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Insane.
This is the only word that comes to Momota’s mind as he watches Ouma paint himself to be the villain of this season, a tablet with Team Danganronpa’s logo on it grasped tightly in his hands.
He is watching that scene after the very end of the fourth trial, just after Gonta gets executed. He watches it over and over again, to the point where he can almost trick himself into thinking that he doesn’t feel nauseous anymore. His eyes hurt and he is fairly certain that they’re bloodshot, but he stubbornly stays where he is, hands clutching the tablet close to his chest with enough force to make his knuckles turn white. The faint bluish glow of the screen hits his eyes as they search Ouma’s face when he says all those horrible things, lips stretched in a sickening smile of a madman. Momota himself isn’t sure what he’s looking for, but he knows for a fact that he’ll know once he finally finds it.
Maybe he’s hoping to notice some crack in Ouma’s act.
Anything that his tortured brain would use against him to prove him that all of this was avoidable, that if only any of them noticed sooner and Saihara figured it out faster, if only someone knew… The truth is, he doesn’t know what would have happened if that was the truth. Breaking through Ouma’s endless walls of lies and distrust and deftly masked fear sounds like a mission impossible to anyone.
Sometimes, Momota wonders how would it feel to be a part of the audience of Danganronpa’s fifty-third season, just one of those people who get to enjoy the game from the outside, blissfully unaware of the trauma and the empty feeling in your stomach that haunts you long after you make your big comeback to reality. Would it be easier to decipher Ouma if he was simply watching him act like a character on a show, safe and sound on the other side of the screen?
He remembers himself from the times when he was simply one of the fans. He remembers himself from the times when the idea of this senseless suffering would excite him, make his heart beat faster, face flushed and eyes wide and fervent. He was never quite on the same level as Saihara who was one of those hardcore psycho fans who jack off while watching the executions, but he still enjoyed the show, his pulse quickening whenever he saw it airing. The more bloody the season, the better. He remembers the elation he felt when a big fat envelope with a familiar logo on top found its way into his mailbox, stuffed with a short
‘Congratulations, you’ve made it into the 53rd season of Danganronpa!
’ note and a contract.
Back then, he celebrated.
The copious amount of alcohol, music blasting at full volume and girls, many girls, who would pass through his bed, moaning and writhing under him, only to be followed by another. He was at the top of the world.
None of that matters anymore. None of that is important now.
He wonders who would have ended up being his favorite character.
Akamatsu, while entertaining to watch, was just a goody two-shoes, so sweet that it was almost nauseous. The only thing that he would have found even remotely interesting about Akamatsu was her ending, but it simply happened too quickly.
Saihara also wouldn’t have been his typical choice, too meek and cautious. Too innocent. Momota was always more into the potential culprits rather than heroes. To think that he ended up being one of them… If there’s one thing he can say for sure about the writers working for Team Danganronpa it’s that they’re sick fucks. The absolute worst. He wonders if it gives them some sense of perverse satisfaction, all this twisting of their original personalities into people that they barely recognize, people who feel so distant and yet so familiar.
Then again, Momota has no right to complain. If anything, Team Danganronpa actually fixed him. He feels a shudder crawl down his spine just thinking about the Momota from before the game. This angry creature he used to be, not caring for anything or anyone. He was so full of shit back then, always ready to lash out, ready to attack, eagerly awaiting for any chance to feel provoked just to have an excuse to fight. This person is still inside him, trapped somewhere under the thick layer of ideals they stuffed him with. Still, he got lucky. Being stuck with this new identity might feel weird, but between the old and new one he would choose this new Momota without a moment of hesitation.
Not everyone can say the same thing, though.
His mind flashes to Korekiyo and he grimaces with distaste. This whole incest subplot, especially when paired with the fact that he was a murderer even before the game started, was a bit of an overkill, even by Danganronpa’s standards. He almost feels sorry for the guy. There’s no redeeming trait Korekiyo could rely on. His personality was reduced to being a fucking creep and Momota feels an intense sense of unfairness everytime he thinks about it. There’s also some relief, though. This nagging voice muttering
good thing it wasn’t me
at the back of his head. Even though the villain characters tended to be interesting, Korekiyo had a fairly small fanbase and would always end up at the very bottom of every favorite character poll. Momota has no idea how Korekiyo is doing now but he can’t imagine him being happy with what Team Danganronpa had done to him.
So yes, Momota considers himself lucky, at least in this one aspect.
Momota Kaito, Luminary of the Stars might be a fake name, a fake persona, but it’s the one he fully accepts and chooses to embrace, if only so he can keep some resemblance of sanity.
Anyway, now that he thinks about it there’s no way that he would choose Saihara as his favorite and Korekiyo is obviously also a definite no.
Out of his two sidekicks Harukawa seems like a much more likely option than Saihara. Old Momota would have been overjoyed. Pretty girl? An assassin? What a delightful combination. Sexy, too. Good looks on one hand and the promise of some professional and well-executed bloodshed on the other - what more could one ask for? The fans must have been ecstatic when her real talent - none of that boring caregiver or whatever bullshit - was exposed. Of course, if things went like they did in the end, he would have been pretty disappointed that ultimately Harukawa became one of the survivors and never actually got the chance to kill anyone. With how much of a deal they made out of her hiding her talent it was probably frustratingly underwhelming to never see her in some bloody action.
