Danganronpa: Tainted Visions

***Danganronpa: Tainted Visions*** is the ninth installment in the series, and serves as the opening to the next stage of the story following the violence between Nakata Yataro and Nathan Kabet. This season did not feature any updates for the Discord Danganronpa Bot. With being a bridge between the multiple arcs of the story, some aspects of the previous games came into importance during the game.

## Synopsis

After the passing of Miya Katumi, Taniguchi Satoshi takes it upon himself to lead an expedition to a mountain range in which Miya previously discovered (The Maindo Sukepu Cliffs). He sent out applications all around the world for people to come and join him discover this previously unexplored mountain range, which Miya had not dared venture into due to a strange forcefield giving her a headache whenever she went within it, The season begins when those chosen for the expedition arrive at Satoshi Laboratories, where the applicants learn that Nakata Yataro will also be joining them.

## Gameplay

This season again employed the use of a bot made specifically for roleplays such as this one, made by UniqueImpact. This bot includes commands that allows players to move throughout rooms, check descriptions of items, put on clothes, lock doors, and pick up items to a virtual inventory. Click here for a full list of commands for the Discord Danganronpa Bot.

To interact with other players would still be done through the host, and any actions towards another player would be followed with a message in the room they are currently in asking them to react within a certain time frame to do something about said action if they would like to.

This season's relationship chart, used to keep track of the cast's feelings towards one another can be found here

## Game Events

*(The events of this game took place during a single week in lore, starting the week after the cave in which sent all participants of the expedition into a comatose state, from August 28th 2021 to September 2nd 2021. With each chapter taking a day within Nakata's mind.)*

### Chapter 1

After arriving at the Maindo Sukepu Cliffs, the group begins to explore the area which includes a campsite, bathrooms, a storage room, and a meeting area. Before long, Taniguchi Satoshi calls for a meeting and everyone goes to the meeting area to see him. He explains the plans for the trip, and tells them all how they are unaffected by the forcefield, as they have breathed in an antidote from when they were at the laboratory without realizing. When he attempts to show the group a map of the whole mountain range, they hear a storm begin to brew outside, and they all rush out.

When they get outside, they see a large gray storm cloud that comes towards them and lands, claiming to be a robot named Fukushu. Those who were caught up on the news of the previous killing games recognized the robot. Taniguchi quickly asked the group to get behind him. After telling Fukushu to get lost, Fukushu refuses and Taniguchi has electrical gauntlets appear on his arms. A fight begins between the two, and neither side seems to gain any advantage. After realizing this, Fukushu turns to Nakata Yataro, and charges at him. Taniguchi jumps in the way, and the three of them crash into a cliff wall nearby, and all three disappear.

After a short period of time, Fukushu reappears and tells the rules of the killing game to the group that remains. They then go on their way, and sometime later, Fukushu announces he has cleared up the inside of the cliff where he crashed into, revealing a town inside of the mountain. All of the buildings in the town are locked at the time.

A few days later, there is a storm in which it is suggested for everyone to be inside for. During the storm, Elizabeth Emiliano goes outside and finds a trowel that was taken from her by Taniguchi before they left on the trip, along with a note from Fukushu saying that the only reason Taniguchi could not defeat Fukushu was because he had to make room in his belongings for the trowel. Enraged by this, Elizabeth ran into the cave and stabbed herself. Once the storm subsided, her body was found and the killing game had begun.

At the trial, though it took some convincing to shift the blame off of Carton Matts, the correct answer was eventually reached, and the group lived another day.

### Chapter 2

Immediately after the trial, Shuji Akihiko would go to the upper part of the town within the cliffs and see that one of the houses was now unlocked. Upon opening the door, he was met with berating from the group who called him uncool, and made fun of him relentlessly. Eventually, Timothy Afrand and Ryujin Yaketsuku would join in on the conversation and they would be berated as well, as would continue no matter who showed up and spoke to the kids. Upon attempting to enter or break into the house, they would be met with a forcefield knocking them backwards. Throughout the rest of the killing game students will come and go from being here, meeting the same result every time.

