Nightmare Fuel / Forest of Despair

Welcome to the Suicide Forest. Enjoy your time. Spoilers are no longer marked.

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• The situation of the Killing Game is Nightmare Fuel as it is. Now it setting place is a forest where there's no wildlife is creepy.
• Akita's dreams in general. Especially because Akiza and Aki are not who anybody would consider to be sane people. It is also scary seeing a protagonist go through some serious Sanity Slippage until she snaps and one of her alters cause her own death by egging on Kazuhiko and stabbing herself way too many times.
• All of chapter 1-4, other than being a mind fuck, is a lot of this. Especially the parts with Hideyoshi, as it was made canon that he ripped Akita's fingernails off and then cut off her hands...There's a reason why this story is rated M.
• Akita's death as well. She was stabbed twenty-one times, including right in her eye socket, and had blunt force trauma applied to her head.
• Just the pool in general. You do not want to know what is in there, much less swim in it.
  • Made even worse in the second investigation, where Hotaru and Mitsuru swim in it to gather evidence. Extra because they didn't even know it was there, they were just checking for loose ends! EW!
• Kazuhiko's execution. After being shot at three times and having his ears bleed, the three robots fall onto him and crush him. During all of this Monokuma's are throwing rocks at him and Kazuhiko has lost his shoes, making his feet exposed. Afterward, the conveyor belt from the first part of the execution comes falling down and crushes him. It is noted that his legs and feet barely look human anymore, and the only thing that does not appear broken is one of his arms. With that, he tries to pull himself above the wreckage, and, once he does, says he loves Ayano and dies of his injuries. That's messed up.
• The fact that the mastermind does not clean or provide the students with anything. The students have to wear the same thing, and they also have the bury their own classmates and clean the crime scenes! Oh my God!
  • Monokuma places Kazuhiko's dead body into Ayano's room while she is still mourning. His dead body! He is starting to decay and was killed horribly as stated before. Clean after yourself mastermind!
• The Suicide Video. It still exists in this universe and the mastermind has it. It gets shown to Ayano, who has a dream about the Danganronpa 2 characters, Kazuhiko, and Kotori. And it is creepy.
• Ayano's nightmare of her own execution. Ayano is trapped in a large computer. There is a hatch on the top of the computer, which is only reachable by computer apps. And Monokuma is on the other side and is actively throwing apps in the trash bin. Ayano climbs up the apps, trying to get away from the computer mouse. She tries to open up the hatch and fails, and decides it is better to drop to her death than be captured. The mouse captures her mid-fall by her hood and forces her into the trash bin. She is then transported to a room of white, where she is then impaled by a lot of spears.
• You thought Akita's death is brutal? Try Shinichi's. Poor boy gets slowly poisoned in a process that is implied to take well over thirty minutes. And his body is contorted. Worse of all though is that he dies in front of all the other students while some of them were trying to save him at Kyoto's birthday party.
• Monokuma slowly taking people away during the course of the second trial. Ayano's descriptions of the pure helplessness of their situation do not make anything better.
• When Ayano is researching on the computer, she figures out that everybody involved in the Killing Game has had been erased from history! Everybody except for the mastermind.
• Kira's fake execution. Even though it clearly didn't finish, it still is terrifying. First, a hand takes her to the track. Kira ditches her jacket to escape, only to break one of her legs. Now on the track, the hand begins to follow her with an oversized needle, trying to stab her. The needle grazes her so Kira falls into an oven. Before the oven can turn on, Kira's punishment ends.
• Cassius's fate. He didn't even kill Shinichi, Kira did. And Kira didn't even want to kill Shinichi, she wanted to kill herself (Monokuma probably lied about how painful the death is though). But, because the class tried to escape in the middle of a trial, Monokuma decides to punish them by executing an innocent person.
