Kaede Akamatsu ( Danganropa V3 x THH )

Kaede Akamatsu
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**Appearance**

Normal attire: Kaede has blonde hair up in a ponytail with a clover accessory. She wears a white t shirt with a pink jacket over it. She has a pink and white skirt, white socks, brown loafers, and bandages on her knees.

Sleepwear: Kaede wears a white t-shirt, bandages on her right arm, pink socks, and maintains her hair in the same style.

Younger/School Uniform: Kaede is dressed in a traditional Japanese school uniform, with her hair down.

Younger/School Uniform (photo): Kaede wears a brown jacket, skirt, and white t shirt (with her hair up).

Formal Outfit: Kaede wears a pink dress with pearls, a bracelet, and a back bow. It is ankle length with flowers embroidered at the top of it. The outfit was designed by Rantaro.

**Backstory**

Kaede had a twin sister and two parents- a mother and a father. Her parents divorced and Kaede went with her father whereas her twin went with her mother. Kaede’s mother then unfortunately passed in a car accident.

Kaede and Miu went to the same middle school together, which was where Kaede’s jealousy for Miu’s talent began. Kaede went to extreme lengths to get Miu hurt on in trouble.

In one case, a fire broke out in her middle school, and Kaede pushed Miu into a closet and locked her in there. Luckily, Miu was found by a teacher and was unharmed.

**Personality**

Kaede has a but of a selfish personality, willing to give up everything she has for the kind of stardom that Miu has. She feels as if her existence doesn’t really serve a meaning if she cannot be in the spotlight.

Her jealousy for Miu’s talent was extreme to the point that when they were in middle school together, Kaede would do extreme things to get Miu in trouble.

Besides that selfishness, Kaede can be a decent person. As we see with Maki before she was revealed as the mastermind, she was comforting her after Shuichi’s passing.

And as we see with Rantaro, those two had an extremely close bond, also being romantically attracted to each other as well. Kaede killed herself in her execution instead of Rantaro as well, implying that she cares a lot about him despite all the bad things Kaede has done.

**Prologue**

In the prologue, we see Miu and Kaede together. They knew each from before the killing game and this is the first time we are introduced to Kaede’s selfish side and nature. She pictures herself as Miu - having tons of fans and stardom.

When Isamu and Asami introduce this as a killing game, everyone including Kaede doesn’t take this seriously, thinking it’s a prank Hopes Peak has put on. Yet they still remain cautious in case anyone actually took it seriously.

**Chapter 1**

Kaede and Rantaro start to get along well quickly, due to Rantaro telling Kaede about his dreams to be a fashion designer and the dislike towards his talent. Kaede relates to him, because she doesn’t consider her talent a real one. She wishes to have Miu’s talent, though she doesn’t say that to Rantaro.

Later on, Kokichi and Kiibo show Kaede a picture of Miu, which Kaede states that Miu looks like a lizard.

Kaede eventually tells Rantaro that he should show some of his sketches to Shuichi who is the Ultimate Fashionista, since Rantaro might be able to get some good advice from him. When Rantaro shows Shuichi his sketches, Shuichi states that Rantaro should definitely go for it as the sketches were really impressive.

In Tsumugi’s FTE, Kaede learns that Tsumugi wanted to write a fanfic about the predicament they were in, since Tsumugi thought it was cool if everyone thought it was a prank by Hopes Peak but then it actually turned out to be a killing game. Kaede thought this was pretty weird but she didn’t mention anything, not wanting to make fun of someones talent and hobbies.

In one video, Kaede and Rantaro can be seen on the rooftop talking to one another.

Soon later, Miu and Kaede are seen on the stage having almost like a trivia quiz against Tsumugi and Ryoma. Asami and Isamu ask what you wouldn’t want to see when you burgle a house, and Miu exclaims “naked grandma”. Ryoma then states he wouldn’t want to see that either.

When the first motive was announced, Kaede got a video of her father in a car crash. He went to the hospital and its unknown if he’s alive or not. The motive said Kaede needed to kill Rantaro to gain information on what happened to her father.

