Tsumugi Shirogane (I'd Trade My Life For Yours)

## Tsumugi Shirogane

**Tsumugi Shirogane** is a character featured in *I'd Trade My Life for Yours,* a story written by Grayimperia.

Tsumugi is based on the character of the same name from the Japanese visual novel *Danganronpa V3: Killing Harmony.* Just like in canon, she is the ringleader of the Killing School Semester.

Tsumugi has the title of **Ultimate Cosplayer** but she claims she doesn't like to wear her cosplays, and would instead prefer someone as passionate as her to wear them.

## History

### Killing School Semester

***NOTE: These events are shown in Danganronpa V3: Killing Harmony***

When the now-altered Kaede and Shuichi leave the second floor classroom for the second time to investigate the Academy, Tsumugi would be the first student that they both run into. When Kaede tried talking to Tsumugi, she was unresponsive even when she tried poking her cheek. She jokingly theorized that perhaps Tsumugi was just an extremely life-like mannequin before getting Shuichi to poke her cheek as well. Tsumugi finally responded to this, finding it unexpected to be poked from both sides. She said that she was ignoring them on purpose, hoping that they'd go away if she simply didn't respond. Kaede thought that this was pretty rude, but Tsumugi replied by asking her if it wasn't rude to try and get someone to talk when they clearly don't want to. Regardless, Tsumugi felt like talking at that point and introduced herself as the Ultimate Cosplayer, that she has a corporate sponsorship that let her use even the most expensive materials without restraint, and that people crowd around her like she's a panda at the zoo. She passionately told the duo that she preferred to make her outfits rather than wear them, but told them that she would wear her own outfits if it meant wearing them with love. Kaede remarked that she was pretty intense before both she and Shuichi asked Tsumugi what she was in such deep thought about. Tsumugi replied by saying she was curious about the conspicuous dragon statue and how out-of-place it felt. While Kaede and Shuichi both thought it was strange, they weren't able to deduce anything else about it and eventually left Tsumugi to go explore the rest of the school.

Tsumugi would later gather with everyone else in the gymnasium after the Monokubs made their announcement. Afterwards, the Monokubs and Monokuma, the Monokubs' father and the self-appointed headmaster of the Ultimate Academy for Gifted Juveniles, arrived and announced that they would be participating in a Killing Game, much to almost everyone else's shock and horror. Tsumugi would continue to completely fool everyone with her act as a plain otaku, and as a friend that they could trust while secretly monitoring and orchestrating the Killing Game from behind the scenes.

### Attempting the Death Road of Despair

After Monokuma officially started the Killing Game, Tsumugi read the rules on her Monopad. A majority of the group wasn't sure what to do after reading these rules and began to panic and argue. Thanks to Kaede's motivational speech, the panic died down and everyone seemed to become united. Afterwards, Gonta Gokuhara, the Ultimate Entomologist, then remembered that he found a manhole inside the boiler room behind the school building. Tsumugi, with everyone else, immediately followed Gonta's lead with hope of finding a way out. Though in Tsumugi's case, "hope".

Descending the manhole, Tsumugi and the others found a tunnel leading outside of the academy. Though everyone thought that the tunnel probably ended up being a trap, they still had to test every single possibility in order to escape. However, Tsumugi and the others exhausted themselves both physically and mentally as they found that escaping through Death Road of Despair is next to impossible. Due to this, Kokichi revolted, saying that Kaede's repeated motivational speech is the source of the group's agony, added by some of her friends giving up on escaping the tunnel, Tsumugi included, the group's harmony came to a swift end. The tunnel ended up being a trap set by Monokuma and the Monokuma Kubs, much to everyone's dismay. Tsumugi headed to her assigned dorm room to get some rest, pretending to feel dejected about the tunnel being a trap.

### The First and Additional Motive

The next day, Tsumugi and everyone gathered in the dining hall. Once Kaede showed up, the whole group began to think back to yesterday's events but seemed to have consolidated slightly. Afterwards, Monokuma came to the dining hall and announced the first motive, anyone who committed the first killing will graduate without holding a trial, effectively calling it a "First Blood Perk". Everyone was worried about what this would mean, aside from Kaito, who became increasingly outraged with Monokuma for doing whatever he wanted and lunged at him. This caused the Monokubs to show up, showing no hesitation to punish Kaito with the Exisals for attempting violence against their father, effectively breaking the rules. The red Exisal charged at him but accidentally ended up crushing Monokuma instead, supposedly destroying him. The Monokubs were incredibly saddened at the sudden demise of their father, stating that he had no spare and that he was one of a kind. Upon learning this, Tsumugi and everyone else's mood improved greatly, thinking the killing game to be over.

However, this forced Tsumugi to head to the hidden room in the library in order to create a spare Monokuma later that same night. She was unaware that Shuichi and Kaede had set a trap on the card reader in the library, placing dust in the slot of the card reader in order to see if anyone was going through that door. Tsumugi still used that same card reader, unaware of this trap, and commanded Motherkuma to create a spare Monokuma to replace the one that was destroyed by the Monokubs. It is likely that Motherkuma informed Tsumugi about the dust in the card reader slot at this point. As a result, she decided to make use of the hidden passageway in the girl's bathroom instead to get to and out of the hidden room from now on.