  • Cassius's execution is even more brutal than Kazuhiko's. It also has allusions to Mondo's (turning into a liquid substance), Peko's (having somebody with a strong Ship Tease try to stop the execution and get an eye injury as a result), and Kirumi's (the saws tearing away his skin and clothes).
  • The execution starts with saws and lasers that hurt Cassius. During this time, Kira is trying to break her way out of the oven. Then there are axels that try to get him but only get a bit of his shirt. Then there are hoses that make the ground wet and harder to run on, allowing more lasers to get him. At the end, there's an acid bath. Monokuma pushes Cassius in. Meanwhile, Kira breaks out of the oven and begins to go through the same thing. She tries to get to Cassius but has acid spilled on her eyes and passes out. Cassius, however, slowly dissolves in the acid. It is noted by Ayano that the previously clear acid is now red.
• Monokuma forces one participant to watch the execution as punishment and leaves them there.
  • Ayano was forced to free herself after watching her boyfriend, Kazuhiko, get executed. She was Forced to Watch after trying to join Kazuhiko in his execution.
  • Yasu had to be freed by Ayano, Mirabilis, and Hayato. If it wasn't for Mirabilis, Yasu would've been stuck there for much longer!
  • The third victim of the despair chair is Minato! And Ayano almost forgot to check the torture chair, and would have not done so if Minato didn't make any noise. Minato is obviously traumatized by this experience.
• You know what, Monokuma, in general, is a lot scarier in this version. During the beginning, Monokuma is his usual self, until Kazuhiko decides to kill Akita, something that clearly wasn't part of the mastermind's plan. Monokuma then rushes Kazuhiko's trial and painfully executes him. He then dumps his body in his girlfriend's, Ayano, room, which is noted to be decaying. And chapter 3-1 implies that this was purely done out of spite.
  • Monokuma also agreed to help Kira out with her suicide and did things like point her to poison and help her with the setup. Kira is about to believe she successfully caused her own death until Shinichi dies. That's right, Monokuma tricked Kira into trying to kill herself, but, worse of all, he convinced her friend, Cassius, to use her setup to accidentally kill Shinichi. Because it would be useful to have somebody like her continue to be in the game!
• Just the fact that the mastermind is confirmed to be Kaneshiro Kazuma: The Ultimate Brainwasher who is hiding amongst the students. Yes, anybody can be the mastermind! And he is slowly brainwashing the other students, as the second trial reveals he already has somebody working with him.
• Kotori's experiments. Especially Personality Experiment #045, which had her overriding innocent people's memories with that of dead people, and the fact that it is legal.
  • With these experiments, it is implied that there has been another killing game. And, to top it all off, the experiments are somehow tied into the Killing Game and Akita Yamazaki herself.
• Chapter 3-3 has the students go through an earthquake. It is stated that the building cannot survive another earthquake. If this happens again, the cast is screwed. Either they would die or have no place to sleep.
• Once again, in chapter 3-3, somebody attacks Hayato first, causing him to get the people at the main building. Then Yasu and Satoshi get attacked as well with their attacker escaping at the last moment. Monokuma knocks the students from the main building out and now the attacker is free to do whatever they want. None of the students from the main building are injured more than they already are, but there are five students still missing. And nobody knows where they are.
• The person who presumably attacked Yasu and Satoshi has supposedly two victims. One of them is Kyoto Kamui, who dies painfully and slowly by bleeding to death by a bullet wound to the stomach. The other is Naoko Kawabata, who has been handcuffed to a desk, has her throat completely caved in, and stab wounds all over her body. To top it all off, for some reason, they're both stripped down to their underwear.
  • Worse part of it all is that the killer is still on the loose and Minato and Mitsuru are still missing...
  • Minato is found but...
    • Mitsuru's remains are found in the trial room. She is stripped down to her underwear and has despair eyes. Mitsuru was shot in the stomach and then beheaded. Post-mortem, somebody cut her body into pieces are hung them around the courtroom. Made even worse that the students have to do the trial with her body still up there!