After Angie got supposedly attacked, she blamed Kaede for it. Angie’s word was that she and Kaede got into an argument with Angie and tried to kill her. Which didn’t happen, since Kaede got Rantaro for her motive so she had no use to harm Angie. Despite this, everyone sided with Angie, apart from Rantaro and Miu. Rantaro believed it wasn’t Kaede since he felt like she wouldn’t do that for a motive video. Miu because even though Kaede and her disliked each other, Miu knew Kaede wouldn’t have the guts to kill someone.

When Angie set up the pool party, Kaede and Rantaro didn’t go, since Kaede was still annoyed at Angie for blaming her. Rantaro stayed with Kaede incase she decided to harm someone again, even though Rantaro didn’t believed she was the one who harmed Angie.

Kaede’s alibi for when Tenko died is most likely that she was with Rantaro.

In the class trial for Tenko’s case, Kaede exposed the killer as Himiko with Angie as her accomplice.

**File 05**

File 05 is am eerie file which was shown just after Chapter 1. In it was a teacher telling everyone to get back to their classrooms this instant. Then, Kaede was shown staring at a a girl with brown hair with a chainsaw sticking out of her.

**Chapter 2**

Kaede was shocked when Rantaro said that they should attempt to try and stay in the school forever and just make sure no killings happen since everyone had love ones outside the school.

In Kirumi’s FTE with Kaede, Kaede learns that Kirumi’s parents are always out of the house for long periods due to work. It’s not like her parents dislike her or her siblings or anything, its mainly just they have too much work. So Kirumi became a parental finger to her 5 siblings, feeding them, teaching them, etc. And when Kirumi’s parents were around, they couldn’t talk to Kirumi much since her siblings are younger and need more attention.

For the second motive where everyone has to do sports challenges or else their secrets will get revealed, Kaede got paired with Miu. They came 6th out of 7.

Kaede was shocked at Kirumi’s secret, and doesn’t really like her anymore after she and the others found out she made her sister commit suicide.

Miu announced to everyone that Shuichi attacked her. Kaede was one of the people who didn’t believe her, alongside Rantaro and Maki, since they are friends with Shuichi and knew he wouldn’t do that.

Kaede tells Rantaro and Shuichi in her dormitory that Miu is lying about Shuichi attacking her. Kaede knew Miu since middle school and she apparently used to lie a lot.

In Ryoma’s FTE, Kaede finds a novel with him that he has written and they read it together.

Kaede found Shuichi’s body with Kaito, and she was appalled since the two of them were pretty close.

Kaede is seen looking in shock when Gonta passed away DURING the trial.

Kaede managed to find out that the culprit was Kiibo and Miu during the second class trial.

Before Kiibo’s execution, Kaede says that Miu should get executed instead despite the ‘first come, first serve’ rule because Miu was the reason Kiibo killed in the first place. In fact, everyone agrees with Kaede, even Isamu, but Asami says that they need to follow that rule.

**Chapter 3**

Kaede finds a photo of her and Miu getting along. She had no recollection of the photo and is slightly grossed out by it. She also wonders if it is some manipulation tactic made my Asami. She decides not to tell Miu about it, one because she doesn’t want to spend her time on something that might be fake and two she doesn’t want to talk to Miu after the trial just happened.

Later, when Kaede is getting ready for sleep, Maki knocks on her door and asks if she could stay with Kaede for the knight. Maki says she is worn out from the killing game and that she misses Shuichi. Maki also says she has amnesia, only remembering her name and talent and other small things but she begs Kaede not to tell anyone else about it, not wanting to become an easy target. Kaede agrees but she was slightly suspicious.

After the second trial, Kaede’s obsession with Miu’s talent worsened. Kaede felt like Miu didn’t deserve her talent because she was the cause of Shuichi, Kiibo and Gonta’s death. Kaede couldn’t understand why Miu got all lucky and good things coming her way. Kaede felt like (in her eyes) she was a better person.

In Korekiyo’s FTE, Kaede learns how to play uno and she plays a game with him. Korekiyo won of course.

Kaede admired the dress that Rantaro made, and was glad that Rantaro was trying to do what he himself wanted like Shuichi said.

Kaede and Rantaro find Tsumugi to ask what the hell was up with her fanfic that she was making. Tsumugi said that their whole predicament reminded her of a show called “Danganronpa” and it was entirely like the experience they were going through now. Tsumugi said that Danganronpa is based on Hopes Peak, but the other stuff (such as the tragedy) is make-believe. Tsumugi also said that the 52nd season was the last season and that they haven’t made anymore in ages.

