echoing in their heads. With the terrible knowledge that someone here—maybe not today, maybe not tomorrow, but eventually—would kill.
Hakuri found himself outside again, in the courtyard with the holographic cherry blossoms. The false petals continued their perfect spiral, beautiful and meaningless.
Tsukino had followed him. She sat on a bench, knife still in hand, testing its edge against nothing. "You believe it?" she asked. "That someone will actually kill?"
"Yeah." He didn't hesitate. "Put eighteen people in a cage, tell them murder is the only exit, wait long enough—someone breaks. Someone always breaks."
"Maybe we're stronger than previous classes. Maybe we can resist." "Maybe." He didn't believe it. "Or maybe we're exactly the same. Just better at lying to ourselves."
She was quiet for a long moment. Then: "I've killed before. In my previous work. Infiltration sometimes requires... permanent solutions. I'm not proud of it. But I'm not haunted by it either. Does that make me the most dangerous person here? Or the most honest?"
Hakuri looked at her—really looked. Saw the scars on her knuckles. The way she held the knife like an extension of herself. The eyes that had seen violence and integrated it without breaking.
"Both," he said finally. "You're both." "And you? Ultimate Mediator who can't mediate? What's your damage?"
He should have deflected. Should have insulted her. Should have maintained the hostile distance that kept people from getting close enough to leave wounds when they inevitably left.
Instead, he heard himself say: "I don't remember." "Don't remember what?"
"Anything before three months ago. I woke up in a hospital in Tokyo with my name, my title, and acceptance letter to Hope's Peak Singapore. No memories of family, childhood, how I became 'ultimate' at anything. Just... nothing."
Tsukino's expression shifted—something between sympathy and suspicion. "That's convenient. Or devastating. Can't decide which." "Neither can I."
A scream shattered the moment—high, terrified, coming from the dormitory building. Both of them moved simultaneously, running toward the sound with reflexes that suggested whatever their pasts held, hesitation wasn't part of it.
They found the others gathered in the hallway outside one of the rooms. The door was open. Inside: carnage.
The body was almost artistic in its destruction—the cloud-watcher, Goemon, was suspended from the ceiling by neural-cables, the kind used in medical procedures. His stomach had been opened with surgical precision, organs removed and arranged on the floor in a pattern that might have meant something to someone.
His face was frozen in an expression of confused horror—like he'd died not understanding why someone he trusted had done this.
Blood pooled beneath him, reflecting the harsh lighting. The walls were painted with arterial spray—violent, chaotic, the struggle of someone who'd realized too late that kindness wasn't armor against murder.
And on the wall, written in his blood: "ONE DOWN. SEVENTEEN TO GO."
Someone was vomiting. Someone else was screaming. Saigyoku backed away, composure shattered, looking at the body with an expression that suggested he'd never seen violence outside of sanitized news reports.
Hakuri stood frozen, staring at the corpse, feeling something cold settle in his heart. It's started. We've been here maybe two hours and it's already started.
Tsukino's hand found his arm—steadying, grounding. "Hey. Mediator. You going to mediate this? Or are we letting panic win?"
He forced himself to look away from the body. At the remaining students. At the seventeen faces showing fear, horror, suspicion, and in some cases—barely hidden—interest.
One of these people is a murderer. One of these people killed Goemon within hours of Usagi's announcement. And if we don't figure out who, they go free and we all die.
"Everyone out of this room," Hakuri heard himself say. Voice steady despite the screaming in his head. "Don't touch anything. Don't contaminate evidence. We need to think. We need to investigate. We need to—"
The speakers crackled to life. Usagi's voice, delighted:
"A BODY HAS BEEN DISCOVERED! After a brief period of investigation, a class trial will be held! Find the killer—or die trying! Good luck, students! You're going to need it!"
The announcement ended. Silence returned. And eighteen students—now seventeen—stood in a hallway painted with their classmate's blood, knowing that this was only the beginning.
Hakuri looked at his hands. They were shaking.
Somewhere in his missing memories, he wondered if he'd seen death before. If this horror was new or just forgotten. Either way, he was seeing it now. Living it now. And the only way out was through.
Through investigation. Through trial. Through discovering which of these ultimate students had become an ultimate killer. The game had begun. And Hakuri had no choice but to play.
TO BE CONTINUED... [NEXT TIME: Episode 2 - "The First Sin"]