After the trial, the group is given a day to rest before Fukushu appears before them all in a hologram to deliver the next motive. This time, Fukushu offers himself as a motive, saying that if they kill and get away with it they will get their own personal Fukushu doll that will do whatever they want. Fukushu also reveals that over time, the sky will get darker and darker until it is near impossible to see your hand right in front of you, causing fear to those who would cross bridges over the wide gaps between the cliffs.

Eliana Conquer would eventually give into the killing game, choosing Carton Matts as their victim on account of their seclusion from the group. They would hit Carton with a shovel, and then put a hard hat on them to obscure the ability to see the wound. At the trial, Eliana would eventually be discovered, and executed.

### Chapter 3

After this trial, Ryujin Yaketsuku is the first to visit the lower town and find the second door unlocked. This time, when knocking on the door, a man in a business suit answers and speaks in a purely solemn tone, telling Ryujin that he cannot stay here anymore. More players will come and visit periodically, however this man would always say the exact same thing.

As a motive this chapter, Fukushu instead shows the group a sort of, 'vision'. This vision is of the group being trapped in a cave as the rocks from the ceiling of the cave begin to fall down on them. This vision includes all of those currently present, along with those who perished by this point in the game. Spooked by this motive, from that point on everyone was put on edge, not knowing what this meant.

When things slowed down, Fukushu decided to host a game night consisting of numerous games in which people would compete for points. One of these games was hide and seek, in which Ryujin was selected as the seeker. As everyone else currently alive was hiding, Keondre Moore-Johnson took this opportunity to commit a murder on Shuji Akihiko.

This murder was almost perfect, as no one knew where anyone else was for sure hiding. He murdered by lighting a flare inside of Shuji's mouth, burning his insides. Despite this, at the trial, Keondre was outed as the killer for being in the wrong place at the wrong time, and being discovered near the bathrooms where he would have had to wash off the ash from the crime.

### Chapter 4

Like the previous trials, upon the conclusion of chapter 3's trial a new house in the town became unlocked, this time with a brand-new scene as-well. Ryujin Yaketsuku and Timothy Afrand are the two to first investigate this time, and inside of the house they see the horrifying sight of a house burning down, with a couple, a man and a woman, staring at the flames while they kneel on the ground in anguish. They don't even look at the players at first, as they drop their grocery bags to the ground. Before long, the man of the couple turns around and berates the player, saying that the player ruined their lives, and that everything said about them must have been true, that they were no longer welcome here anymore. This scene would never change, no matter how many people visited.

During the announcement at the beginning of this chapter, Fukushu gave a motive that was spurred out of the large amount of people that were still remaining in the game. This being, that every 3 days, Fukushu would kill someone without warning, forcing everyone to watch as this happened. The players question why Fukushu wouldn't simply kill everyone if he would do this anyways, but he responds saying the only important rules in the game was that it continued, and he could decide what constituted that.

As a result of this motive, Johnny RedView would be killed after 3 days, seemingly having all of the air around him taken away, and suffocating in a hologram that displayed infront of anyone not close enough to see it. After 3 more, Claire Hyoto would meet the same fate.

With this motive making deaths seem like they were unimportant in a game where most of them seemed to be ceremonies, Perrine Popilius-Smith used this as evidence, along with the other strange happenings, to believe that as people died in the game, they would leave the simulation that they must all be in. By killing, Perrine planned to sacrifice herself by being the only one who would be forced to stay inside of the simulation while everyone else would 'die' and go free. They chose Ito Daīmasen as their target to minimize pain, and even used an object that you couldn't feel, and froze the body to make sure that there was the least pain possible.

At the trial, while they let it stay a mystery at first, Perrine would eventually come forward staying true to their initial goal of not hurting anyone or even risking it. After being found out, Perrine took it with grace, and when in the execution, believed that it worked, and they were back at home. However mistaken they were, and was still executed.

### Chapter 5

The fourth house opened up after the trial; ended, and once again Ryujin Yaketsuku and Timothy Afrand were the first two to arrive. This time, the scene showed a woman struggling to stand up, as she is bleeding out from a stab wound, and keeps repeating... *"My... bag... I need my bag... It can save me..."* While not understood initially, it would eventually be reasoned that this was the moment that Miya Katumi died. In the scene, she does eventually die, after the players have no way to give her anything, or be able to save her. This scene never changes, no matter what is done.