After hearing what Tsumugi said, Kaede and Rantaro tried to find any information on Danganronpa in the library. They didn’t find anything, but Rantaro said that his sister used to watch Danganronpa. Kaede thought that someone might be trying to make fiction into reality, for whatever reason.

Kaede and Ryoma find two photos when investigating the new floor. One of them is a picture of the girl in File 05, but her face is all scribbled out. Kaede and Ryoma show the photo to everyone else, who did not recognize this girl, apart from Kaede and Miu. They both stated it looked like someone from their middle school, but they never died, especially not in such a gruesome way.

The second photo Kaede and Ryoma found was a picture of them all in a class together. Everyone except Maki was in the photo.

For the motive for Chapter 3, Kaede hallucinations her deceased mother.

Whilst Kaede was being chased by her hallucinations, she found a room backstage full of weapons. Kaede hadn’t snapped back to reality yet, so she took a knife, thinking she could use it against her hallucinations.

Kaede encountered Maki and Kaito when she was holding the knife. Maki questioned Kaede what she was doing, which made Kaede snap to her senses. Kaede said she was trying to fight off her hallucinations. Maki didn’t really believe her, thinking she was going to do something else.

Rantaro does Kaede’s hair for her. Kaede asks where he learned to do that, and Rantaro said he used to style his sisters hair. Kaede asks what happened to his sister. Rantaro said that she ran away two years ago due to his fathers harsh treatment and they still haven’t found her. Rantaro says that he doesn’t think his sister is alive anymore, and has lost hope that she is.

During Kokichi’s trial, Maki says that she and Kaito saw Kaede get a knife from the room backstage. And since Kokichi died on the stage, everyone is suspicious of her. Miu also said that Kokichi died in a similar fashion to the girl in the photo, and only her and Kaede had recollection of the girl.

Kaede still managed to debunk the trial and find out that Tsumugi was the culprit and traitor.

**Chapter 4**

Kaede feels herself developing romantic feelings towards Rantaro, but is too scared to admit it in case of rejection.

Kaede agrees with Angie to kill Maki, due to her being the mastermind and all. The only person who doesn’t agree with Angie to kill Maki is Kaito, since Kaito still considers Maki as a friend.

When the party was announced, Rantaro asked Kaede to the party in a “friend” way (yeah right). Kaede accepts the invitation. Kaede ends up wearing the dress Rantaro made for her, to try and motivate him to keep making and designing clothes.

During the party, Rantaro pulled Kaede aside to thank her for wearing the dress he made for her. Kaede said he didn’t need to thank her, but Rantaro said it really boosted his ego and confidence. Rantaro said that he would try to get something to properly thank Kaede when they got out of here together.

When Maki put out a bunch of food for them to eat, Kaede was one of the ones who chose to eat it.

Kaede is seen looking shocked at the fourth motive, which was that no one has any food and water until someone killed someone else. Suicide wouldn’t stop the motive either. They also all have to stay in their itchy party outfits and can’t sleep in their dorms.

Kaede and Rantaro try and find somewhere to sleep. They chose the library, but fail to fall asleep due to the anxiety of sleeping out in the open. So instead they spend the whole night talking.

Everyone feels like they are going insane, due to sleep deprivation, starvation and uncomfortable clothing.

Kaede feels so tired of everything going on, she tries to kill without thinking. She gets the weapons from the pool and attempts to kill the first person she sees. Luckily, Kirumi and Korekiyo find her and bring Kaede to her senses.

Everyones alibi for Kirumi’s death was that everyone was awake.

Kaede managed to find out that the culprit of Kirumi’s case was Korekiyo.

**Chapter 5**

Miu tried to apologize to Kaede for all the beef they had, saying that she wanted to leave that behind and become a better person. Kaede refused her apology, stating that she didn’t trust her and that she thought Miu was planning something.

Kaede and everyone else excluding Maki went to Angie’s dorm to try and get the connection to the outside world working. Unfortunately, they couldn’t start it up again.

