Fanfic / Amalgamate

We Will Amalgamate

Amalgamate is a Danganronpa V3 Fic by Doctor Haifisch.

Kaito hates Kokichi… but he hates the killing game even more. In the cold, cavernous Exisal hangar, Kaito stares into the poison-fevered eyes of the Ultimate Supreme Leader and makes a decision: the killing game is over. He will not kill Kokichi. He will not drop the press and entomb this child inside the killing game he claims to despise. So, Kaito comes up with a plan to save Kokichi’s life, but to pull it off, the two of them will have to work together inside the Exisal, trick Monokuma into reaching a false verdict, and end the class trial before Kokichi succumbs to the Strike-9.

In other words, Kaito makes a choice that rewrites chapter 5, and in doing so, forces a certain someone to rewrite chapter 6...

Please note spoilers for Danganronpa V3 will be left untagged.

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This fanfic provides examples of:

• Absurdly High-Stakes Game: Kokichi's backstory is full of these, usually with the stakes of immense amounts of death for failure and just barely survival if he wins
• Accidental Murder: Lots of this in the backstories, especially with how Shuichi is shown in flashback lights to be responsible for nearly every terrible thing that has happened to the cast due to just a sheer accident. Along with the casualties of multiple random civilians during Kokichi's first death game.
• Accidental Public Confession: At least one of the electrobombs was a dud, which meant the entire world saw and heard Kokichi confess his weakness and fears to Kaito despite Kokichi using an electrobomb to prevent this very information from getting loose.
• Actually Pretty Funny: Kokichi is horrified to find Maki making funny jokes.
• Adaptational Backstory Change: Kokichi's backstory is much more fleshed out and intertwined with the cast than before, though if these memories are real or just inventions of the flashback lights is left uncertain. Kaito, however, thinks that it doesn’t matter if they’re real or not, as the emotional pain it brings Kokichi is definitely real.
• Adaptation Expansion: Details about the post-despair world they supposedly come from, along with many minor characters and details like Himiko's pet doves.
• Adventures in Comaland: Kaito goes through multiple of these in chapter 21, as his dreams flicker and interweave with his implanted memories.
• After-Action Patch-Up: About half the fic is the cast desperately trying to patch up both Kokichi and Kaito, with detailed scenes after basically every action piece about trying to stitch the duo up or get them antidotes.
• Ailment-Induced Cruelty: Kokichi does and says some mean things to cope with the pain of being poisoned.
• Alas, Poor Villain: While all the Monokubs are pretty terrible, it is a little sad that Monodam just wanted to feed Himiko's doves when his brother killed him.
• Anger Born of Worry: Maki is constantly angry at something. Still, most of the time, this anger comes from an inability to do more to help, or when she does help, it often involves having to hurt someone despite really not wanting to hurt anyone, not even Kokichi.
• Animal Motifs: Kokichi has horses. Really, there’s too many instances of him making horse reference to count. This even extends to his Chess Motifs, in which he’s compared to the Knight piece, a horse that moves around the battlefield in bizarre patterns. Less frequently, he’s also compared to a cat.
• Arc Words: "This is wrong."
• Assassination Attempt: There are several throughout the fic, whether it be from Tsumugi's many poisonings or Maki assassinating a member of DICE who was also Himiko's master in a flashback light.
• Asshole Victim: Kokichi is constantly being a dick and an asshole despite how downhill this has all gone to him.
• Attack the Mouth: Maki beats up Tsumugi so nastily and quickly she has to pull broken off teeth from Tsumugi's broken jaw just to make sure she doesn't choke to death on them.
• Audience Reactions: The audience of Danganronpa V3 has a lot of comments and reactions over the final trial. From cheering when Maki beat up Tsumugi to declaring their intentions to help stop Danganronpa. Some quotes were even lifted directly from fan responses to Amalgamate.
• Ax-Crazy: Kokichi is implied to have become this on some level after his first game
• Badass Adorable: Himiko.
• The Bad Guys Are Cops: The cops Shuichi works with are revealed in a flashback light to be affiliated with despairs, who use Shuichi's information to capture and torture Kokichi.
• The Bad Guy Wins: In the flashback lights, Junko gets everything she could ever want from the game she forced Kokichi and the rest of DICE into.
• The Baroness: Tsumugi makes a very intimidating villainess
• Bathos: Kokichi is a master of it, constantly zig zagging between surreal comedy and the darkest parts of the human psyche.
• Batman Gambit: Kokichi's final plan for ending the game required a lot of these, manipulating Monokuma and Tsumugi's actions to ensure things happen in the only possible route for success they have.