Well… that’s not entirely true, he still remembers the sting of an arrow piercing his arm, but that’s besides the point.
He briefly wonders what he would have thought about his own role in the killing game but quickly dismisses it. Momota Kaito from the game was way too heroic for his liking, a tragic hero who would literally let himself bleed to death just to save everyone.
Pathetic.
Weak.
Lame.
He really should have wrapped his hands around Saihara’s throat once he gained his trust.
And then there’s Ouma.
The trickster.
The antagonist.
The mastermind.
The martyr.
There are so many words that one could use to describe Ouma and none of them would ever be good enough.
He escapes all the definitions, remains a mystery even after the game is over while the rest of the participants get to go home, rest and - hopefully - heal. Even weeks after the game ended Internet forums and websites continued to speculate about Ouma’s character. It’s been quite some time since a character made such an impact. Danganronpa has been going for fifty-three seasons and even despite having many devoted fans some of the appeal started to fade. Teenagers being thrown into a world in which their only choice is between hope and despair can become boring after some time, especially with such a defined structure of the show. Unexpected culprit in the first chapter, double murder in the third one, unclear situation in the fifth … Momota knows it all.
Still, Ouma managed to do something that no character did in a long time. He brought back something that made Danganronpa so alluring all those years ago, when it was still a new concept that would provoke outrage and controversy. Hell, some people even say that he single-handedly saved the name of the entire franchise. There’s no guarantee that there will be any future seasons, but even if there won’t be - Danganronpa definitely went with a bang. And all of that because of some purple gremlin with a death wish.
The same gremlin who was now trapped in a coma with no means of escape, enslaved by the very contract he signed with his own hand.
Team Danganronpa made good use of all the loopholes in the law, exploiting any ambiguity they could find to keep Ouma in the simulation as long as they deem it necessary, possibly long enough for them to revive Danganronpa and put him in the next season. It wasn’t clear what exactly they were planning to do, but as long as Ouma was involved, it was sure that they would definitely make profit off of him, seizing the opportunity to its maximum potential.
No one ever won against Team Danganronpa, despite the fact that many tried. If what the press has been reporting was to be believed then the company was basically drowning in lawsuits. And yet, they managed to evade every single one of them and keep the biggest sensation they ever created clutched tightly in their grasp, using Ouma as leverage to achieve their goal, bending both the law enforcers and fans to their will. There would always be fans begging for more, defending the series with blind adoration, their thirst for blood never quite satisfied. They were the precious children of Team Danganronpa, the ones who didn’t know the life without Danganronpa in it and couldn’t care less about Ouma’s future as long as they got what they wanted.
Danganronpa created the society so obsessed with killing that it lost all traces of humanity.
Even though Momota was once part of it, all of them were, it doesn’t feel right anymore. None of it feels right. The fact that it took him so long to realize, the fact that they literally had to screw with his brain to make him see that… it doesn’t feel right, either.
And so Momota watches as the fourth trial, because there’s very little besides that that he can do, watches as it comes to an end and Saihara utters his infamous line. The one that fans quote all the time.
The one that marks Ouma’s even further descent into madness.
You’re alone, Kokichi. And you always will be.
And almost as if tapped with a magic wand, Ouma’s face turns blank. For a long second he just stares at Saihara, for once quiet and still, and it’s a second that lasts a lifetime.
Momota thinks about how scary it looks.
Ouma’s blank face is much scarier than any of his masks, much scarier than those twisted faces that barely look human anymore as he slips into the role of a bloodthirsty villain. Momota has scrolled through many threads filled with screenshots of Ouma’s most horrifying expressions, but that one that shows a complete devoid of emotion is by far the most dreadful, yet hardly ever recognized by fans as what it truly is. Momota feels stupid, really, when he realizes for how long he remained blind to it himself, how he was too focused on Ouma’s intentional misleadings instead of on cold hard facts. In his defense, however, Ouma is good at this. Maybe even too good. After all, even Saihara fell prey for his act. Ouma’s a skillful liar, exploiting any weaknesses he can find and never showing his true face, always hidden behind carefully planted lies.
It’s not a surprise that Team Danganronpa doesn’t want to let him out of their grasp.
And maybe, just maybe, Momota from before would have fell prey, too.
Maybe in all of his brashness he would have become obsessed with this boy who looked like Momota could snap his bones in seconds. Maybe he would have been rooting for him against all odds, simply to see what would happen.
Instead, he’s stuck rewatching the game until it all becomes a blur, until he has it all memorized, imprinted behind the eyelids.
Ouma taunting and lying and smiling. Ouma being the one who, in his own strange way, saved them all.
Somehow he’s even more of a mystery after the end of the game, even if the truth slowly unfolds itself before their eyes.
There’s a weird sense of insanity to it all.
And so Momota finds himself re-defining this word,
insanity
, because it sure as hell isn’t what he thought it to be.