As a motive, Fukushu first asks everyone about what they think the motive would be. Then, after everyone guesses, says that the killer gets to choose between 3 choices!... and all of the choices are things that were said by the players. After revealing the motive, Fukushu reveals something about the new area to the group, that being that there is something dangerous there, and then shows everyone Nathan Kabet, who is locked in a jail cell. When the players go visit Nathan, they notice something is off. That being, he acts in the same way that the people do inside of the houses in the town. He acts as if they are not in a jail cell in the middle of a mountain range, and instead talks as if they are in a secret bunker somewhere.

After a while, it becomes apparent that no one had the urge to kill, so Fukushu adds another motive, saying that if no one killed by the end of a timeframe, they would have to rank everyone on a list from most to least liked, and that those lists would decide three people to die.

No one killed, and at the trial, everyone submitted their lists. Once they were all filled out, everyone was sent to the execution, where one by one they would be picked off until three of them died. Being Lia Bridger, Kumo Raimu, and Kazuma Tomson.

### Chapter 6

When this chapter began, Fukushu traveled to the upper town with the 6 remaining players and opened the fifth house along with them. Before opening it, he says that the houses were preparation, and that this was the final step.

In this house, Nathan Kabet was there, with a merry-go-round on the wallpaper in the background. Nathan was on the ground, hair soaked with cuts all over him... as he screams at everyone; "GO AHEAD. DO IT. KILL ME. YOUVE GOT THE CHANCE." He brings himself to his feet and holding his bloody arm, and screams that everything that he did to them, they deserved. That he truly was better. But before he could finish talking, a knife flew from the doorway and stabbed him, cutting him off, before getting off one final word, "Murderer."

The next day, Fukushu talked to the students and instead brought them on a field trip, where they first walked into the large distorted building that had been taunting them for a while, being able to finally step inside. Albeit, the hallways were distorted and only one path was able to be used. Eventually when inside, they found a room that held 6 flashlight-like devices, and each were instructed to take one by threatening Fukushu dolls. After they had each taken a device, they traveled to the large sewer grate in the town and all shined the light at it, and as they did, the grate opened, showing a staircase they could go down. Whilst they did so, Fukushu chanted, 'YES YES YES', to which the group realized their mistake.

At the bottom, they heard singing coming from a piano that slowly descended into the area, being played by none other than Nakata Yataro, who seemed alot younger than the one that they arrived on the trip with. Nakata told them thank you for letting him out, and that he was glad to be free. He punched Timothy Afrand in the stomach, showing he had the same extreme powers that Fukushu had, before telling the group that he had to go look around, adjourning the meeting.

After Nakata left, the group found Taniguchi Satoshi also in the underground cave, trapped behind a glass wall. All he could manage to say to the ground without being silenced was to not trust Nakata. Very soon after this, Nakata began a trial with everyone, and asked them a single question; "Should we leave the mountains?". He said that if they voted yes, the game would end and they could all go home. Although, after they convinced each other not to trust what Nakata wanted, they all voted that the game should continue, and ran to see Taniguchi. Once seeing him, he told them to go look around for someone, and that he had to go to his lab. Continuously as they would try to search, Nakata would drag them back to the trial and ask them the same question again, telling them that they were making a mistake, and that if they just voted on it, the game could end, slowly becoming more and more insane.

After enough running around, the group finally found the place they needed to go to, that being a new room inside of the school. And inside of a classroom, they found a chalkboard with 18 names listed, with the top one being, 'Nakata Yataro'. Sitting in the room, clutching a piece of paper, smiling with tears of joy was the Nakata that they all came here with. When they asked him what he was doing there, he explains to them, that this was the happiest moment of his life, in that exact seat, where he proved the bullies wrong, and proved he was worth something. He then goes through all of the houses, saying how those were some of the worst moments of his life. Saying he wanted to stay being happy, in this memory.

