Terror Infinity Side B

Chapter 3, Dangan Ronpa Another Episode: Ultra Despair Girls

WARNING! THIS IS THE LAST TIME I'M SAYING THIS, BUT THE NEXT PART IS AN EXTREME SPOILER FOR THE DANGAN RONPA SERIES. PROCEED AT YOUR OWN RISK IF YOU HAVE NOT PLAYED THE FIRST THREE GAMES.

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Shin: "...Izuru Kamukura?"

Izuru Kamukura: "Yes, you can call me that. I am both Izuru Kamukura and one of the Guides created by the one you call God in this dimension. Nice to meet you, humans of Team Japan. Welcome to the first Guide's Test in a long time."

Shin: "Guide... that's..."

As I heard this introduction from the man who had suddenly appeared during this confusing time for Team Japan, my mind made a few connections. The mission had yet to begin so this man, Izuru Kamukura was not here as a NPC of the Mission World of Dangan Ronpa Another Episode, but here as an outsider like us Players of God's Dimension. He also mentioned a foreign word to this world or any of the Mission Worlds should know about. The Guide. Its a word the real Izuru Kamukura of Dangan Ronpa despite his vast intelligence and knowledge should not know of, and before he or anyone else could get out another word I went over my information about the man in front of me.

◆ Hajime - Hajime Hinata is the main protagonist of "Dangan Ronpa 2: Goodbye Despair". Hajime originally had no talent, entering Hope's Peak Academy as a reserve course student, but he eventually earned the title of Ultimate Hope after participating in Izuru Kamukura Project - a brain alteration/augmentation program named after the school's founder designed to "create a genius out of the ordinary" - in which his original memories were erased. During this time, he was known as Izuru Kamukura. After the death of Junko, Izuru agreed with the other Remnants of Despair to a plan to allow AI Junko to take over their bodies through the Neo World Program. The program's original purpose was to undo Junko's influence, but Izuru downloaded AI Junko in it. After Izuru entered the Neo World Program, the program dug up the memories of Hajime and rebuilt his old personality from data from the past and the majority of Dangan Ronpa 2 is played as him.

Hajime's personality is seemingly cynical due to how he behaves, but it would be better describe him as a realist. He is quite skeptical and tends to worry more than the other students, but his worries are often very justified and understandable. He is a logical and smart person and he is annoyed by the idea of not being able to understand someone or something at all. He tends to be quite serious, but he does joke around occasionally and often goes along with his classmates' eccentric hobbies. Hajime tends to snark at his classmates in his thoughts and he can be blunt at times, though he means well and he's more frank than sarcastic or mean-spirited. Though sometimes a bit submissive, he is not afraid to speak his mind. He is sometimes even a bit short-tempered and can snap at others, especially when he's tired or under pressure.

Though he tries to hide it, Hajime is very insecure about his lack of talent and it bothers him deeply. This caused him to admire Hope's Peak Academy more than anything, as he believed that attending the school would fix the problem. He wished to be part of something bigger than himself, to become more confident and someone he can be proud of. He felt bitter about being just a reserve course student which ultimately lead him to being used by Hope's Peak Academy and becoming Izuru. Chiaki Nanami, a classmate from Dangan Ronpa 2 on Jabberwok Island was the one who guided Hajime to see the reality that whether or not he had a talent was irrelevant. It was largely due to her support and encouragement that he was finally able to overcome Despair and gain true confidence.

After Hajime awakens from the Neo World Program, he preserves his memories as Hajime Hinata. However, because the shutdown sequence didn't overwrite his memories, he also maintains the memories of his life as Izuru Kamukura and Ultimate Despair. Still, he chooses to live as Hajime Hinata, and accepts that the future includes countless possibilities that can sometimes end in failure. At the end of the game, Hajime and the other survivors managed to escape to the real world, and remained stay on Jabberwock Island.

◆ Izuru - Izuru Kamukura, also known as Izuru 1.0, is one of the two main antagonists of Dangan Ronpa 2: Goodbye Despair along with Junko Enoshima, and a central antagonist in the Dangan Ronpa series. He is an alternate identity of Hajime Hinata. Izuru was the end product of the Hope Cultivation Plan and as a "genius out of the ordinary", Hope's Peak Academy's ultimate goal, went by the title of Ultimate Hope. He is also named after Hope's Peak Academy's founder. Izuru eventually joined Ultimate Despair, after being influenced by Junko Enoshima.

