Fanfic / The Ultimate Hope

The diligence and bond between the students of Hope’s Peak Academy was far stronger than the mastermind could have ever imagined. The killing game should have gone exactly as planned…but time passed quicker than expected. With no murders occurring, the mastermind began to get desperate…especially since the game began over 5 years ago!

Monokuma is the Ultimate Despair responsible for causing The Tragedy, trapping the 15 students of Hope's Peak Academy's 78th class inside the school, and forcing them to play a Deadly Game. Everyone should hate them with a fiery passion, and that's all they really want. Despair is all they really want. But there is no despair, and nothing they do can spread it.

The Ultimate Hope (alternately found here) is a Danganronpa: Trigger Happy Havoc fanfic by hunterofcomedy asking what would happen if the Big Bad’s Despair Gambit failed spectacularly, and instead had the opposite effect. Hilarity Ensues.

This fic contains spoilers for the first two games, and the tropes below contain unmarked spoilers for the first. Proceed at your own risk!

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The Ultimate Hope provides examples of:

• Accidental Misnaming: Junko gets confused on whether to call Toko's Genocider self Jack, Jill or Syo. She ends up going with 'scissors-cutty-cutty-bitch'.
• Age Without Youth: Inverted. One of Junko's bribe ideas (specifically #12) was a fake potion to provide eternally youthful looks, but she decides against it when she realizes someone would point out how that wouldn't be great without immortality to go with it. She actually realizes this one before presenting it, unlike two later bribe ideas.
• An Offer You Can't Refuse: Junko attempts this on Sakura, holding her family dojo hostage. She instead announces to everyone the deal Monokuma tried to make before she even came close to becoming The Mole.
• Ain't Too Proud to Beg: Motive #289 is just Monokuma pleading hysterically for the students to kill.
• Babies Ever After: Mikado Naegi, Celestia Yamada, Kaori Hagakure and Marlon Brando Jeff Kuwata are all born during the time skip. The story picks up again at the birth of Sakura and Kiyotaka's unnamed child.
• Bad Is Good and Good Is Bad: Junko's goal is despair and so one can say that despair (even her own despair) makes her happy. This makes the level of hope within the story all the more depressing for her, which, ironically, leads to her despair-by-frustration.
• Be Yourself: By the Time Skip, Celestia has learned this lesson and chooses to take up her original name, Taeko. She eventually gives her old name to her daughter.
• Big "NO!": Junko's reaction to her new title given by Makoto (followed by several hours of hope-induced sobbing). She has the same reaction sometime after the Time Skip when the kiddies are hunting her down to play. Hajime's final words to her seem to be leading up to one, until she declares that she doesn't care anymore.
• Big Damn Heroes: Just when it seems that Junko will finally get the last laugh, Hajime Hinata blows through the vault door and declares "I’m here to rescue all of you!”
• Big Red Button: Apparently the body discovery announcement button is one of these, presumably not that different from the execution button, and Junko whines pretty heavily about not being able to push it.
• Blatant Lies: The students manage to convince Kiyotaka that the secret ingredient in Yasuhiro's "special brownies" was oregano. Monokuma tries to spread discord with the truth, and gets ignored.
• Born Unlucky: Something will always prevent Junko from getting what she wants, and at the worst time too.
• Butt-Monkey: Junko, in her own way, as the world seems to bend over to deny her her sick games.
• Card-Carrying Villain: Junko shouts at the top of her lungs, “I am evil! I am the mastermind behind trying to kill you all and ending the world!” Too bad for her no one believes her.
• Cassandra Truth: The world is so devoted to seeing Junko as a good person that Celestia asks if she was lying about killing Headmaster Kirigiri as a part of her (nonexistent) Genghis Gambit. Byakuya quickly backs her up by pointing out the small likelihood that anyone would have access to a rocket-guided execution during an apocalypse.
• Chastity Couple: Byakuya and Toko, mostly because Byakuya is a firm believer in "don't stick your dick in crazy" and Toko agreed to wait through The Power Of Insane Yandere Obsession as long as he didn't get it on with anyone else.