• Takayuki managed to get himself poisoned during the trial again, spending an excruciating amount of time with the poison in his system.
  • Not helped by the fact that he comments about it several times during the trial that it will seriously damage his body.
• Hotaru spends at least an hour up in the chains again, this time with Mitsuru's corpse for company!
• Hideyoshi in the third trial. All of it.
  • For one, it turns out that he killed Naoko SOMEHOW without any hands.
  • He was choking Mirabilis while holding her over the podium, telling the others he'd only free her if they voted him as the culprit. Made even worse by the fact that he still looked like Takayuki and the others didn't know yet. Monokuma even cooperated by blocking the others from his podium!
    • After being voted guilty, he tried to drop Mirabilis off the podium, however, she managed to grab on. He even tried to step on her fingers as they descended, not helped by her almost falling a few times.
  • He stopped Ayano from freeing Mirabilis when she was being punished for breaking three rules.
  • He helped Hayato aim for Mirabilis's head before he shot her.
  • He even encouraged Hayato to kill himself, driving him to the point of despair.
  • He managed to destroy a Monokuma *without* hands, smashing it to bits with his feet and comparing it to Naoko.
  • Hideyoshi was completely willing to die. He was even bored during his execution!
• The events leading up to Mirabilis's death.
  • And Monokuma steals her body. We don't want to think about what he's doing with it.
• Atsuto's implied backstory. The boy had to see his two best friends, Akita and Hideyoshi, get driven insane by Kaneshiro. Then they killed the entire surviving cast of the first game. That's right. And he thinks its highly likely that they got to the second cast as well, considering he hasn't heard from them after all of these years. Plus, it's implied he saw his parents get murdered by Akita.
• THE. SHRINE. Everything about it is full of creeps.
  • The robots of the dead students. They look exactly like them but have no life in their eyes. Worse of all, for some reason, Hotaru is a part of it!
• The whole scene where Kaneshiro attacks Ayano inside the room with the shrine. Ayano barely escapes him during the whole fight, and its made official canon that Kazuhiko murdered Kotori and Ayano helped him with it.
  • Gets worse if you think about what would have actually happened if Kaneshiro reached Ayano...who was only in a tower in the time mind you.
• Ayano gets out of the aforementioned room by finding a secret one accidentally. This room, however, has a dreadful surprise...
  • There are five brutally murdered bodies in the room. They're so bad to AYANO has to throw up.
  • Turns out these bodies are part of the fourth motive. Worse of all, Ayano and Hotaru don't know what the motive is since they were upstairs, so, for all we know, it could be the worse one yet...
• Hotaru gets taken by Kaneshiro again and Ayano freaks out about Hotaru's disappearance when she suddenly falls from the third floor...without her towel. Thinking about what that means would cause somebody to shiver.
• Miyuki's illness. It's shown to be getting worse. How bad is it? She's coughing up blood in the Hospital. Ayano tries to help her but Miyuki forces her away.
• Its canon that the Committee engages in human trafficking. What's worse is that Ayano and Kazuhiko are both victims of human trafficking in canon.
• Ayano and Hotaru figure out that the game is set in the Neo World Program. This is not the scary part. Because in the note Ayano receives, there's a photo of Kazuhiko's dead body in the real world. To make things not end up like they did in two, the mastermind set it to where the victims of the game get fatally stabbed in the real world.
  • Afterward, both of the girls get drugged by Monokuma. Ayano is pretty much unaffected but Hotaru gets her memories erased. Thinking about why is sure to lead to some not very kind theories.
• Somebody shoots Ayano because she was learning too much and for some reason, they don't want to erase her memories like the others. And, due to it being the Neo World Program, nobody could see who did it. The amount of power the mastermind has is truly terrifying.
• Learning more about Kotori. She used to be nice to Ayano, but that is to only get her close enough to try to have her fall into despair because of the experiments. Kotori cares about no one.