Due to the drastic changes that the operations made to turn Hajime into Izuru, his original personality was suppressed so as to not interfere with his talent cultivation. Izuru appears as a cold and emotionless person who finds everything and everyone boring. He expresses disgust for talentless people that oppress those with talent instead of acknowledging their "true superiors". He believes that such people brought the world to a deadlock and created a world that has stopped evolving. He mentions that this way of thinking was taught to him by his "teachers".

Izuru appears to enjoy unpredictability, which can make him feel more emotional, but he quickly grows bored because his immense talent and intuition causes him to quickly predict things with surprising accuracy. This is seen in the chapter 0, as he is visibly excited by the rocking of the boat only to find it boring a few seconds later. He is also so focused on the rocking that he doesn't realize he's on a boat, at first. Izuru also has the ability to read people from the second he looks at them, as he can immediately figure out another's true character with relative ease.

In Dangan Ronpa Another Episode: Ultra Despair Girls, Izuru appears completely silent and seemingly unemotional. However, he rips the hard drives from Shirokuma and Kurokuma in a rather aggressive and seemingly annoyed manner, which is even commented on by the AI Junko. According to Junko, Izuru was the one who brought the AI Junko to the Neo World Program, which started the serial murders. Being the same person as him, Hajime is both the protagonist and antagonist.

◆ The Guide - Long ago God cared more about evolution than simply killing the Players off. Evolution is still the ultimate goal, but not as much as before now. God rarely gives a Team hard missions early on as the difficulty was set by the strength of the Players of the team, and mostly the strength of the strongest member was taken into consideration and second being the achievementa of the Team. God would even insert a fake Player into the team to help Players in the beginning and this individual is the person in question.

The Guide.

Originally, God wouldn't place Players who have just entered this dimension straight into danger all at once. God would normally take it in steps, so it created this role within a Team to give people a chance. The Guide is a simulated human created by God similar to a Human Creation or NPC. He will hide in a team like a normal person and play the role of a Player in the team. However, he won't actually die. If he died in a movie/mission, then there will be a Guide among one of the newbies in the next one. They are artificial personalities and never existed in the real world to start with like Aqua, Hikari, myself, and the others.

The Guide can't help the team through difficulties, especially as the main combatant. The Guide won't actually die until the first Player unlocks his or her Genetic Constraint. Usually this would be the First Stage. The Guide's function is to test if that Player who unlocked the constraint can become the true leader and not an elected or acknowledged leader like me.

The Guide also can't attack anyone other than the leader he designates during the test and if the designated leader passes the test, the Guide will give him the leader position which will increase his unlocked state by one level and the Guide will finally disappear. Also, the position of leader which offers more benefits to the person than what a normal Player has. The leader gains more information about the God's Dimension and also a better understanding of the exchanges, so whatever enhancement path a team member goes down the Leader will be able to find out the best exchanges for them without testing each out and wasting points.

This was the way it was in God's Dimension for a long time till a change occurred in God's Dimension a little over 50 years ago. It was around the time that three out of the four organizations which comprise the Four Pillars; Mass Enlightenment, Blood Crusade and Absolute Reckoning were making groundbreaking progress in their investigation into God's Dimension and the mortality rate of all the teams were at an all-time low thanks to the team's having the support of the Four Pillars. It was everyone's belief that God was upset over the Four Pillar's actions that started to interfere with God's Dimension’s true purpose, evolution, and so the Guides and the support that they offered for all the teams were taken away to make the missions more difficult and increase the likelihood that those team would wipe out.

This was all explained to me by Sozin of Dove United when I trained under him for two weeks in the real world after the BTOOOM Mission. Sozin told me for the sake of my Team to seek out the Guide. He had have no concrete proof to say what he told me, but he believed that it was possible that while allowing the Four Pillars to do as they please, God and the systems left by the first generation to have unlock their constraints aren't too happy about the current situation. That is why there could be a small chance that it was us of Team Japan to meet the Guide.

Team Japan has no affiliation with Mass Enlightenment, Blood Crusade, Absolute Reckoning, or even the neutral Dove United. In fact at this current time we’re mortal enemies due to having no affiliation with any of the Four Pillars, but that placed us in a unique position. As we are not connected to any of the Four Pillars it may be possible for Team Japan to side with God. That way maybe the Guide will reappear to us with the power that the Guide offers we would have an edge over the other teams of God's Dimension.

Sozin really thought it was even possible that the Guide may appear before us without us having to even look for him. It was just a matter of time according to him. God is waiting for Team Japan to show him everyone's strength first before making a move... and it was as he said. Immediately after Team Japan's first Team Battle where we faced off against Team Germany belonging to Mass Enlightenment the Guide appeared before us. We didn't know what this Guide wanted yet by appearing before us all at this time... but this really was a chance for us.

Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.

The power of a true Team Leader from what we knew, was invaluable to us as Team Japan doesn't have the same comprehensive understanding of the Exchange System as other Team connected to the Four Pillars do. There should be other privileges and Team Japan could use them all, though it would come at a cost. God sees us all as nothing more than lab rats in this experiment to evolve, so if we entered into an alliance with God we wouldn't be equals, or at the very least we couldn't reason with it. Sozin knew this, but still told us to do whatever it took to gain its support.

Aqua: "So you’re the Guide, huh? The secret agent like artificial human who infiltrated Teams in the past... but why are you here? Supposedly you disappeared years ago to give the Four Pillars a hard time. What do you want with Team Japan? Also, what's going on with our mission?"

Izuru Kamukura: "..."

Hikari: "Hey, can't you be less aggressive Aqua? He could be dangerous and you’re trying to anger him."

Aqua: "Huh? Anger him? If he came for a fight we would already be in a death match Hikari. You've unlocked your constraint as well, so don't pretend that you can't feel it as well... this guy is bad news."

Hikari: "..."

It was just as Aqua had said and why Hikari tried to get Aqua to be less aggressive. This Guide had taken on the role of Izuru Kamukura and as such... was a real monster. The man showed no signs of aggression on his part, yet there were no chinks in his armor to exploit. Not one opening to take advantage of if one of us wanted to attack him, but I don't believe any of us would. There was a powerful dark aura of inner strength coming from the Guide who has appeared to us as Izuru Kamukura that told us all that if he wanted to... he could kill us all with ease.

The Guide felt similar to Saki who rarely showed emotions, yet this man had a far greater level of perfection, both a physical and mental force about him that made him more dangerous than any of our past foes. The Zombies of H.O.T.D, Btooom Lord Ryuta of BTOOOM, Diseased Girl Kiri Kiriyuu of Apocalypse Alice, or even Razor or Team Germany from the previous world of Hunter X Hunter. The Guide didn't simply take the appearance of Izuru Kamukura, but was him. The artificial Ultimate Hope who possess the greatest talents in the world due the accumulation of experiments conducted by Hope's Peak Academy.

The Guide then looked at Hikari, Aqua, and the rest of us one by one. No one knew what he was thinking, but as his piercing red eyes gazed at us as if he could see our very souls... it was obvious he was looking down on us. Maybe it was due to the influence of Izuru Kamukura or just his original Guide Personality, but it was as if he was looking at insects or maybe something even lower like bacteria.

Izuru Kamukura: "...I'm here as a representative of who you call God. God originally took away the power of the Guide and Leader Position due to the Four Pillars interference like you have suggested. Too many teams were escaping God's Dimension due to their vast network of information from years of experience in the Mission Worlds. Also, the mass majority of those teams did not meet God's estimated level of power for a team that finally escapes due to knowing how to avoid most dangers while reaping the most rewards. God didn't like it, but they didn't break any rules, so it couldn't punish anyone directly, so all it could do in retaliation was to remove some... privileges. It effectively gave the Four Pillars a hard time for a while, but they recovered by creating a comprehensive list of the Exchange System. They also created a replica of a certain Quest Item, a drug that can potentially unlock an individual’s Genetic Constraint although it isn't as good as the original. They weren't able to make too many of the original due to God removing the main ingredient, a extremely rare type of meteor fragment from the Exchange System. Humans can be like ants like that. You can drop a bomb on them, yet they somehow manage to survive and continue their foolish actions."

Shuai: "Hey hey hey! The is guy is taking down to us like a end boss! Are we going to be-"

Jin: "Calm down a bit, Shuai. Now Guide, I think I get it, but you didn't stop there, right? When the Four Pillars finally recovered from the first retaliation, God recently brought forth a even greater change to God's Dimension. God changed the original format of horror movies, thrillers, and other famous stories as the settings for the missions to Manga, Anime, Light Novels, Video Games and Visual Novels. Only those from Japan could really Hope to cope with this sudden change and only a small portion of the population at that, so I bet a lot of teams have been wiped out. Does God really hate the Four Pillars that much to warrant such action?"

Izuru Kamukura: "Hate isn't the word we would use... but yes. The founders of the Four Pillars failed to ascend to a higher plane or cause any great change to the real world. They were the strongest team no question, but they failed and are now trying to take advantage of God's Dimension for the sake of what could be called a Cold War, or perhaps a game to pass the time as immortals. This is unacceptable... but recently they've gone too far and so we made the change in mission format in retaliation."