With not much convincing being needed, the group convinced him that he had to help them get out of here, and as soon as he believed them, the evil Nakata showed up. He tried one last time to convince the good Nakata that they were on the same team, and that if they worked together they could become whole again. The good Nakata realized that if they were inside his mind, he could do everything that his counterpart was doing, too. The two began fighting in the whole mountainside, making rocks tumble and earthquakes to start, as the mind became unstable.

The group eventually found Taniguchi, where he showed them a device that would be able to freeze someone in their place, even if they had super speed or could turn into a gas, a version of his automatic tuxedo-dresser that would cover the whole body. But in order to use it, someone had to stay behind and keep the evil Nakata there. Unknowingly, outside of the mindscape, Takai Kado made a decision, and linked his mind to Nakata's, creating a humongous earthquake that sent everyone to the ground. When inside of his own mind, Takai found the version of himself that had been continuously erased, and the two agreed that the only way forward, to make amends for his mistake, was to have him stay behind and keep the evil parts of Nakata locked away for good. Takai showed up to the group, crying and in a complete mess, and took the device from Taniguchi as he was about to sacrifice himself, and flew to the evil Nakata and locked the box around him, and dragged him back into the sewer grate, closing it behind them forever. As it closed, a portal opened near the bathrooms, through a mound that had plagued the group since they arrived, and Dustin Jackson, Kaori Yonekura, Nao Ono, Ryujin Yaketsuku, Timothy Afrand, and Rover Hayes all escaped to safety.

### Post-Game

In the real world, the group woke up covered in scratches and bruises that they did not have previously, with severe headaches, and surrounded by everyone who died in the killing game also being in chairs, but not waking up. They questioned Taniguchi Satoshi about what the hell happened, where he explained to them that on the initial trip, nothing went wrong, and they studied the mountains and found great specimens, but after a few weeks, a sudden cave in trapped everyone, and killed them in the process immediately. But as soon as this happened, Taniguchi's backup system kicked in, where they were put on a version of life support where the brain was tricked into thinking that it was still alive.

It happened to be that the person with the least injured brain, not even being injured enough to warrant being considered dead, was Nakata Yataro, and so in Taniguchi's backup plan everyone would be connected to Nakata's brain, to destabilize everyone's brains, though the process would take around a week for the brains to stabilize. In the process, a hidden memory inside of Nakata's mind, that being his evil side, was able to slip out of it's area that had locked it away, but only enough to be able to create Fukushu, and this was used to kidnap Taniguchi and find out what was going on. Once he knew, the killing game began so that he could travel deeper into his mind and free himself with the flashlight-guns, whilst also trying to convince his good half to team up with him, and hide the fact that his evil side had gotten out at all. The good Nakata refused, and trapped himself in his only good memory that he had left, in his eyes. If they had chosen to end the game when the evil version of Nakata asked, he would have escaped, becoming the main version of Nakata that would take over his body, until someone realized the difference and tried to do something about it.

The group understood, and thanked Taniguchi for what he did, that he saved their lives, though he still felt guilty, and apologized profusely for having a glitch in the system that allowed the killing game to begin. Everything ended up alright, as the good version of Nakata regained control of his body and mind. However, the evil Nakata was able to keep a small part of him alive, that being the final words that Nathan Kabet said to Nakata as he died, a location, and then the words, 'Ayako'.

Nakata used this information and asked Jou Andori to pass this onto Opal Petrovich, who he had seen outside of the school. And once the information was passed on, Opal searched the area that Nakata described in his letter, which was beneath the site of the second killing game that she had participated in. And when she arrived, she found Ayako Suzuki, alive and well.

## Trivia

* This season was initially Season 9, however due to it's length, and position in the story, it was switched to being called Season 8.5.
* Ryujin is considered the protagonist of the season.
* This is the first killing game to feature people being killed as a part of a motive.
* All executions were inspired by pieces of media, meant to represent things in Nakata's memory. Them being, Hunter x Hunter, Scott Sterling Soccer Shootout, Thimbleweed Park, and Final Destination 3.
* This season had a total of 53 applications.