Fanfic / Ultimate Danganronpa 3

The world needs neither hope nor despair...it needs nothing

"Unlike you, I'm not doing these horrible things for fun. The despair I shall create is all for the sake of my revenge."

— The Mastermind

Started in September 1, 2015, Ultimate Danganronpa 3: Despair's Final Challenge is a fanfic created by a Fanfiction writer, Maestro Infinite. The story is canon to the entire Hope's Peak Academy Saga, and takes place after Danganronpa 3.

The story revolves over Akira Maita, a Reserve Course student from Hope's Peak Academy. He was invited to join an extracurricular course along with nineteen other students from Hope's Peak. Given the temporary title of "Ultimate Wannabe", Akira joins the special course, only to find himself trapped with the other nineteen students. And as usual, Monokuma makes his appearance and forces them to engage in a Mutual Killing Game.

However, something is amiss with the game. Among the students participating in the game are Izuru Kamukura, Nagito Komaeda, Chihiro Fujisaki, Mukuro Ikusaba, Yasuke Matsuda, and Soshun Murasame (who oddly enough doesn't look nor act like the Soshun who appeared in Danganronpa 3). Even stranger, the very history of this world is different from the original story. What can this all mean?

Can Akira figure out the truth behind this new Mutual Killing Game? Will he find out about these discrepancies between this history and the original one, and why they exist? Who will live to escape the game? Who will die? The secret finale after the conclusion to the Hope's Peak Academy Saga has arrived!

Expect unmarked spoilers for Danganronpa: Trigger Happy Havoc, Danganronpa 2: Goodbye Despair, Danganronpa Another Episode: Ultra Despair Girls and Danganronpa 3!'

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This Fan Fic contains examples of:

• And Now for Someone Completely Different: Happened for a page when the story switched from Akira Maita's perspective to Mr. or Mrs. Other Protagonist's perspective.
• Anyone Can Die / Dwindling Party: In a Danganronpa Mutual Killing Game, whether it is someone you love or hate, their death flags are already flying high. It's Danganronpa after all.
• Art Shift: In the fanfiction, there were cases where Akira imagines his classmates talking and moving in a Chibi form.
• Audience Participation: The readers with Fanfiction accounts are able to vote for two characters whom they want Akira to spend time with in Free Time Events.
• Black-and-Gray Morality: Everyone, both the Extracurricular cast and those outside it, have their sense of morality all warped up (even more than usual, for some) ever since the Tragedy. Just look at Future Foundation and this game's Mastermind. The entire Hope's Peak Academy cast is filled with despair-loving madmen like the Remnants of Despair (The Sociopath), despair-killing extremists like Future Foundation (Well-Intentioned Extremist), naive and goody two-shoes optimists like Makoto Naegi (Wide-Eyed Idealist), people who don't want anything to do with hope-despair war or simply have no interest in it possibly like Hajime Hinata/Izuru Kamukura (Ambiguously Evil or Heroic Neutral), and those who hate both sides for sending them & everything else into chaos like the Mastermind (Take the Third Option). Who the hell is in the right?
• Breaking Old Trends: The author, Maestro Infinite, had a lot of fun introducing new ideas to this story.
  • The Cross Swords/Rebuttal Showdown minigame gives some interesting new mechanics in this fanfiction.
    • You can now have the ability to use a Truth Sword to "consent" with a weak point, not just refute it.
    • You will have more than one weak point to refute or consent in order to complete the minigame.
  • Hangman's Gambit minigame is leveled down to spotting the answer inside a crossword game. Justified, since all these minigames are down 'inside a fanfiction website meant to read fanfics only'.
  • The boss fight minigame is called "Rapid Doubt Annihilation" (RDA). What makes this different from "Bullet Time Battle" (BTB) and "Panic Talk Action" (PTA)?
    • Just like with Danganronpa V3's "Argument Armament" (AA), the opponent will argue in the form of a long conversation rather than just a bunch of random phrases spouted by the opponent in the heat of the moment.
    • The minigame involves having to take down different parts of the body of the opponent until the player can finish the opponent off with a "Headshot".
    • The player teams up with one of his classmates in order to deal the "Headshot" with a finishing special attack. And in just the first Class Trial, everyone got a chance to do that. Well, everyone except the 21st Student, but that's because they haven't arrived in the game yet.
  • Unlike traditional Danganronpa games, the Prologue has its own murder and Class Trial! And, amazingly, anyone from the main cast is neither the victim nor the culprit. However, the suspects are... most of the students from Class 78 and Class 77-B... that's more than 30 suspects! Even more surprising is that the first Class Trial continues from the Prologue and into Chapter 1! So not only does this mean that we will have our first Class Trial that takes 'two' Chapters to finish, we will also have our first chapter (being Chapter 1) to have 'two' Class Trials in the same chapter! Justified since the first Class Trial had to finish up its second half in the next chapter.
  • It is quite fitting to see Junko Enoshima degraded as a tutorial boss for the first Class Trial, and even stripped of her status as the Mastermind. It just goes to show that Junko had it coming for always using and manipulating people. So this game's Mastermind had no problems returning the favor. Sorry Junko, but for this Hope Peak Academy Saga entry, you're not orchestrating the game this time.
• Black Blood: Even in a fanfiction, the blood is colored pink.
• Boss Rush: Basically the scenario the first Class Trial encountered near the end of the trial. If this was a video game, this would have been a That One Boss moment, or That One Boss 'Rush' moment.
• Call-Back: Expect a lot of things from the Hope's Peak Academy Saga to make an appearance one way or another. Like:
  • Return of cast members from the Hope's Peak Academy Saga of the Danganronpa series.
  • References to events and facts in the Hope's Peak Saga.
  • Return of the Killing Game and Class Trial mechanics, as well as the Final Killing Game's Forbidden Actions, in the form of the "Lock and Key Mechanic".
• Cast of Snowflakes: Like any traditional Danganronpa entry, there will be a cast filled with diverse and unique characters. Heck, both Maestro Infinite and the Fanfic writers who submitted their own original characters did a good job making an original and unique cast of Ultimate students.
• Central Theme: Hope, Despair, and Nothingness.
• Characters Dropping Like Flies: Just like the previous Mutual Killing Games, the students will end up killing each other and being executed.
• Character Narrator / First-Person Perspective: The story is mainly told in the perspective of the main protagonist, Akira Maita. It is also told at times by the other protagonist, the 21st student currently known as "Mr. or Mrs. Other Protagonist".
• Color Motif: What is Black and White, and has a Red eye? Monokuma!
• Courtroom Antics: Ironic that the trials of the Mutual Killing Game have their funny moments, in a light-comedy sort of way. This applies to the whole Danganronpa franchise.
• Everybody Lives: Happens for the first Class Trial, as none of the contestants were the victim nor the murderer.
• Gotta Kill Them All / Revenge: The mastermind's main objective is to get revenge on everyone connected to Hope's Peak Academy. For what reasons is unknown, other than the obvious fact that they are involved in the school itself.
• Grand Finale: The finale to the completed Hope's Peak Academy Saga.
• Hollywood Hacking: The Mastermind sure followed Junko's and Monaca's idea of hijacking the television network and broadcasting the horrors of their respective killing games.
• In-Series Nickname: Not surprising, considering how many nicknamers there are in this story.
• Interactive Narrator: Well, because it 'is' a fanfiction, it's no surprise that the fanfic's writer (Maestro Infinite) will have their narration at the beginning and end of each chapter of the story. It's also because it's a fanfiction that the Mastermind (via Monokuma) can casually join in the middle of the writer's narration and interact with them.
• Late-Arrival Spoiler: It's a fanfiction, a Grand Finale, and canon to the Dangaronpa's Hope Peak Academy Saga, what did you expect?
• Meaningful Name: Like any Danganronpa franchise (or most franchises for that matter), the characters' names have meanings connected to them.
• Mind Rape: Remember a certain video from Danganronpa 3? Well... it's back.
• More than Mind Control: According to Jose, he believes that the reason the brainwashing anime works on people is because a part of them wanted to do the horrible things the brainwashing anime is making them do. He says this applies with all forms of brainwashing, from a school's dress code to cult rituals. He believes most of humanity is vulnerable to the brainwashing anime because of how weak people are, which led them to commit so many crimes even without the brainwashing anime.
• The Mole: Wouldn't be Danganronpa without a traitor in the game... only this time we have two sets of traitors: the Ultimate Despair members and an extra student who wasn't invited for the extracurricular course.
• Nice Job Breaking It, Hero: The moment you realize that Akira and his team kicked out their rescuers when they mistook them for impostors. This is what sealed their fate for the Ten Little Murder Victims scenario of the Mutual Killing Game. To make it worse, this was before any of the contestants died!
• Not Me This Time: Sorry to disappoint you, but Junko Enoshima isn't the main antagonist nor the mastermind of this Killing Game this time.
• Original Character: This 'is' a fanfiction. It includes fanmade characters from both the writer and their readers. Of course, the canon cast to the franchise makes an appearance.
• Red Herring: Well, it's no surprise this exist here since this fanfiction is a mystery story involving people solving murders. However, the first Class Trial takes it up to eleven with it since there are many suspects for this case. Though, while to the students it's confusing, to a well-informed Danganronpa fan would easily figure out the obvious fake evidences since the suspects are students from Class 78 and Class 77-B.
• Reference Overdosed: The fanfiction does several Shout-Out on several games, animations/cartoons, manga/comics, books, and movies.
• Ship Tease: Akira seems to get this from bonding with the girls in the story.
• Shout-Out: The fanfiction likes to reference several old and popular stories from the game world or animation world.
• Sliding Scale of Idealism Versus Cynicism: Pretty much the scenario between Makoto Naegi's side and the Mastermind's side.
• Sliding Scale of Silliness vs. Seriousness: For a story that involves a Mutual Killing Game, a war based on Hope Vs. Despair, a massive revenge plot, brainwashing, mass death and crime, severe insanity issues, dark themes, and whatever hell you can think of, there are sure a LOT of funny moments (excluding Dark Comedy) that make you question if this is a Psychology/Horror Story or a Comedy Show.
• Switching P.O.V.: The story is told by the fanfiction's writer Maestro Infinite, the main protagonist Akira Maita, and the other main protagonist "Mr. or Mrs. Other Protagonist".
• Ten Little Murder Victims: The common scenario for Danganronpa's Mutual Killing Game.
• Time Skip: Presumably, this story takes place seven years after the start of the Tragedy. However, the accuracy of this fact is questioned due to Monokuma's previous affliction with deceit and word plays.
• Unreliable Narrator: It isn't easy to believe what's real and not when the history of this fanfiction contradicts the history of the original saga, even though it is canon to that whole saga! The Mastermind seems to be the main culprit behind this confusion.
• Wham Shot: There are a couple of them:
  • For the first Class Trial, the students and the readers have the pleasant view of the victim Hajime Hinata appearing alive and well as the 'killer' of his own Class Trial! Gets worse when 'Hajime Hinata' starts changing appearances, appearing as virtual 'all the suspects' of the Class Trial (and there's over twenty of them')!
  • And for the same first Class Trial, everyone was surprised to see the Mastermind betray Junko Enoshima.