• Cool and Unusual Punishment: Junko's punishment for being a Card-Carrying Villain? All her attempts to sow despair end up with her friends even happier than they would be otherwise.
  • After being thoroughly browbeaten into being accepted by everyone as a hero, the final nail in Junko's hope coffin is Makoto christening her "The Ultimate Hope".
  • Sometime during the Time Skip, Makoto tells the children Junko is a good person, which leads to her becoming an unwitting Cool Aunt. He probably has no idea this qualifies as a punishment.
  • By the stinger, she's awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for ushering in a golden age of peace and hope. She doesn't mind this one as much because she gets a trophy out of it.
• Crying Wolf: The brownie incident sees Junko getting pissy at the fact that she's found herself in the unfortunate position of telling the truth for the sake of despair while the students are lying for the sake of hope. Kyoko is practically gloating as she calls it "a necessary lie."
• Death Seeker: After the timeskip, Junko has starting pleading to be shot in the face by her sister (possibly just to get away from the kids more than to start a trial).
• Didn't Think This Through:
  • One motive Junko tries (specifically #68) is never having to pay taxes for life... but, being stuck in the school for the forseeable future, the students aren't paying taxes anyway
  • One of the motives (specifically #374) Junko tries in order to get people to start killing is to promise that whoever kills can lose their virginity to the Mastermind. Of course, she completely forgets that while she is a beautiful fashion model, the students all think Monokuma was the mastermind, and have no interest whatsoever. All it does is convince them that they need to lose their virginity to each other first (and now, as Makoto says, in the off chance Monokuma can find a supermodel to tempt them with).
• The Dog Bites Back: Mukuro's response to Junko laying out how grossly out-of-proportion her loyalty is involves unloading a clip of bullets into Monokuma before completely disowning her as a sister.
• Dub Name Change: Lampshaded when Junko attempts to bring out Toko's killer personality and stumbles over whether she's called "Genocide Jack" or "Genocider Syo".
• Everybody Has Lots of Sex: The end result of motive #374 as Makoto convinces everyone to get laid so that the motive loses its power incase Monokuma manages to find someone more attractive (and thus, tempting for students to consider murdering) than him.
• Everybody Must Get Stoned: Yasuhiro helps to pacify the group with his "special brownies" around the same time Monokuma has been reduced to using cookies as a motivation.
• Entertainingly Wrong: Makoto, after running down the list of Junko's crimes, decides that her actions led to everyone being safe from the outside world, making her their savior in a sense, even going on to conclude that her motivations led to strengthening everyone's bonds through adversity, in a sort of Genghis Gambit. The whole notion disgusts her completely.
• Evil Cannot Comprehend Good: Junko, as per the usual, is baffled at how any of her victims can forgive each other or trust each other despite their secrets and all the wonderful motives she provides.
• Failure Is the Only Option: Even after attempting hundreds of them, not one of Junko's despair-inducing motivations can get through to the students, and a few of them even manage to create hope.
• Failure Montage: Half of the fanfic are the highlights of Junko's increasingly feeble attempts to motivate a killing.
• Forgiveness: The students, so very much. Leon forgives Sayaka, Chihiro forgives Mondo, everyone forgives Celestia and so on. Possibly worst of all for Junko, no one in the group sees her actions as evil enough to be worth forgiving.
• Friend to All Children: As of the Time Skip, Junko finds herself as a one-sided version of this to the class's children. The fact horrifies her to no end.
• The Gadfly: Mukuro is the only one within the group that understands how much Junko despises being seen as a good person, and that doesn't stop her from mercilessly undermining Junko's villainous Motive Rant with a big grin on her face.
• Genghis Gambit: After laying out her entire plan, Makoto decides that all of Junko's actions were actually just "pretending" to be evil in order to unite the students as friends and push them to trust each other.
  • And worse still for her, after the transmission gets cut off, the entire outside world started to see her this way too.