After they all leave Angie’s room, Rantaro says he feels like Maki isn’t going to let this slide to Kaede. They may have blocked off the cameras but Maki isn’t stupid- she is the mastermind after all. Kaede agrees with him.

The Chapter 5 motive had an extreme hold on Kaede - it being if you can kill someone you can escape with any talent you want.

Kaede thinks about killing someone because, you know, the motive. She cam finally have the dream she always wanted to have. But something is holding back- she knows if she does so she would kill Rantaro if she does succeed the trial.

Kaede realizes that Rantaro is avoiding her due to what Miu told Rantaro about Kaede’s obsession with her talent. Rantaro told Kaede that he was appalled at how eager she was to just take someones life for her own selfish reasons. This whole event only caused Kaede’s hatred for Miu to grow, due to her feeling like Miu was the person who took the only person she properly cared about away.

Kaede’s mindset of her being the hero and Miu the villain continued to grow, and Kaede felt like Miu didn’t deserve her talent even more. Kaede wishes for Miu to be dead, from her own doing or someone else’s.

When Miu found the broken up picture of her and Kaede from Chapter 3, she went up to Kaede about it. Miu said that if this was from before their “memories were erased”, and they managed to get along then too, they can now. Kaede was surprisingly cooperative and calm, apologizing for obsessing over Miu’s talent and such even.

After Kaede and Miu “made up”, Kaede found Rantaro and said that they were getting along. Kaede also asked if Rantaro would stop avoiding her. Rantaro said he was glad they were getting along but Rantaro said he couldn’t see Kaede in the same light anymore, due to how willing she was to kill someone for her own selfish reasons.

**Kaede’s Murder Plan**

(copy and pasted from the description of this video [1])

Kaede never really let go of her obsession with Miu’s talent, nor her grudge against Miu. She only led Miu to believe that because AT FIRST she only wanted Rantaro to stop avoiding her. When that didn’t work and he continued to avoid her, it furthered her grudge against Miu, to the point all she wanted at least was to kill her.

Since Kaede tricked Miu into thinking they were getting along, she asked her if she wanted to switch outfits. Despite being a bit hesitant, Miu agreed. After all, in her mind she believed Kaede and that she was trying to change. Then it’s when suspicions started to rise. Kaede asked Miu if she wanted to straight up change her whole appearance to look like Kaede, and Kaede would change hers to look like Miu. When Miu asked why, Kaede said it’s only cause she thought it’d be fun to do so. And she said she thought, well that Miu looked really pretty and she was envious of her looks. So just this once she wanted to try and switch. This kinda flattered Miu, so she very hesitantly agreed. Kaede even convinced Miu to do her makeup so she looks exactly like Kaede, she also did her makeup to make her look like Miu. They even used temporarily dyed hair to make sure the hair was accurate. Once that was done, it was almost unrecognizable that miu was dressed as Kaede and Kaede was dressed as Miu. With that, Kaede said to Miu it’d be fun if they went around the school, confusing everyone on whatever is happening. She didn’t really let Miu have much of a say in this, as she basically dragged Iruma up to the rooftop first. (By this point no one besides Miu and Kaede knew they switched, and no one had heard their voices either so no one else knew.)

Upon arrival at the rooftop, Miu asked what the hell Kaede was doing cause all of this seemed incredibly suspicious. Kaede didn’t answer, and instead immediately pushed Miu off the roof. Miu caught onto the rooftop floor and was basically dangling from the edge. Kaede stood there watching Miu struggle to get up back on the roof. Iruma asked why Kaede would do something as stupid as this, and told her to help her back up cause if she died there’s no way Kaede would get past the trial. Which would also result in Kaede’s death. Kaede refused, and went on to tell Miu how she never actually let go of her grudge. As a matter of fact she said because of Miu, Rantaro started avoiding her and it made her hate Iruma even more. Hearing this Miu apologized, like it was a genuine apology. Still dangling from the edge she apologized of how stupid she was with her plan to get them on good terms. She went on to say that she should’ve been more careful when constructing a plan like that. Her words of apology didn’t mean anything to Kaede. She said her being sorry wouldn’t bring Rantaro to stop avoiding her, and she thought Miu was only saying this to try to get back up on the roof with Kaede’s help. Eventually Miu snapped and said that Kaede was delusional and doesn’t understand how hard idol life is. (Cause you know of Miu’s backstory and everything.) This REALLY annoyed Kaede as she thought Miu was talking nonsense. So, she used her foot to kick off Miu dangling from the edge. Which led to Miu’s death.

