![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png){kind=small}
Entry tags:
DRT1.2.13: EVE burst error, section 13
Find previous chapters at the Navigation Index.
Danganronpa Togami Volume 1: Multiple Counts of Attempted World Domination
Chapter 2: EVE burst error
13
The affiliate school students were perplexed by my roar of laughter.
"Our guest is a little off his rocker~," said the girl who called herself Treasurer.
"Is this guy laughin' at us?"
"So it seems. A laugh full of implacable zeal, at that."
"Aaahahahahahaha," I laughed forcefully, though some of it was from the alcohol. "Damn, you surprised me. I can't believe you said, 'we are students of Hope's Peak'. Aren't you just from the affiliate school? With you and the reserve course, it's six of one and half a dozen of the other, right?"
"I'm not turnin' a blind eye to that," said the fatso who called himself Vice Prez. "Don't act like we're the same as the trash class."
"I don't see a difference. You yearn after hope, but you'll never become hope."
"Maybe that's true for the trash class, but..."
"Did you know that more people are scouted from average schools than continue on to the main school from the affiliated schools?"
"You sure know your stuff. You're right about that much. But there are still plenty of Hope's Peak graduates from the affiliates. Like the Super Elementary School Level Homeroom, and the Super Middle School Level Tea Ceremony Club Member..."
"Let's leave it at that." The boy who called himself the President put an end to the excuses. "So long as we are not students of the school proper, and so long as we are mere chicks in the affiliate school, nothing we can say can change his mind."
"But doesn't it make you mad? This guy's denying our talent!"
"Vice President, you mustn't forget. Aren't we showing the world our talent without needing to enroll in the main school at all?"
"What's that supposed to mean?" I hounded, starting to enjoy myself a little. "So did you just do this out of desperation after you realized you weren't gonna make it into the school? And you're calling that talent?"
What a stupid idea. That's like a self-proclaimed artist just busting up Picasso's paintings and screaming, "Aw yeah, in your face!" Like someone proactively reading the Despair Novel because their life isn't going well, and coming down with Despair Disease, so now they're a blissfully violent dissatisfied person.
"Your verbal abuse is incredibly precise. I suppose your inferiority complex has been ruling you for quite a long time," pointed out the President. "Can I ask you a question?"
"What?"
"How old are you?"
"...The Chinese zodiac has made less than three full rounds in my lifetime." I'd thought that I'd come up with a clever retort, but on second thought—no, not really, why am I always like this?
Stop. We were not going to talk about age right now. In the end, my offense, from the perspective of a prep school student looking down on a high school graduate who had lost to society... no, whether they were looking up at me or looking down at me, it was just something that deserved to be mocked. The moment he started getting serious, I was nothing but a middle-aged man to him. I was just a mole that had been abandoned by talent.
"Eheheheh." A laugh echoed through the living room. The beautiful girl set her teacup down in a gentle motion. "Shall we get back to the original topic?" Aoba asked, a smile appearing on her face. "All of you from the affiliate school, you're engaging in terrorism, aren't you? I assume Hope's Peak Academy isn't behind that."
"Of course not. Hope's Peak wouldn't foster despair when they love hope so much."
"Why are you doing this? Have you gone off the rails?"
"I prefer to say that we branched off. Everything ends up with different factions. These factions are always decried as radicals, but eventually, at long last, they are seen as the correct path. Just like the history of myst'ry."
"What is your connection to Byakuya Togami?"
"He's our senpai, and also our boss. Though I should say that we're not interested in that sort of world domination. Just like there are countless definitions of myst'ry, world domination means something different to everyone. The M.R.S. is fine as long as we can just spread salvation throughout the world."
"I don't know what you mean."
"We're not interested in understanding society. We're not interested in anything other than the path that we believe in. This, too, is like the history of myst'ry."
"It's been bothering me for a while now, but what do you mean by 'myst'ry'?"
"Ah?" "Eh?" "Ih?"
The Hope's Peak Academy Affiliated Junior High School Mystery Research Society went rigid. The President's face fell blank, some cookie crumbs fell out of the Vice President's mouth, and the Treasurer's teacup clattered.
"Mystery novels," I offered. "I think by Mystery Research Society, they mean it's like a fanclub for mystery novels."
"Why do they keep saying 'myst'ry' instead of 'mystery'?"
"I dunno. Aesthetic?"
"How tiresome."
"...You saw the bodies, didn't you?" the President asked in a low voice. "You saw the bodies that we worked so hard to make?"
"You're saying it as if it were rice that you made. Though we did see them."
"Did you notice the likeness?"
"What likeness?"