  • Unlike other Despairs, Kotori doesn't worship Junko. She finds her to be childish. Kotori's despair is worse than JUNKO'S. And, instead of the usual despair swirls, Kotori's eyes turn into just black. Everything. Black.
• The Fake Kazuhiko scene. Just everything about the scene. It was so bad that Requiem felt like she needed to add a content warning...to a story with everything stated above.
  • To clarify, the fake Kazuhiko sexually assaults Ayano. Ayano has to kill him to finally get him to stop before things get too heated. Doesn't help that the fake Kazuhiko gets the same eyes as Kotori and then, when he dies, the body morphs to how Kazuhiko's corpse did.
• Yasu tries to kill theirself. That's a tearjerker, but what makes it nightmare-inducing is that its the exact same spot where Ayano tried to at the start of chapter two. And the same way, possibly with the same knife. Also, the implication that Yasu has tried to do this before, or at least some other form of self-harm.
• There's a scene where Kotori experiments with Ayano. Not only are the implications with Akita and Izumi terrifying, but Ayano herself. The reason Ayano is tall is not that of genetics or anything natural, Kotori gives Ayano an experimental shot to help her grow. It worked.
• Kira lives alone with Ayano Kirigiri...There is heavy hinting that Kira has some form of Stockholm Syndrome.
• How bad was Eishi to Ayano if she considered living with KOTORI better!?
• Miyuki's death. She was stabbed with her very own sword in the side of the waist. The killer also probably took advantage of Miyuki's illness to overpower her. Then Miyuki was slammed into the wall until she finally died. Also, the fact that Ayano notes Miyuki's death mirrors Akita's only leads to bad, bad ideas.
• Ayano's dream with Junko. We truly don't want to know what means.
• Becasue Hayato does not want to continue the trial, Monokuma decides to punish him for all the rebellion he is causing. He then gives him a box...which has Mirabilis's brutalized head inside it.
• Namita is about to be executed, and, in a fit of true bravery, the others that are still able to try to protect her. How does Monokuma respond to this? By making them all experience the execution. Lucky Kira was passed out at the time, or she would have probably started having flashbacks due to the parallels between her execution and Cassius's.
  • How does Monokuma punish the students that are not Namita? By placing them in a water tank that slowly fills the water. Ayano even makes a remark about how all of them are tall and, if any of them were short, there is a chance they could have possibly died. The tank even fills up with water, but Akemi saves them before they all drown. Ayano is very shaken up by this incident.
  • For Namita herself, she is placed in a game much like Family Feud. She is given a game against a robot version of Miyuki and loses. Because of this, the robots leave, and the next stage is set. There are many sides in a studio that all have an obstacle to overcome. Namita survives these sides carefully, but not before having things like having oil seep into her fresh wounds, almost falling to her death, and much more happen to her. At the end of the sides, there is a void that Namita stops herself from falling into. Monokuma is about to push her in before Akemi and Yasu saves them all.
  • The fact that Hotaru, Hayato, Minato, and Takara have to be left behind. They simply don't have enough time to get them, especially Hotaru and Hayato who sacrifice themselves. Even if the others get out, they would have to live with the guilt of causing their suffering for the rest of their lives.
  • If the group gets captured by Monokuma again, things are not going to be pretty. Considering last time Monokuma willingly executed an innocent person, we don't want to think about this time. He was mad enough for a mass execution even before their escape plan. Dear lord.
• There's a reason why After Trial 4-1 has so many warnings.
  • Akemi's temporary lapse of insanity. Atsuto even says that there's nothing they can do to stop him. He beats around Namita and Tsukiko like they are nothing. Not to mention his insane laughter. Thank God that Namita was able to talk him down because Akemi was unnerving.
  • Ayano is the only one that escapes the program. She is supposed to be safe and talks with Hanako. This stops when the Despairs shoot up the Saviors' headquarters. Kaneshiro personally goes into Ayano's room and kills Hanako right in front of her.