Kaede, still dressed as Miu left and went back to her dorm now.

Once everyone (besides Tsumugi) found ‘Kaede’ (Miu’s) body, they noticed how Tsumugi still hadn’t shown up. So quickly everyone rushed to get Tsumugi cause they were afraid she was also dead. Everyone dragged Maki along because to make sure she didn’t do anything to the crime scene. ‘Miu’ (Kaede) followed everyone a few seconds late cause as soon as everyone disappeared, she lit the body on fire using a matches. No one noticed how ‘Miu’ (Kaede) was a few seconds late as they were all too caught up to try and make sure Tsumugi was okay.

They ended up running into Tsumugi, and when they asked where she was Tsumugi said she was having trouble getting down because she was all the way on the top floor, so it was taking time to get down. Then they quickly rushed back to the crime scene, and saw how it had been lit up into flames. Having to put the fire out as to make sure it didn’t get out of hand and burn the whole school. Once it was out the body was basically completely burnt. Majority of the evidence was gone.

OK now the reason the file said the victim was Kaede and not Miu is because Kaede went through all that work to disguise herself as Miu. And Maki felt as if it’d be ruining the fun. So she didn’t put the correct info.

During the trial/investigation ‘Miu’ (Kaede) didn’t say a single word. That was because she couldn’t say anything because she still had her own voice. And if she said anything everyone would immediately know.

Up to that point Kaede never Intended on passing the trial. She knew she wouldn’t make it. She did this because of Rantaro. The only person she cared for, was avoiding her now because of Miu. She just focused on killing Miu at that point, not so much the talent. The reason she went through all that work to dress up as Miu was because she thought dressing up as her was the closest thing she could get to having Miu’s talent, in this situation.

**Before the Execution**

Rantaro feels extremely mad at Kaede, due to her literally killing someone just for him. So he slapped Kaede in front of everyone. But Rantaro still didn’t want Kaede to die, due to being really attached to her, since she was the one who convinced him to follow his dreams. Rantaro also kind of blames himself because if he didn’t distance himself from Kaede there could’ve been a different outcome.

Before the execution, Kaede says bye to Rantaro, trying to tell him to not blame himself for her death.

Just before the execution, Maki showed a video full of all the things that Miu had to go through as an idol, leaving Kaede shocked that Miu actually had to go through that.

When Kaede was about to get pulled to her execution, Rantaro grabbed onto her and went with her to the execution.

**Execution**

(copy and pasted from this video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mlugnWtFIMY&list=PLV\_fb5WgIgr94sLpxWtY8hUO1Es5jxuH2&index=192)

Rantaro is forced to stay behind and watch, despite being in the execution with her.

Kaede has to go through a singing completion with a fake Miu, like in-front of a crowd and everyone. The Miu decoy ends up winning, therefore the crowd starts too like boo and throw tomatoes and such at Kaede. The crowd starts chasing her, and then they start to beat her up. Like, slapping, punching, using baseball bats. One person in the crowd, who was a decoy of Kaede’s father hit Kaede with a bat on her leg. And started saying how he was incredibly disappointed in her. Despite all of her injuries, She runs outside, but instead is just met with pitch black. Like a black room with barely any light. There she sees Rantaro (not a decoy, the actual Rantaro) standing there with a gun. Kaede is also given a gun, and Rantaro and Kaede have to shoot one or the other, so the last person standing can get out. Obviously neither of them can do it— Rantaro at that point tells Kaede to just shoot him. He says he just wants her to be safe. Kaede doesn’t listen, and instead ends up shooting herself to make sure rantaro gets out unharmed.

While Rantaro’s trying to like, get her medical attention, Kaede realizes in her last moments that she’s.. not the best person. Looking back it just, made her regret EVERYTHING. How hypocritical she was, how badly she doubted Miu.. etc. but she ends up dying knowing Rantaro is okay, and that alone brings a lot of comfort to her.

**Gallery**

Kaede Akamatsu Gallery ( Danganronpa V3 x THH )