Shiori Watanabe

"...I was. Going to kill someone at first. But then I remembered...how bad it feels. To be the reason someone is dead."
- Neo Danganronpa 55, Chapter 1
Shiori Watanabe is a student from Hope's Peak Academy's Class 4, a survivor of the Tragedy, and a participant of Neo Danganronpa 55. Their title is the Ultimate Metalworker.
==Appearance==
Their style has stayed consistent throughout all of their appearances in the series. Shiori has black, messy hair with longer pieces in the front that come to their shoulders. They always sport a red hoodie over a black tank top, black skinny jeans, black Doc Marten Boots, and they finish off the look with a plain black choker. Shinobu and Shiori are entirely identical except for two things: their hair and their bust.
When they want to look more fancy, they'll often wear a black leather jacket or a fleece shirt over their regular ensemble. In the most rare of cases, you can see them wearing winged eyeliner.
==Personality==
It's hard to deny that they're a little bit of a loner. They seem very aloof and stoic. They were even described as "edgy" by Keiko in NDR55 during their first meeting. Without warning, they will often say strange things about ghosts, gods, cryptids, etc. Shiori often keeps to themself. In all honesty, they come across as rude and unpleasant. Shiori does, on occasion, try to open up more. In both College Game and 55, Natalie helps pull Shiori out of their shell. It appears that they can be goaded to become more social and personable.
They are quite selfish when you first meet them. The only thing they often cared about was getting a cigarette or being left alone. However, when making a close bond with someone, they're much more likely to share their belongings or thoughts with them. While they will always do anything in their power to take care of those they love, they will immediately close themself back off once hurt. 
As their death indicates, however, they absolutely will consider other people above themself in a time of crisis.
==Talents and Abilities==
===Metalwork===
Shiori has many skills that are useful in their field. Even though they would be a great addition to any industrial setting or welding job, they much prefer to use their resume to create iron sculptures and forge incredible blades. They are much stronger than they appear, due to having a great deal of core strength. They have a very high pain tolerance due to being burned often. Had they attempted a murder, anything involving blunt force trauma would have had a higher success rate. 
===Intuition===
Though it is nothing official, Shiori has a great sense of intuition and has a "spirit guiding them." They are one of the few people at Hope's Peak who could see through Nero's act, though they did nothing to stop him. More often than not, they are able to tell when something bad is about to happen. 
===Street Smarts===
Shiori is very good at stealing from others, rarely ever getting caught for it. They don't know if they should be proud or ashamed of this fact, but they stole from others a number of times in NDR55.
==History==
===Early Life===
As children, the Watanabe twins did not have the happiest lives. They lost their mother, Ume Watanabe, when they were just four years old. Both Shinobu and Shiori were very close to her. That loss caused their father, Hoshi Watanabe, to slowly go off the deep end. He ended up becoming an abusive alcoholic as time went on. For the most part, the twins had to fend for themselves.
There wasn't really ever a point where Shiori spoke normally with others. Very often, their comments were taken poorly and they would be verbally and physically bullied. When they were young, they often had bruises, cuts, and broken glasses. Shinobu always stepped in to protect them. Because of this, Shiori tried to protect Shinobu when they were at home. 
As they grew up, the money that they had gotten from their mother's insurance policy began to wear thin. The twins were in high school when Shiori started looking for part time work. Shinobu refused to help. While looking for a source of income, Shiori stumbled across a part-time job as a delivery person. It seemed simple enough, so they accepted the job. Unfortunately, unbeknownst to them, it was a part-time job delivering drugs. They did this for quite a few months without question before they began to grow suspicious. One day, they opened the envelope they were dropping off to find heroin and a number of needles in it. They were absolutely terrified once they learned about this.
This was the beginning of their involvement with Blackthorn, which was involuntary. The members of the organization treated Shiori poorly, blackmailing them constantly to get them to continue their work. They were continuously trying to find a way out of it. Unfortunately, things did not improve for a couple of years. Shiori was stuck doing this work or facing the consequences for calling it quits. They didn't trust the cops or anyone else to get them out of the situation, so they continued to tolerate it.