  • The rape scene between Ayano and Kaneshiro. He will make sure that Ayano doesn't rebel against him anymore. Seeing how broken and is despair Ayano is after this is devasting. Doesn't help that she was literally shown a picture of a brutalized, starved corpse of a toddler right before this.
  • Also the implications. Kazuhiko was most likely bought for sex and experimentation by Kotori, and Hotaru was most certainly raped by Kaneshiro when she fell down without her towel.
• Where did the rest of Mirabilis's body go? Well, Monokuma preserved it so he can feed it to the most rebellious of students: Atsuto, Akemi, Yasu, and Tsukiko. This is their punishment for trying to leave the game. Namita and Minato are not punished because Monokuma has other plans for them, and Ayano has gone insane. Kira and Takara were passed out, and Hotaru and Hayato were trapped in the chains.
• Monokuma starts rambling on about Namita and Miyuki's past. The readers think this is for Requiem to reveal their backstories, but it is a distraction for them and the cast from Ayano, who was given a key by Monokuma earlier.
  • What does Ayano do? In a fit of despair, she removes Minato's chain, triggering their action. But this is not the worse part. Remember the prologue? It was stated that there was going to be a punishment if somebody not related to Minato removes their chain. And, well, you can already tell where this goes...
  • Minato is dragged up to the ceiling by the chains and gets slowly torn apart. Hotaru tries to save them, but Monokuma gives her a decision: save Minato or save Hayato. She thinks Minato is dead no matter what she does, so she saves Hayato.
  • Because of this decision, Minato was torn apart by the chains and then released, landing on the ground below. Just imagining the pain they must have been as they were slowly torn apart and poisoned is heartbreaking and terrifying.
• Just the whole concept that Ayano Kamukura, the protagonist that has been with us for over two hundred thousand words going insane and killing others is terrifying. Especially because this happened right after she finished her character arc and was actually starting to act and feel positive for once.
• Namita's execution. Hotaru remarks about it probably being the same as before, but it's not. Kaneshiro was also preparing an extra execution.
  • This one is themed as some twisted version of wheel of fortune with the added element of each part of the circle in some sort of minigame. However, because Monokuma is pissed off, all of the spaces are blank, leaving Namita with no idea with what she should do.
  • Afterwards, Namita is forced into another outfit. She is put into a game of whodunnit with Miyuki and a mysterious figure, but Namita does not know what's going on. The two of them point to her as the killer and then try to attack Namita with knives. Namita tries to escape them by trying to escape through the door, but she cannot get out...
  • Namita is caught off guard as she is stabbed through the arm and leg. Afterward, Namita is stabbed by the heart by the two women, killing her instantly. This is not when Namita's execution ends, however...
  • The two figures continue to stab Namita's body until she is long past dead. This continues even after Hotaru notes that Namita is nothing more than a pile of viscera. Yeah, that is beyond horrific for her friends to see.
• Learning that Kira and Ayano Kirigiri were in a marriage of convenience. Its creepy to know how much Ayano Kirigiri has a hold over Kira, especially to the point she was able to convince Kira to become a mole for her in the Killing Game.
• Ayano Kirigiri gets shot by an unknown person, killing her instantly. She was about to reveal the mastermind but was silenced before she could.
• During a very chilling conversation with Kaneshiro, Ayano tries to keep her cool but cannot, even being unable to look at his face even though doing so would reveal who he is. Then Kaneshiro reveals something, that Ayano is pregnant with his child.
• Kindra is Kazuhiko's child with Kotori. Considering that Kazuhiko would have to be a young teen during her birth, it reveals truly how messed up their marriage was.
• Tsukiko and Akemi are found dead in the shrine room. Akemi's cause of death cannot be determined through just looking at him, though his ears are bleeding, while Tsukiko has a slashed throat. They are holding hands and have tears in their eyes.