• Being Tortured Makes You Evil: Tsumugi is actively trying to invoke this on Kokichi, both in the game and implying it to have happened before to make him the mastermind with the flashback lights
• Big Guy, Little Guy: Kaito and Kokichi with Kaito often seen carrying around or otherwise manhandling Kokichi.
• Big "SHUT UP!": Lot's of these in the final stretch of the final trial, mostly at Tsumugi.
• Body Horror: While nothing too extreme, the details of things like getting Kokichi's poisoned stitches out are often quite disturbing and sickening.
• Black Comedy: Not even literally dying will keep Kokichi from cracking completely tonally horrible jokes as a coping method.
• Bloodier and Gorier: Chapter 15 is one of the bloodiest chapters of the fic and sets the tone a lot darker then it already was.
• Bolivian Army Cliffhanger: The author really really seems to like these putting them in multiple chapters, often in a row.
• Both Sides Have a Point: Maki hates Kokichi for leaving her at the cult when she froze up during their escape attempt while Kokichi hates Maki for staying behind and eventually killing a member of DICE Kaito rightfully points out while they both are valid to be upset, they were both children.
• Break-In Threat: The remnants do this with Kokichi and Kaito at one point in a flashback light and very likely killed Kaito's grandparents.
• Break the Cutie: Himiko and Shuichi both have mental breakdowns over the course of the fic.
• Breaking the Fourth Wall: Kaito crashes a spaceship through the very literal fourth wall, known as the End Wall, to the outstretched arms of the people outside the world of Danganronpa
• Break the Haughty: Keeping Kokichi alive has resulted in him going through quite the ordeal, from being kept alive against his will to having to perform while dying and in crippling pain, Kokichi may have survived the hangar, but it's left quite a few mental and physical marks on the normally unflappable Supreme Leader.
• Broken Bird: Kaito is certainly starting to become one.
• Broken Tears: Kaito sees Kokichi succumb to genuine heartbreaking tears as Kokichi desperately tries to convince Kaito to kill him.
• Can't Kill You, Still Need You: Maki can't kill Tsumugi because that would start back up the killing game.
• The Chessmaster: Despite being thoroughly traumatized and dying throughout most of the fic, Kokichi is still Kokichi and is constantly running at least three different plans at all times.
• Chess Motifs: Kokichi as usual never gives up on having 2 million chess analogies at all time
• Clock King: Indicated by the way Kokichi seems to always know exactly how much time has passed without so much as glancing at a clock.
  Kiibo: Even I don’t have an internal clock function…
• Combat Pragmatist: Kokichi and Maki, though most of the cast ends up taking up similar beliefs by the end as survival gets harder and harder without doing some nasty things.
• Conditioned to Accept Horror: The Outside World about Team Danganronpa, though people in the medical field are said to have an inherent aversion to the show.
• Control Freak: Kokichi and Tsumugi but show signs of this behavior, with Kokichi lack of control at somepoints freaking him out to the point of putting his life in danger.
• Convenient Coma: Kaito and Kokichi seem to keep falling into these thanks to the poisons and injuries they have, sleep is deep, inconvenient and deeply troubling just as much as it is needed.
• The Corrupter: Tsumugi and Junko. to the rest of the cast
• Courtroom Episode: It's not a Danganronpa fic without some class trials! Even with how thrown off formula it gets, it always comes back to that final class trial.
• Covert Distress Code: Jellyfish is a covert code word told by Kokichi to Kaito.
• Crazy-Prepared: Kokichi constantly has another trick up his sleeve
• Crosses the Line Twice: Majority of Kokichi’s jokes and humor fall into this to the horror of the people around her, at least until they get more used to it.
• Cruel and Unusual Death: All of DICE gets brutally murdered in the flashback lights, often after failing some horrific and inhumane task.
• Cryptic Conversation: Kokichi constantly tries hinting at things while explaining nothing; it's not as effective as he'd hoped and keeps confusing people, especially Kaito.
• Cult: the Holy Salvation Society, while still mostly confined to flashback lights, is much more prominent and important than in canon.
• Cycle of Revenge: Subverted, despite Tsumugi's attempts to invoke this trope with flashback lights. Every time the group seems close to falling into this trope, they actually manage to talk it out or post-pone anger until they're safe.
• Dark Action Girl: Tsumugi is constantly running around to make sure her plans go out with a hitch, no matter who gets hurt.
• Darker and Edgier: This fic is intense and much darker than any canon Danganronpa content.