"I'm tired of these questions," the President sighed. "It was a metaphor. You know, a symbolic representation? Like how a zen garden represents water through rocks and sand. You at least know about The Inugamis, right?"
"Have you read that, mister?"
"I've read The Thibaults," I answered. "I pretty much get what you're saying with that explanation. You mean you decorated the corpses to bear likeness to Genocider Syo's and Stabbin' Jack's crimes."
"Not just real life crimes. Did you notice that some bore likeness to myst'ry media?"
"Hmmm."
"I'll spoil the answers, just for you. The corpse that was stabbed in the chest with a Japanese sword, that was a reference to the Murder at the Takeda Haunted Mansion. The dismembered corpse wearing a wedding dress was Subete ga F ni Naru..."
"Hmmm."
"Do you really not know that either?"
"Did they make an anime or a live action drama or something out of that before?"
"Let's change the subject."
"I'm pretty sure Salinger refused to approve of any visual adaptation of his work," I pointed out.
"Well sorry!" The President held his head in his hands. "Oh, heavens, this is such a fiasco. What a tragedy. Why did this have to happen..."
"Stay strong, Prez-san! Stay strong! Just think of it as a long winter!" The Treasurer seemed to be having fun, somehow. "So come with me, and let's deconstruct love in this freezing season~"
"I think I would know if that pinnacle of glory, myst'ry, were right in the middle of its Ice Age."
"It wasn't generally a successful business, so the powers that be didn't have the skills to keep things going."
"Whose side are you on, Treasurer?"
"I'm on your side, Prez-san! I'm gonna take off my sports bra now, so I beg your forgivenessterfield~. Mmph, nnn."
"I believe that myst'ry has neither lost nor gone under, but has achieved its purpose. It has scattered its seeds into each and every genre, permeating each and every bit of culture."
"Now, now, Prez-san, thanks to that, people like me came out of the woodworks. The only reading I do is in video game format, but I was still able to have a brush with myst'ry that way, thanks to the nourishment from those books you love so much! So c'mon, cheer up!"
"You have my gratitude."
"If you get too depressed, then we can't continue with Operation Global Locked Room Transformation. We can't continue with our most cherished and longstanding ambition to shut this boring world up in locked rooms, and satisfy this meaningless world with a death that means something!"
Stay tuned for the next update next Sunday (PST)!
Feel free to comment, keeping these rules in mind!
Danganronpa Togami Volume 1: Multiple Counts of Attempted World Domination
Chapter 2: EVE burst error
13
The affiliate school students were perplexed by my roar of laughter.
"Our guest is a little off his rocker~," said the girl who called herself Treasurer.
"Is this guy laughin' at us?"
"So it seems. A laugh full of implacable zeal, at that."
"Aaahahahahahaha," I laughed forcefully, though some of it was from the alcohol. "Damn, you surprised me. I can't believe you said, 'we are students of Hope's Peak'. Aren't you just from the affiliate school? With you and the reserve course, it's six of one and half a dozen of the other, right?"
"I'm not turnin' a blind eye to that," said the fatso who called himself Vice Prez. "Don't act like we're the same as the trash class."
"I don't see a difference. You yearn after hope, but you'll never become hope."
"Maybe that's true for the trash class, but..."
"Did you know that more people are scouted from average schools than continue on to the main school from the affiliated schools?"
"You sure know your stuff. You're right about that much. But there are still plenty of Hope's Peak graduates from the affiliates. Like the Super Elementary School Level Homeroom, and the Super Middle School Level Tea Ceremony Club Member..."
"Let's leave it at that." The boy who called himself the President put an end to the excuses. "So long as we are not students of the school proper, and so long as we are mere chicks in the affiliate school, nothing we can say can change his mind."
"But doesn't it make you mad? This guy's denying our talent!"
"Vice President, you mustn't forget. Aren't we showing the world our talent without needing to enroll in the main school at all?"
"What's that supposed to mean?" I hounded, starting to enjoy myself a little. "So did you just do this out of desperation after you realized you weren't gonna make it into the school? And you're calling that talent?"
What a stupid idea. That's like a self-proclaimed artist just busting up Picasso's paintings and screaming, "Aw yeah, in your face!" Like someone proactively reading the Despair Novel because their life isn't going well, and coming down with Despair Disease, so now they're a blissfully violent dissatisfied person.
"Your verbal abuse is incredibly precise. I suppose your inferiority complex has been ruling you for quite a long time," pointed out the President. "Can I ask you a question?"
"What?"
"How old are you?"