• Gilded Cage: After learning that the world outside is basically flames and violence while the school has infinite supplies and the only danger is each other, the students decide they'd rather stay. Much to Junko's horror, they even think this was her intention from the start.
• Harmless Villain: Junko's entire threat-level is taken away. Only Mukuro even thinks she was ever a villain at all.
• Heartbreak and Ice Cream: After five months of failed motives, Junko is sitting alone in her control room sobbing over candy bars and cheese puffs.
• Heel Realization: Celestia has one in the end, calling off Hifumi, turning herself in and confessing to the entire plot.
• Honorary Uncle: Many of the student's kids refer to the others as aunts and uncles. Even Junko, much to her aggravation.
• Hope Bringer: Makoto is labeled as "disgustingly hopeful" by Junko because he takes every opportunity to jump on a soap box and preach friendship and trust. Eventually Junko herself is seen as the "Ultimate Hope"..
• Hope Is Scary: Junko doesn't like hope because it means no one is despairing; it is a threat to her Evil Plan rather than anything in itself.
• Hope Spot: Or rather "Despair Spot." Just when it seemed, after 6 long years, Junko was finally going to drive the students to taking a life (hers, in fact), who should burst through the vaulted door but Hajime Hinata, with the news that the world outside is okay and its all thanks to her. There’s another when she burns the Disneyland tickets.
• Humiliation Conga: The universe seems devoted to putting Junko through a "hopeful" conga of failed murder motives and praise as a savior.
• Hypocritical Humor: Junko looks at the outside world for the first time in years to see an old modelling photo she did blown up to billboard size and displayed everywhere to show that she'd become the world's symbol of hope. She hates the smiling, happy photo enough to have had it destroyed, and complains that some damned pervert must have been holding onto a copy she didn't know about: this coming from The Peeping Tom who likes watching teenagers while they sleep.
• If I Can't Have You…: Junko tries to invoke this by forcing Toko to sneeze and turning her on Byakuya, but all the Genocider does is glomp him. It turns out Toko and the Genocider had agreed to share Byakuya ahead of time.
• Ignored Enemy: After Mukuro properly explains why Junko trapped them in the school, everyone starts ignoring her whole Motive Rant to get on with their breakfast. Even before then, her captives eventually just started ignoring Monokuma when they decided their Gilded Cage was way too nice to wreck by murdering the others.
• Ineffectual Sympathetic Villain: The entire fic is the answer to the question "What would happen if Junko was completely incompetent and had the worst luck in the universe?" The result is a crying girl watching through a monitor as her classmates become great friends and have lots of fun together.
• Infinite Supplies: Subverted near the end of the story, where Junko explains that the underground garden that's been feeding the students is about to shut down after 8 years of tireless work, with the only passage to repair it collapsed (her doing, of course).
• Insult Backfire: Junko's Flowery Insults just make the kids she's trying to send away think she's funny.
• Intimidating Revenue Service: Motive #68 is the promise of never having to pay taxes, until someone points out that inside the school they already aren't paying taxes.
• Jaw Drop:
  • None of the students were as surprised to see Junko appear in person as Mukuro (still in disguise).
  • In turn, Mukuro being better as Mr. Exposition after the puppet show explanation fails gets this reaction from Junko. Many more would follow.
• Laser-Guided Amnesia: Kyoko's eventually starts to wear off to a degree, but the new, happy memories she's built instead gives her enough peace of mind to not risk herself to solve the mystery at any cost (like she would in the game).
• Lighter and Softer: There are no murders in this AU and Junko quickly becomes an ineffectual Butt-Monkey.
• Love Redeems:
  • Leon is too head-over-heels in love with Sayaka to stay mad at her trying to kill him. They end up making out, while Junko angrily taps her finger on the monitor.
  • Celestia eventually becomes a much better person after starting a relationship with Hifumi, to the point of resuming using her original name Taeko (because the Time Skip reveals her and Hifumi's daughter had taken on the Celestia name).