The next morning, Tsumugi was with everyone else in the dining hall once again, pretending to be happy that the Killing Game had supposedly ended. However, it didn't take long for Monokuma to show up once again, much to the dismay of the rest of the students, but to the joy of the Monokubs. Monokuma goes on to reveal the additional motive, that if a murder did not occur within two days by noon, everyone who was forced to participate would be killed. This motive caused a majority of the group to become too depressed to stay united and leave the dining hall, Tsumugi included. In reality, this motive put pressure on Tsumugi and Monokuma as well. They didn't actually wish to create total chaos, but seeing that everyone refused to kill each other, they had no choice but to resort to desperate measures.

In a bonus scene during Chapter 1, Kaede would meet up with Tsumugi in the game room and asked her to paint her nails in return for giving Tsumugi a nail brush earlier. Kaede was happy with Tsumugi's work, but then Rantaro Amami, the Ultimate ???, walked in and claimed that he could do nail art as well, which he proved by then painting Kaede's nails, much to her embarrassment and Tsumugi's jealousy.

### The Truth Painted Over With Lies

On the final day of the time limit, during Rantaro and Kaede's separate plans to reveal the Mastermind, Tsumugi was in the dining hall with Miu Iruma, the Ultimate Inventor, Kirumi Tojo, the Ultimate Maid, and Korekiyo Shinguji, the Ultimate Anthropologist. Once the monitors began to inform the participants that time was almost up, Tsumugi left the dining hall with the excuse of using the girls bathroom on the first floor. In reality, she was going to the hidden room in the library by making use of the hidden passageway in that bathroom. In the back of the cleaning supplies closet in the girls bathroom on the first floor was a hidden passageway that connected to the secret room in the library, the same secret room that Rantaro was attempting to gain access to, believing the Mastermind to be in there due to his Survivor Perk Monopad.

Thanks to the Nanokumas swarming all over the campus and sending the footage they record to Motherkuma, Tsumugi already knew of Kaede's and Rantaro's separate plans to end the Killing Game and watched from the hidden room to ensure everything went as planned, preparing her own shot put ball just in case. She hoped that Kaede's plan to kill her would result in Rantaro's death instead, killing two birds with one stone. After witnessing Kaede's plan fail, Tsumugi immediately left the hidden room and bludgeoned Rantaro in the back of the head with her own shot put while he was distracted by Kaede's shot put that just barely missed him, killing him instantly. She then proceeded to alter the evidence to make it look like the crime was caused by the shot put Kaede rolled.

Tsumugi retrieved Rantaro's Survivor Perk Monopad as well as Kaede's shot put ball, then replaced it with her own. She immediately retreated back into the hidden room and left the bloodstained Monopad on the table and threw Kaede's shot put into the garbage bin believing no one would ever find them, essentially creating the perfect crime. After finishing the job and tying up all loose ends, Tsumugi headed back through the hidden passageway in the girl's bathroom and rejoined Korekiyo, Kirumi, and Miu in the dining hall as if nothing had happened, once again making sure to put on her usual plain otaku act.

It did not take too long for the body discovery announcement to play, telling everyone to gather in the library. The group in the dining hall, which included Tsumugi, would be among the last group of people to arrive in the basement along with the people who had stayed in their rooms the whole time. Upon seeing Rantaro's body "for the first time", Tsumugi screamed, acting frightened at his sudden demise. Everyone was absolutely baffled as to how and why Rantaro was killed, with Kaede completely manipulated into thinking that she accidentally killed Rantaro when she was trying to kill the Mastermind and save everyone. As a result, the true events leading up to Rantaro's murder, as well as Kaede's innocence, were completely concealed from everyone as they investigated a crime that they could not find the answer to.

### The First Investigation and Trial

During the investigation, Kaede and Shuichi decided to continue working together, questioning everyone and uncovering clues. When they heard from Korekiyo that Tsumugi left the dining hall to use the restroom, Kaede became suspicious and decided to head back to the library to question her. When she did and asked Tsumugi if she could have disguised herself as someone, Tsumugi took her to the first-floor girl's bathroom and asked Kaede to give her her clothes so she could cosplay as her. Once she did, Kaede saw Tsumugi's cospox, effectively meaning that she couldn't have disguised herself. Kaede was very shocked by this but was convinced that Tsumugi had a solid alibi.

During the first trial, while everyone is searching for a culprit, Korekiyo pointed out that Tsumugi did leave the cafeteria at one point to go to the bathroom once again, a claim that she promptly acknowledged. Ryoma Hoshi, the Ultimate Tennis Pro, was quick to be suspicious and wondered if she could have disguised herself and committed the crime, but she quickly denied it. Kaede was quick to defend her as well and stated that dressing up as real people would trigger her cospox, essentially solidifying her supposed alibi due to no one else having any knowledge of the hidden passageway in the girls bathroom. Later, when everyone was quick to pin the blame for Rantaro's murder on Shuichi, Tsumugi was ironically on the side who defended him.

In the end, Shuichi decided to lie because was too afraid to face the "truth" of Kaede being Rantaro's murderer. The students were confused by the sudden "confessions" of both Kaede and Shuichi so Monokuma decided them to vote right away. Tsumugi probably voted for Kaede. as to follow her original plan but Shuichi is officially framed as the "true blackened" with a margin of 8 votes against the 7 of Kaede. In the end, the detective gets executed and nobody will find out the truth, until the Sixth Class Trial. Tsumugi is pleased by this outcome.

### Exploring the Rest of the Academy

The morning of the next day, everyone would gather in the dining hall once again and have a normal conversation to try and make themselves forget about the terrible events that transpired yesterday. Kaede, now wearing Shuichi's hat in his memory, offered her a coffee mug and asked her if wearing other people's hats without breaking out is part of cosplaying. Tsumugi was taken aback by this question and furrowed her brown in thought but disagreed.