Instead of going home most nights during this time, Shiori went to their uncle's house very often. He reminded them a lot of their mother--warm and caring. He dabbled in metalworking, and Shiori took an instant interest in his hobbies. They had always been interested in learning how to blacksmith and make iron sculptures. He started them on their way to their title of Ultimate Metalworker. They stopped responding to Blackthorn as quickly, instead working in industrial settings and learning more about their profession. By the time they were 18, they had developed a new, efficient way to work metal that significantly lowered time, costs, and bodily harm risk. They had the opportunity to continuously profit off of this, but instead sold the patent to their childhood friend and now business partner, Kuromi Atkins. 
Eventually, they stopped hearing from Blackthorn at all, and thought that they had finally gotten out of their grasp. However, after a few months, they began to send Shiori vague threats involving their sister. They didn't know how to respond to said threats, feeling responsible for the danger that Shinobu was in. They came home from work one day to find Shinobu being held hostage by one of the more prolific members of the organization. Shiori had a knife in their hand that they did not throw, and they regretted not doing so. She was killed in front of them, and her body was disposed of. Shinobu Watanabe was declared dead. It hurt Shiori deeply to know that they were responsible for this.
===Time at Hope's Peak===
Due to their achievements in the field of metalwork, Shiori received an invitation to Hope's Peak. They accepted, as their current living situation was not ideal, and they didn't want to be constantly reminded of what they had gone through. When they started as a part of class 4, they were anxious about the new people around them. Upon meeting Natalie, they began to open up a little bit. They began to form relationships with those around them, though they began to dislike Eric Attinson quite a bit. They did try to make other friends, despite their eccentricities. They often were dismissed or misunderstood, and there was no shortage of strange conversations with them. 
When Bigfoot was spotted in the deep woods, Shiori was beyond thrilled to interact with the creature. However, it smacked Shiori across the forest, breaking their leg. They were stuck on crutches for most of the year.
They were present at the masquerade ball when the figure with a peacock mask was revealed to be their twin sister, who they had believed to be dead. It was revealed that Shinobu had been masquerading as Eric Attinson, had faked her own death, murdered countless people, and was a previous member of Blackthorn herself. For almost the rest of the time there, they stayed in their room to avoid her. One of the times they did leave, they got into an altercation with her in which they were injured.
===The Tragedy===
The day of the Tragedy, it was not hard for Shiori to believe Vivian Tamochi and Student C when they began to talk about something bad happening to the school--Vivian had no reason to lie, and despite the two of them never being particularly close, they trusted her. When they were making their escape from the island, Shiori hotwired the vehicles that class 4 used to drive to the ferry. Shiori and Natalie took the motorcycle and sped ahead.
While on the ferry, far enough from the island to be safe, the nuclear bomb was dropped on Hope's Peak Academy. Thus, the Tragedy truly began. This shook Shiori up greatly, but it got worse when Natalie's android body gave out due to the pressure. 
They were among the class 4 survivors who were captured in order to participate in Neo Danganronpa 55.
===Neo Danganronpa 55===
Upon waking, Shiori was the same person they had been at the beginning of the year at Hope's Peak--selfish, aloof, unwilling to talk with others. They were hard to interact with, on edge, and many people thought of them as dangerous or unpleasant. They originally were planning on killing someone to get out of the situation, as they did not think at that point in time that any of the people there were important to them. 
While they were in the underground, however, Shiori did a few notable things: they successfully made it up the chute from the store room to the kitchen above. When caught by Monokuma, however, they offered to say nothing to anyone else if they were given a lighter and a pack of cigarettes. The bear obliged them and made their way back down, saying that they weren't able to make it all the way to the top. Later on, however, they got closer to the rebuilt, upgraded Natalie and told her the truth. Later on, however, they would share their knowledge with more members of the class.