"...The Chinese zodiac has made less than three full rounds in my lifetime." I'd thought that I'd come up with a clever retort, but on second thought—no, not really, why am I always like this?
Stop. We were not going to talk about age right now. In the end, my offense, from the perspective of a prep school student looking down on a high school graduate who had lost to society... no, whether they were looking up at me or looking down at me, it was just something that deserved to be mocked. The moment he started getting serious, I was nothing but a middle-aged man to him. I was just a mole that had been abandoned by talent.
"Eheheheh." A laugh echoed through the living room. The beautiful girl set her teacup down in a gentle motion. "Shall we get back to the original topic?" Aoba asked, a smile appearing on her face. "All of you from the affiliate school, you're engaging in terrorism, aren't you? I assume Hope's Peak Academy isn't behind that."
"Of course not. Hope's Peak wouldn't foster despair when they love hope so much."
"Why are you doing this? Have you gone off the rails?"
"I prefer to say that we branched off. Everything ends up with different factions. These factions are always decried as radicals, but eventually, at long last, they are seen as the correct path. Just like the history of myst'ry."
"What is your connection to Byakuya Togami?"
"He's our senpai, and also our boss. Though I should say that we're not interested in that sort of world domination. Just like there are countless definitions of myst'ry, world domination means something different to everyone. The M.R.S. is fine as long as we can just spread salvation throughout the world."
"I don't know what you mean."
"We're not interested in understanding society. We're not interested in anything other than the path that we believe in. This, too, is like the history of myst'ry."
"It's been bothering me for a while now, but what do you mean by 'myst'ry'?"
"Ah?" "Eh?" "Ih?"
The Hope's Peak Academy Affiliated Junior High School Mystery Research Society went rigid. The President's face fell blank, some cookie crumbs fell out of the Vice President's mouth, and the Treasurer's teacup clattered.
"Mystery novels," I offered. "I think by Mystery Research Society, they mean it's like a fanclub for mystery novels."
"Why do they keep saying 'myst'ry' instead of 'mystery'?"
"I dunno. Aesthetic?"
"How tiresome."
"...You saw the bodies, didn't you?" the President asked in a low voice. "You saw the bodies that we worked so hard to make?"
"You're saying it as if it were rice that you made. Though we did see them."
"Did you notice the likeness?"
"What likeness?"
"I'm tired of these questions," the President sighed. "It was a metaphor. You know, a symbolic representation? Like how a zen garden represents water through rocks and sand. You at least know about The Inugamis, right?"
"Have you read that, mister?"
"I've read The Thibaults," I answered. "I pretty much get what you're saying with that explanation. You mean you decorated the corpses to bear likeness to Genocider Syo's and Stabbin' Jack's crimes."
"Not just real life crimes. Did you notice that some bore likeness to myst'ry media?"
"Hmmm."
"I'll spoil the answers, just for you. The corpse that was stabbed in the chest with a Japanese sword, that was a reference to the Murder at the Takeda Haunted Mansion. The dismembered corpse wearing a wedding dress was Subete ga F ni Naru..."
"Hmmm."
"Do you really not know that either?"
"Did they make an anime or a live action drama or something out of that before?"
"Let's change the subject."
"I'm pretty sure Salinger refused to approve of any visual adaptation of his work," I pointed out.
"Well sorry!" The President held his head in his hands. "Oh, heavens, this is such a fiasco. What a tragedy. Why did this have to happen..."
"Stay strong, Prez-san! Stay strong! Just think of it as a long winter!" The Treasurer seemed to be having fun, somehow. "So come with me, and let's deconstruct love in this freezing season~"
"I think I would know if that pinnacle of glory, myst'ry, were right in the middle of its Ice Age."
"It wasn't generally a successful business, so the powers that be didn't have the skills to keep things going."
"Whose side are you on, Treasurer?"
"I'm on your side, Prez-san! I'm gonna take off my sports bra now, so I beg your forgivenessterfield~. Mmph, nnn."
"I believe that myst'ry has neither lost nor gone under, but has achieved its purpose. It has scattered its seeds into each and every genre, permeating each and every bit of culture."
"Now, now, Prez-san, thanks to that, people like me came out of the woodworks. The only reading I do is in video game format, but I was still able to have a brush with myst'ry that way, thanks to the nourishment from those books you love so much! So c'mon, cheer up!"
"You have my gratitude."
"If you get too depressed, then we can't continue with Operation Global Locked Room Transformation. We can't continue with our most cherished and longstanding ambition to shut this boring world up in locked rooms, and satisfy this meaningless world with a death that means something!"
Stay tuned for the next update next Sunday (PST)!
Feel free to comment, keeping these rules in mind!