• Darkest Hour: Chapter 13, aptly titled "The Breaking Point." Though chapter 15 certainly gives it a run for its money in terms of sheer utter unrelenting horror.
• Deadly Game: Shockingly, this trope isn't here for the current killing game but because Kokichi had gone through a different death game before this one with the rest of DICE. This game seems to have left Kokichi the last man standing with the death of every single other person in the game and many others outside the game. However, Kaito's memories of it do get called into question of it by Kaito himself when he mentions them not feeling quite right.
• Death by Adaptation: Himiko's master, who also happened to be one of the members of DICE, got killed by Maki before the events of the game. The rest of DICE seems to have been killed as well afterward in the death game Kokichi went through before the current one.
• Death Is a Sad Thing: No death of any of the students or deaths of people in their flashback lights go unmourned, grief at times utterly consuming members of the cast.
• Deception Non Compliance: Kokichi tends to do this at least once a chapter.
• Deep Sleep: Kokichi keeps falling into these at the worst times.
• Despair Event Horizon: Kokichi seems to be going through one at the end of chapter 13 after being choked out to return his memories after a forced near-death experience. Whatever memories have returned have seemingly pushed the boy into a full remnant. One also appears to Kaito in the flashback lights when Shuichi's actions accidentally spiral out into an immense amount of death, including Kaito's grandparents when he led the remnants right to them on accident.
• Determinator: Kaito would do literally anything by the end to win Kokichi's survival.
• Determined Doctor: The doctor's are going above and beyond in trying to reach Kaito and Kokichi, whether it be talking through Kiibo or using literal hijacked nanobots to shock someone's heart back into working!
• Did Not Die That Way: Poor Kirumi wasn't actually killed by her execution, but when Monokuma threw her still barely alive body into the incinerator.
• Downer Beginning: The story's start takes place in the hangar before trial 5, so you can imagine the angst already going on, and it's only the start!
• Dream Sequence: Kaito has a few of these throughout the fics, often with themes of fire and Kokichi's death.
• Dwindling Party: DICE throughout flashback lights as each failed challenge results in a supposedly random member dying.
• Ending by Ascending Only by finally using the rocket of his execution, can Kaito finally pierce the glass wall keeping them all contained and reach the heavens.
• Evil Is Burning Hot: Kokichi is constantly metaphorically on fire with his own guilt, often resulting in rather trippy dreams and hallucinations where he is enshrouded in it as he pushes others away.
• Extremely Short Timespan: It's been only two days.
• Faking the Dead: Kokichi for the class trial,as Kaito has to pretend like Kokichi died midtrial inside the exisal
• Family-Unfriendly Violence: There is so much of this.
• Fate Worse than Death: Kaito is very concerned he may have condemned Kokichi to this.
• Find the Cure!: Most of the plot is around Kokichi's poisoning.
• Fire-Forged Friends: Probably the biggest example in all of fanfiction is Kokichi and Kaito, who start out entirely hating each other and working together due to having a common goal, but in the span of mere hours manage to become close enough to trust and rely on each other. It culminates in Kaito being utterly agonized when he thinks there’s no hope of a cure for Kokichi, and being overjoyed when they find an antidote. He becomes more and more determined to protect Kokichi after that point.
• Fire/Water Juxtaposition: Kokichi is hot while Kaito is cold, the opposite of their personalities. Though as the fanfic progresses, the two stop becoming a juxtaposition and instead start melding into the others element.
• Forced to Watch: The flashback lights force its victims to watch any memory forced on them, no looking away, no getting out no matter how horrifying.
• Force Feeding: Maki had to force the antidote down a nearly unconscious Kokichi's throat. It was not pleasant. Kokichi is also forced to eat a dead dove on the side of the street not to die in a flashback light, as you can imagine he threw it up right after.
• Fuzz Therapy: While more like feather therapy, Okasan fills this role for Kokichi and the rest of the group as the emotional support animal.
• Gallows Humor: Kokichi is full of this and is a very common coping method seen with him
• Gaslighting: Tsumugi seems to really enjoy messing with the casts senses and backstories in small ways that drive them to question their own sanity, Kokichi can't even remember if his favorite color is purple or red and he does not take that well.
• Genius Bruiser: Thanks to the outside world's help, Kiibo becomes this.
• Genre Shift: To the outside world, who were watching their fun campy murder mystery show right up until Tsumugi turned it into a psychological horror snuff survival show.
• Gone Horribly Right: The plan to put Kokichi to the brink of death to speedrun regaining his memories worked! Though now, with how he's talking about despair, it may have been better if it didn't
• Good Is Not Soft: Kaito is determined to do the right thing, no matter how much Kokichi genuinely begs him not to.