• Manly Tears: Mondo cries these after Motive #34 fails, which had Monokuma promising the killer a lifetime pass to Disneyland. Getting to watch the students lament so many tickets being burned in front of them was possibly the only real despair kick Junko gets in the entire fanfic.
• Married at Sea: The students don't really have access to any official means of marrying legally, but Kiyotaka refuses to consummate his love without it. They appease him by having Alter Ego (the only non-student available) preside over his wedding to Sakura.
• Mistreatment-Induced Betrayal: Mukuro switches sides after Junko tries to coax her into killing someone with the promise of a despairing execution should she get caught. After that confrontation, Junko is banging her head against the wall at her own stupidity for being so brutally honest.
• Named After Somebody Famous: Sayaka and Leon's child, Jeff Marlon Brando Kuwata, which bothers his mother immensely.
• Nice Job Fixing It, Villain: Practically the whole point of the fanfic. Probably best punctuated by Mukuro telling her sister she (ironically) learned to enjoy life through Junko.
• No Sympathy: As a result of the above Mistreatment-Induced Betrayal, Mukuro gleefully goes along with everyone's assumption that Junko was actually a secret good guy all along, paying no mind to how desperately her sister wants them to believe otherwise.
• Official Couple: Makoto/Kyoko, Yasuhiro/Aoi, Kiyotaka/Sakura, Celestia/Hifumi, Leon/Sayaka and Mondo/Chihiro/Mukuro.
• Odd Couple: While being subjected to a round of Rapid-Fire Interrupting, Junko yells at Celestia (who's in the midst of snuggling up to Hifumi) "you both can do better." Sakura and Kiyotaka getting married also prompts the narration to comment that "if there was still an internet, that one would go there."
• Only Sane Woman: The fanfic manages to turn Junko into this, where the only one capable of seeing the magnitude of her evil is herself, in a world that bends over backwards to instead make her a hero and savior.
• Pair the Spares: Motive #374 forces everyone to find a partner, which leads to obvious pairings like MakotoxKyoko and some not so obvious parings like YasuhiroxAoi and KiyotakaxSakura.
• Patchwork Kids: Mikado Naegi has his mother's lavender hair and his father's eyes. Continuing that theme, Jeff Kuwata has spiky blue hair in a sort of combination of Sayaka and Leon's styles.
• Point of Divergence: The entire AU seems to start up with Sayaka losing her nerve and dropping the knife that she was about to stab Leon with. This leads to Junko trying to force Mukuro to be the first killer, which instead forces a Heel–Face Turn from the Ultimate Soldier (hence losing the despair of the first execution). Things only grow more hopeful from there.
• Politically Incorrect Villain: Downplayed, but Junko briefly considers calling Chihiro "it" when she runs into Pronoun Trouble.
• Polyamory: Mondo, Chihiro, and Mukuro paired up after Motive #374.
• The Power of Friendship: Thanks to this fic's For Want Of A Nail, Makoto unites the students with friendship so they don't kill each other. Kiyotaka refuses to believe Yasuhiro uses pot leaves in the "special brownies" because he believes his friends wouldn't lie to him, inoculating him against Junko trying to tell him the truth. Celestia decides that "friendship was worth more than money". It essentially drives the world.
• Rapid-Fire Interrupting:
  • Junko is screaming at everyone about how much despair she wanted to spread, only to get interrupted every time with examples of how much hope she's instead given them.
  • Hajime even does this to her with his Rebuttal Showdown line "Allow me to cut through those words!"
• Screw the Money, I Have Rules!: Despite constructing the same plan she carried out in the actual game, Celestia ultimately decides "friendship was worth more than money" while Junko is screaming at the monitor.
• Shut Up, Hannibal!: After ranting about the despair of starvation that now faces the students, Mondo delivers one to Junko in the form of a punch to the face, to her incredible delight.
• Sir Swears-a-Lot: Hanging out with Mondo so much has turned Chihiro into someone who could make a sailor blush.