Kisara: "What did they do if you don't mind me asking?"

Izuru Kamukura: "...That is not important at this time. It is just what brings me here today before you, Team Japan."

Hikari: "Wait! It was to my understanding that God doesn't have a personality and is only a computer. A soulless program created, not born, to execute set actions. It is incapable of making judgment calls when its rules are broken, but not technically according to those rules. Like how if a veteran Player and New Player are chased by a horde of zombies and veteran kills the New Player by tripping him and he's devoured by the zombies. Under the laws of humans with common sense and judgment they would find the veteran guilty of murder, but God who can only follow the rules exactly as stated can only see the incident in question as the zombies killing the New Player. If indirect killing isn't stated in the rules then God can't make an accurate judgment call and will follow the letter of its own laws."

Izuru Kamukura: "This is true."

Hikari: "Then how can God take all these actions against the Four Pillars?"

Izuru Kamukura: "Simple. The ones who made everything; God, The Terminal Lobby, The Mission Worlds, your enhancements and ever thing else had installed a counter measure program in case something like the survivors of this dimension attempting to abuse the system in place. Of course the actions of the Four Pillars don’t violate any rules, but it violates the spirit if I do say. God is not allowed to just erase the teams of the Four Pillars, but it can take certain actions against them like just mentioned. Still, as it seems the Four Pillars plan to continue their abuse of God's Dimension the counter program left behind by the creators has one last action that it can take to rectify the situation. God has been waiting to do something about the Four Pillars, but is bound to be unable to hurt or erase the Players that have not broken any rules as the Four Pillars haven't and can't touch the ones in the real world. That was why God was waiting for this chance."

Shin: "Chance?"

Izuru Kamukura: "Yes. Team Japan. A team like yours with no real connection to the Four Pillars and proven to have enough power to fight against them. You've already defeated one team of Mass Enlightenment. Team Germany, though they were one of the more weaker teams. Of all the Awakened teams they were barely Lower-high Class in strength, yet they were far more enhanced than Team Japan on average. You've proved your potential in almost a flawless victory while taking a passive stance in the mission. You've gained God's acknowledgement."

Kisara: "Um... what exactly does that mean for us?"

Izuru Kamukura: "It means this. In exchange for allying yourself with God you will receive God’s support with the benefits that the other teams no longer have and much more. To say the least Team Japan's true leader will have an increase in their Genetic Constraint Stage by one. Also, God will filler out future newbies who are spies for the Four Pillars so what happened in your third mission in Apocalypse Alice won't be repeated."

Shin: "...Can you give us a moment?"

I haven't talked it over with my comrades yet, but it was a good deal for Team Japan to team up with God. I can only imagine that God will make Team Japan more incline to fight other teams and not reach peace, but that's okay. Team Japan and I are already marked by everyone as the number one team to wipe out in God's Dimension, so there's no harm in officially becoming their enemy. I was then about to talk it over with my comrades when someone spoke up to ask a question.

Jin: "I have a few questions. Why are you meeting us here in the Mission World instead of the Terminal Lobby? Why was there a need for you to take control of the body of Izuru Kamukura? Why not a random Human Creation, or is there a specific need for you to occupy that body?"

Izuru Kamukura: "...Good question human. Yes there is a need. Like I first said, when I arrived there was a test. One last test to see if Team Japan can become God's one and only team to face off against the Four Pillars and their teams. It's just a simple test... and one that is not optional."

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Authors Note:

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Proofread by Azarza.

Team Power Ranking. Different from individual or Team rating which is their rank in the eyes of God, this Team Power Ranking is based on actual strength while ignoring rating/achievements. Nine ranks in total. There are Players with high potential like Shin, Mad Sword Princess, and Reaper not in Upper Class, but that's due to their time in God's Dimension and will rise faster than other Teams.

Lower-low Class: Team Italy (Recently wiped and begun anew).

Lower-mid Class: Team Japan.

Lower-high Class: Former Team Germany.

Middle-low Class. Team Freedom and Team England (Mad Sword Princess and HERO)..

Middle-mid Class: Team South Korea.

Middle-high Class: Team Kenya (Reaper).

Upper-low Class: Team Devil (???).

Upper-mid Class. Team U.S.A (Abyss).

Upper-high Class. Team Celestial (Dreadnought, Genesis Knight, and Star Gazer).