• Guilt-Induced Nightmare: Kaito feels really bad about everything that's happened to Kokichi.
• Hate Sink: Attempted to be invoked by Tsumugi towards Kokichi with mixed success.
• Heartfelt Apology: Multiple of these are given over the course of the fic, with characters often having moments of reflection after confrontation letting them realize where they messed up and work to make it up to who they hurt.
• Hidden Weapons: Kokichi always seems to have another weapon up his sleeve against all odds.
• Hollywood Healing: Averted, with the author explicitly stating they want all injuries to be as realistic as possible and getting frustrated when they feel they may have had too quick a healing period.
• Hoist by His Own Petard: The flashback lights while originally Tsumugi's greatest weapon has been co-opted by Kokichi to make it into his own greatest plan
• Hope Bringer: Okasan the dove! A sweet bird that initially belonged to Himiko is often seen giving comfort to the cast.
• Horrifying the Horror: Maki is the Ultimate Assassin, and even she is shocked and disgusted by Tsumugi poisoning Kokichi by literally weaving the poison into his bloodstream.
  Maki: Congratulations, Tsumugi. Not even the most depraved assassins in Japan have ever thought to teach me that one.
• Human Shield: A tactic employed by Kokichi when thing's get REALLY bad, even shoving a gun at Kaito at one point to protect himself.
• Humiliation Conga: Also doubles as a Trauma Conga Line, but Kokichi being poisoned, becoming so sickly that he is unable to walk, being forced to be vulnerable and rely on other people, and being aware that he’s dying slowly and pathetically in front of the entire world doesn’t do any favors for his already badly damaged psyche. Rather than being seen as Humble Pie, Kaito and everyone else thinks this level of destroying someone’s pride is simply another example of the Mastermind’s cruelty and sadism.
• I Am Legion: The outside world speaks as one and acts as one to the cast. There is no room to assert individualism when lives are at stake.
• I Lied: Maki to Monokuma about Kokichi being dead during the trial.
• I Will Punish Your Friend for Your Failure: In the previous game Kokichi was in it was revealed through a flashback light that if any person alive failed to complete the task in time, one of the members of the group would be chosen at random to be killed for this failure. Pushing members past the breaking point in a desperate bid to kill any member who fails to save themselves.
• Kick Them While They Are Down: Maki literally at Tsumugi after her defeat in the class trial, breaking her jaw.
• Let Me at Him!: Both Kokichi and Maki have to be stopped from physically attacking the other multiple times as more information is revealed. This is also Maki at Tsumugi after realizing what she's done to Kokichi and may have killed him.
• Loophole Abuse: The cast constantly utilizes this to keep one step ahead of the game and keep everyone alive and not executed.
• Madden Into Misanthropy: Junko's plan to turn Kokichi into a despair according to the flashback lights by convincing him that no one but her loves him, and that his old friends and classmates need to be punished for betraying him.
• Manipulative Bastard: Tsumugi, being the mastermind having to work around this twist can't be easy, but she sure makes it look like it is, even if you want to throttle her for it.
• The Medic: Maki is an assassin with a decent knowledge of anatomy and has presumably had to treat her own wounds, so she winds up being the Closest Thing We Got.
• Memory Jar: The whole school gets rigged with these, ready to suddenly give any of the cast terrifying or disturbing memories if they stumble onto them.
• Memory Wipe Exploitation: Lots of this to try and frame Kokichi as the mastermind.
• Mercy Kill: Subverted with Kaito refusing to kill Kokichi despite how much Kokichi begs to be put out of his misery, along with him leaning on the trope to make Monokuma think he had in fact killed Kokichi.
• Mind Rape: Tsumugi's actions, especially at Kokichi and oddly enough Shuichi.
• My God, What Have I Done?: Maki keeps going through this as she gains more and more flashbacks, all culminating in the realization she is the one who killed Himiko's master to her immense horror and grief. and Shuichi in a flashback light when he realizes his misunderstanding of the situation with the remnants resulted in Kokichi being heavily tortured, the death of DICE, and Kaito's grandparents being killed.
• Nightmare Sequence: Turns out being in a killing game isn't very productive for not having nightmares.
• Nothing Is the Same Anymore: Every character is permanently changed by this story in some of the cruelest ways, to the point they would likely not recognize who they were at the start anymore.
• Papa Wolf: Kaito goes through utter hell and back trying to keep Kokichi safe. Hurting the Supreme Leader quickly becomes Kaito’s biggest Berserk Button.