  • Afterwards, after checking the secret room, they find the body of Kira Iwata. She was strangled to death using the rope.
• The truth behind this case. The main killer is Tsukiko. Because she went to try to kill the mastermind, Kaneshiro decided to brainwash her. Then, in a state of despair, Tsukiko targets Kira because of her involvement in the death of her friend Manami. While this is happening, Akemi notices the two of them acting odd and goes to investigate and gets stopped by Kaneshiro who then releases him, only to see Tsukiko killed Kira. Akemi is tried of working with Kaneshiro because of all the things he does (due to him being his traitor), so he reasons with Tsukiko. There he kills Tsukiko so they both can no longer by used as Kaneshiro's pawns.
  • The reason why Akemi dies. He literally gets his heart so broken by Kaneshiro that it triggers a heart attack in the real world. This is because Kaneshiro reveals that he was the one that killed his family, and Akemi has been helping their murderer this entire time.
• The fact that the mastermind is willing to kill Hayato because there is nobody else to execute. If Yasu acted any slower, Hayato would have died with no reason other than the mastermind viewed him as an annoyance.
  • There's also Hayato's execution itself. It starts with Hayato being in a car, unable to move because he is trapped by seat beats. He tries to control the car but cannot, running into cardboard cutouts of Kyoto and Mirabilis, two people that he killed, until he almost runs into Tsukiko but he instead spins the car out of control. The seat beats release and Hayato finds his way into a room while trying to find a way to escape. Monokuma ties up Hayato once again, this time with a gag as well, and Hayato is given the objective to convince Monokuma to allow him to live. The walls then get closer and closer, threatening to crush him. Right before they do, Yasu is able to stop the whole execution.
• With Monokuma convinced to let Hayato live, he still wants an execution. So instead of picking any of the living students, Monokuma executes both Akemi and Tsukiko.
  • Their execution starts with them being placed on a chessboard with two concert stages on both sides. They are the King and Queen. Monokumas start to sing on the stages so badly and loudly that even Ayano is feeling it. Getting the crowd of Monokumas all riled up, Tsukiko's piece is taken, followed by Akemi. They are thrown away like dolls to the side for the mercy of the crowd. The crowd turns into a stampede and tries to run over Tsukiko and Akemi, but the strings controlling them force the two to run away to the different sides of the chessboard. Both of them get on their respected stage. Because of the stampede, the stages collapse, destroying every Monokuma. However, the person controlling the dead bodies is not over with them yet. Tsukiko and Akemi both get out of the wreck where they meet in the middle and hold hands. There the wires finally let go of them, allowing them to finally be in peace.
• The scene where Ayano gets trapped with the corpse of Yasuke, Junko's boyfriend, whose been dead for over fifty years. Ayano even has to get a piece of paper from his dead, decaying hands. Luckily, both Yasu and Atsuto are able to free her quickly.
• Hotaru has been taken over by the coding of Natsumi Fuuma. She has no control of her body and no way to fight against it. And I Must Scream indeed.
• The reveal that Atsuto is actually Kaneshiro. It makes so many previously heartwarming scenes get twisted into pure nightmare fuel.
• For this trial, Takara has been drowned while Ayano's neck has been slashed. There are so few survivors left and its so disturbing to see that there can only be two people investigating.
• The encounter Yasu has with Kaneshiro that leads to them figuring out that he is Atsuto. Its very obvious that he was planning to rape them as well but Madoka saves the day. Kaneshiro has a very threatening aura for the entire scene, especially because Yasu did not know how to get out of the situation. Helping to the creepy factor, Kaneshiro hurts Mochi badly, which makes everybody grateful that they're inside a computer program.
• The flashbacks Yasu has about how their father treated them are very triggering and their father in general is nothing but creepy. Especially considering that their father took them to conversion therapy for their asexuality.
  • In the same realm, there are Yasu's dreams. There's something off with the girl in them.