Shiori was one of the first people to learn that Natalie was the Ultimate Android, not the Ultimate DJ. They became attached to one another very quickly, their feelings for each other fast and apparent. Natalie made them want to be nicer to others and try to help everyone. When they learned about the heroin-laced food and their impending starvation if a murder did not occur, they started to think. Shiori found an angle grinder in their room and broke the battery pack out of a defibrillator to shove it into the power tool. They tried their best to cut through the steel grate that lead to the next section, which took a while. They did eventually create a hole big enough to get through, but they were met with a concrete wall. This lead them into a breakdown. They began to declare that they wanted to be killed, as they had changed their mind already on being the one to commit a murder. 
Natalie and Shiori created a plan: Shiori would volunteer to die, and Natalie would be the culprit. Shiori did not see themself surviving the game anyhow. They didn't think anyone else in the class was worthy of taking their life. They wanted only her to do it. Since Natalie could be rebuilt and live a life outside of this game, Shiori died knowing that she would be okay. She crushed their windpipe. They were the first victim of Neo Danganronpa 55.
==Execution==
Though there was never a need for a canon Shiori execution, Into the Forge was written during a test game in which they murdered Yuda and Haku with a pair of hedge trimmers.
==Relationships==
===Natalie Spark===
Throughout the killing game, Natalie was the only person Shiori ever wanted to spend time with or speak to. They rarely interacted with any other people in the Underground. They had a lot in common in terms of interest, and she was one of the only people who ever saw them genuinely smile or laugh. Shiori was convinced that the two of them had met in a past life, and that each time they found each other and fell in love, they died shortly thereafter. They claimed that this time around was the longest they had gotten to be each other, and expressed being more than happy with that.
During their time at Hope's Peak, Shiori began to open up more and improve as a person partially because of Natalie's influence. She helped them want to be nicer to others and open up. Her bubbly nature and desire to help really opened Shiori's eyes to the kind of person they appeared to be. They wanted to improve, though it was a gradual process. They still were rude at times and said unusual things, but Natalie truly understood them and wanted other people to understand them, too. 
===Shinobu Watanabe===
Shiori's relationship with their twin sister is incredibly strained and unpleasant. When they were growing up, they were incredibly close. Shiori was often bullied and Shinobu would come to their rescue, beating their bullies to a pulp and preventing them from getting hurt anymore. Shinobu always claimed that she knew Shiori better than anyone else, and yet continued to misgender them, referring to them with feminine pronouns and using their legal name. The two of them grew more distant as they got older. Unbeknownst to Shiori, Shinobu had hated them since their mother died when they were four. Shiori blamed themself for Shinobu's supposed death, but it was proven to be faked while the two of them both attended Hope's Peak. After learning that Shinobu had faked her death to join Blackthorn and become a serial murderer and identity thief, Shiori was devastated and began to despise her. They got into an altercation in the deep woods a few days before the Tragedy began where Shinobu stabbed Shiori in the arm and shoved her fingers in the wound. 
However, after losing their memories, Shiori had lost all of their memories of the truth. When they died, they still blamed themself for Shinobu's death, which they still perceived to be real. 
===Aria Abe===
During the events of 55, Aria and Shiori didn't get very close. In fact, Aria was unsure of them at first. Things between the two of them were fairly tense. However, Aria was one of the few people that Shiori truly respected, along with Natalie, Keiko, and Vivian. Shiori made their decision partially for her. Aria was thankful for Shiori's sacrifice. She began to miss them and Natalie both after the events of chapter 1.
During their time at Hope's Peak, they were unsure of each other at first. However, they grew to respect each other. They never got close, but they cared for each other from a distance.
===Keiko Matsuda===
===Vivian Tamochi===
===Veronica (Ronnie) Takayoshi===
===Nero Tamochi===
===Nikola Morrish===
Category:Stubs
Category:Class 4
Category:Victims
Category:Nonbinary
Category:Neo Danganronpa 55 Characters
Category:Students
Category:Deceased
Category:Blackthorn
Category:Characters
Category:Transgender Characters