• Powered by a Forsaken Child: All of Tsumugi's schemes seem to involve either killing or framing Kokichi as the mastermind.
• The Power of Acting: Kokichi's acting is incredibly skillful, and many plot points could only happen because Kokichi is just that good of an actor.
• Protectorate: Both Kaito and surprisingly Maki become this towards Kokichi.
• Pyrrhic Victory: Kokichi's victory in his first game as he survives but left in intense despair and without the rest of DICE making it
• Railroading: Tsumugi constantly tries and fails to railroad the cast into specific conclusions
• "The Reason You Suck" Speech: Kokichi to Maki in chapter 13 and Kokichi at the Monokubs in chapter 14.
  Kokichi: You made your choice that day, Maki Roll! Nobody stopped you from following us! Nobody forced you to become a murderer!”
• Regained Memories Sequence: Lots of these keep happening thanks to the flashback lights.
• Remember That You Trust Me: Shockingly, Kaito of all character's has had this trope invoked on him multiple times throughout the story
• Seen It All: Shuichi becomes incredibly hard to phase with more weirdness by the end of the story, able to just accept oddities as they happen because they have become pretty par for the course and they still aren't as weird as the time that Monokuma lost his fur.
• Set Right What Once Went Wrong: The entire point of this fic is to get Kokichi to live to the end of the game, as the author could not stand knowing he had been killed.
• Soft-Spoken Sadist: Tsumugi covers up a lot of her sadistic nature with soft words and simple reasonable sounding reasonings.
• Sole Survivor: Kokichi with DICE, who all perish in their game.
• Spanner in the Works: Kaito to basically everyone, his inability to give up, along with a new understanding of Kokichi, means he keeps fucking up everyone's plans.
• Suicidal Sadistic Choice: The crux of the game Kokichi went through before this one according to the flashback lights.
• There Is No Kill Like Overkill: Kokichi was already incredibly weak and could still potentially die at really any moment from everything he's gone through, did you really have to sew POISONED STITCHES for his wounds Tsumugi?!
• Throwing Out the Script: Kaito at times much to Kokichi's ire from how long he spent making the damn things.
• Took a Level in Badass: Himiko, while mostly useless for combat and anything too physical in the original story, becomes a lot more dangerous in combat and more ruthless as time passes.
• Trickster God: Kaito likens Kokichi to one of these in a few of the chapters, considering him very much a Loki of the group.
• Took A Level In Cynicism: As much as Kaito tries to stay positive, even his normal, heroic fanfare has been slipping quite a lot throughout the story.
• Training Montage: Using a flashback light, Kokichi manages to give Kaito what is essentially years worth of practice for the final trial.
• True Companions: The survivors of the Killing Game seem to have near unbreakable bonds, trusting each other and doing anything to protect each other
• Unbroken Vigil: After escaping the killing game and getting taken to the hospital, Himiko, Maki, and Shuichi keep a constant vigil over Kaito and Kokichi who are in medically induced comas
• Villainous Breakdown: Tsumugi gets one during the final trial about how Kaito and Kokichi need to die and Danganronpa will continue and she definitely is a real person and not a pawn of Team Danganronpa.
• Voice of the Legion: Nanokumas hacked by the outside world serve as this, speaking as one to become loud enough for people to hear, signified with bolded dialogue text. According to Kaito this is incredibly creepy but the others seem to be adapting well.
• The Wall Around the World: The giant glass wall that surrounds the school and keeps the outside world out.
• What the Hell, Hero?: Kokichi at Kaito for not killing him and later on Kaito in a flashback light to Shuichi for leading the remnants to his grandparent's house and to Kokichi because he was convinced Kokichi was the true remnant, not realizing the police had been completely corrupted by the remnants.
• The Whole World Is Watching: A huge plot point in the later half of the story is just how many people are watching the Danganronpa tv show, voyeurs to the suffering and pain of the cast even when they desperately wish they weren't.
• Wounded Hero, Weaker Helper: People are constantly self sacrificing to try and save the lives of each other, whether it be Kiibo getting impaled to protect Kokichi or a dying Kaito carrying a dying Kokichi, there's a very real chance the person doing the healing may also be lethally wounded.
• Wound That Will Not Heal: Throughout the entire fic, Kokichi and Kaito have been on and off again poisoned, seemingly always being the threat at the back of everyone's minds.
• You Killed My Father: Kaito has a moment like this towards Shuichi when he realizes Shuichi's negligence very likely resulted in his grandparents deaths in a flashback light.
• Your Worst Memory: Flashback lights are nasty, something Himiko learns first hand.

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