What would it be like in a world where the killing game went differently?
What would it be like if different people lived and different people died?
What would it be like...if this story...had an entirely different hero.
A rewrite of the original Da...
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"There is a 16th student hiding somewhere in this academy...They are the one known as the Ultimate Despair..."
It took Chihiro a few seconds to process what Kyoko was telling him. After all...initially...when he'd arrived at the entrance hall and everyone here had gathered, there were only 15 students in total: Himself, Leon, Hiro, Mondo, Sakura, Hina, Kyoko, Makoto, Mukuro (Junko at the time), Toko, Sayaka, Byakuya, Hifumi, Taeko and Taka. Yet here now, Kyoko was suggesting that there may be an additional student that no one knew about yet.
"You're saying there's another student part of our class?" Chihiro asked "did you find that out in the headmasters office?"
"My suspicions were confirmed when I got there," Kyoko said "but to be honest, I was beginning to think that something was amiss in our group for a while now. Almost as if someone was missing, and we were none the wiser as to who."
"How did you come to that conclusion?" Chihiro asked.
"Well, a few things gave me some suggestions," Kyoko explained "first and foremost, every classroom in this academy has 16 desks with 16 seats. Ergo, each classroom can house one teacher and 16 Ultimate Students."
"Yeah...now that I think about it, that's true, isn't it!" Chihiro realized "and going off of that, not just the classrooms but...! The class trial room...!"
"Yes, that was another thing that gave me the idea," Kyoko said "it was observed fairly early on in the killing game, in fact, Taeko caught notice of it in the first class trial. Despite the fact that there are 15 of us, the courtroom can house 16 people at a time. What would be the reason for that if it wasn't originall designed for 16 people? I get the feeling that the empty space between where Hina sat and where Hiro sat is there for a reason."
"Ok, that is something I probably should've thought about..." Chihiro pondered "what else?"
"Do you remember the classroom where we thought the Tragedy happened? The one with all the dry blood and body outlines?" Kyoko recalled "Taka counted the number of outlines on the floor. How many did he count...?"
"...16..." Chihiro reminded himself.
"Which suggested that 16 people died there," Kyoko explained "and assuming they were all students of Hope's Peak, that would mean there were 16 students in the class."
"Right, I get it now." Chihiro thought aloud "every class at Hope's Peak academy has at least 16 Ultimate Students in it. But assuming we're all freshman Ultimate's in the same class, there's only 15 of us in total. That means...one of us may be missing."
"Going back to what I was saying, my suspicions for this theory were confirmed when I looked inside the headmasters office," Kyoko told him "there was a bookshelf on it that contained individual files of every class at Hope's Peak that came before us. Each file contained the individual records of each of it's students, and each class always had 16, without fail. After counting them, I deduced we are the 78th batch of students, and upon closer look, I found the file that detailed us."