• Sliding Scale of Idealism Versus Cynicism: Junko desperately wants the story to slide into the cynical, but unfortunately for her, the slider is downright nailed to 'extreme idealism'. Everything she does to inspire despair instead creates more hope, friendship and forgiveness.
• Springtime for Hitler: Junko has the perfect mixture of despair to inflict on the students but everything she does only makes them tighter friends and better people.
• The Stinger: Years down the line, Junko gets awarded a Nobel Peace Prize for her actions.
• Stopped Caring: Junko's ultimate fate, in a world that saw everything she did as a Genghis Gambit, with all the students set free and contented with life, while she's gone from history's greatest monster to their Ultimate Hope for the Future.
• Strong Family Resemblance:
  • Celestia Yamada is basically a tiny version of the Celeste we know, but with her father's otaku heart. The Celeste we know had enabled her and Hifumi's daughter to take on the name Celestia because she herself has since gone back to using her original name Taeko.
  • Kaori Hagakure is practically identical to Aoi, looking nothing like her father Yasuhiro (which even he sees as a blessing).
• Talking the Monster to Death: Junko's final motive is to confront the students and goad them into killing her. Instead, Makoto convinces everyone that she is a good person, leading to her defeat in the most peaceful way possible.
• Tears of Remorse: Instead of killing Chihiro, Mondo drops the dumbbell and breaks down crying for forgiveness, while Junko is complaining at the monitor.
• Their First Time: Motive #374 is the offer of taking the killer's virginity, but Junko in her desperation forgets that at this point they only know her as Monokuma, which serves to Squick out the entire group.
  • Worst for her, this motive brings even more unity to the group when Makoto suggests everyone lose their virginity now in case Monokuma finds a supermodel to tempt them with.
• This Is for Emphasis, Bitch!: Junko's final Despair Gambit has her announcing this in front of a mirror. She then reveals that the Junko the others knew is actually her twin sister Mukuro.
  "It's punishment time... bitches!"
• Time Skip: Set 6 years after Junko gets re-titled. The stinger is another ten years after that.
• Tiny Guy, Huge Girl: Kiyotaka is far from short, but just about any man would be this next to Sakura. Junko wonders aloud how them having a child is even possible.
• Title Drop: Done twice, by the protagonist of games 1 and 2.
• Troubled Fetal Position: Junko goes into one after Mikado (taking after both his parents) successfully makes the argument that she's a good person.
• TV Never Lies: Monokuma is convinced having an emotional episode to convince the students to kill should at least let him turn into a Super Saiyan (because it said so on the internet).
• Unishment: Mukuro's self-inflicted redemption for tricking the other students is to keep suicide watch on her sister (so that she doesn't kill herself and shut off the air purifier just to spite everyone). This really just means she gets to shove all the hope that her former Ultimate Despair of a sister has created into her face as often as she wants.
• Utopia: As revealed by Hajime in the end, the world has healed past the despair Junko created into a world free of hatred and prejudice... and they all thank her for it.
• Vomit Indiscretion Shot: Celestia and Hifumi becoming a couple causes Junko to throw up into the trash can she was burning the 10 billion yen in.
• Villainous Breakdown: The entire fanfic is Junko becoming increasing desperate and frustrated over the students resisting her mind games.
• Villain Decay: By the Time Skip, no one in the building thinks of Junko as a villain.
• Villain Protagonist: The entire fanfic takes Junko's perspective.
• You Are Better Than You Think You Are: In the very end of the fanfic, Hajime gives Junko this message that no matter her intentions, she's created a level of hope so much bigger than herself. Being that he was once a follower of despair himself, he knows where she's coming from too. The whole thing culminates in him giving her an even grander title: the Ultimate Hope for the Future.
• You Killed My Father: Junko tries to invoke this one to give Kyoko despair. Like all her Despair Gambits, it fails; Kyoko, now in a relationship with Makoto, is perfectly happy with not pursuing her father anymore (especially since she now knows he isn't the one controlling Monokuma).