Nothing to Fear but Fear Itself

**Nothing to Fear but Fear Itself** is the name of Kazuya Okudaira's execution, as featured in Danganronpa: Operation V.K..

This execution was never executed, as Kazuya never killed another player. However, it was discovered behind the Auditorium in Compound vK, and two surviving participants were able to view a demo for how the execution would proceed.

## Sequence

*Excerpt taken from Chapter 88 of Danganronpa: Operation V.K.*

“For nearly two centuries, you have been asking, ‘who is Monokuma?’ This is Monokuma speaking. I am the bear who loves despair. I am the bear who does not sacrifice his love or his values. I am the bear who has turned you all into victims and thus has destroyed your world, and if you wish to know about Nothing to Fear but Fear Itself, the execution prepared for,” and he cleared his throat, “**Kazuya** Okudaira, the Ultimate Orator, I am the bear who will now tell you.”

Girl N, Girl W, Girl S. “You have heard it said that Boy O is a boy of moral crisis. You have said it yourself, half in fear, half in hopes that the words would have no meaning. You have cried that his sins have destroyed another human life, and you have cursed his nature for his unwillingness to practice the virtues you demanded. Since virtue, to you, consists of sacrifice, you have demanded more sacrifices at every successive disaster. In the name of a return to morality, you have sacrificed all those evils which you held as the cause of your plight. You have sacrificed mercy to justice. You have sacrificed independence to unity. You have sacrificed faith to reason. You have sacrificed wealth to need. You have sacrificed self-esteem to self-denial. You have sacrificed happiness to duty.”

The Claw. “You have destroyed all that which you held to be evil and achieved all that which you held to be good. Why, then, do you shrink in horror from the MK-Ultra Brand *The Claw* whisking Boy O away? This punishment is not the product of your sins, it is the product and image of your virtues. It is your moral ideal brought into reality in its full and final perfection. You have fought for it, you have dreamed of it, and you have wished it, and I—I am the bear that has granted you your wish.”

Boy O was placed in the Auditorium, behind the podium. The broadcast became black and white, grainy, as though a television broadcast from over two hundred years prior. “Your ideal had an implacable enemy, which your code of morality was designed to destroy. I have withdrawn that enemy. I have taken him out of your way and out of your reach. I have removed the source of all those evils you were sacrificing one by one. I have ended your battle. I have stopped your motor. I have deprived your world of the Ultimates.”

A teleprompter began running in front of Kazuya, and the closed captioning on the soundless broadcast struggled to pick up on the almost random assortment of syllables he was being made to say. Any time he faltered, or didn’t give the speech its proper gravitas, a red X flashed on the teleprompter, and the lights in the Auditorium began to fade slightly. He was sweating. “The world does not live by Ultimates, you say? I have withdrawn those who do. Ultimates are useless, you say? I have withdrawn those who are not. There are values higher than the Ultimates, you say? I have withdrawn those for whom there aren’t.”

The room grew ever darker as the cues grew faster, and Boy O’s increasingly obvious anxiety made mistakes harder to avoid. “While you were dragging to your exalted altars the Orators, the Commentators, the Paranormal Investigators, the Net Admins, the Ghosts— I beat you to it, I reached them first. I told them the nature of the game you were playing and the nature of that moral code of yours, which they had been too innocently generous to grasp. I showed them the way to live by another morality—despair. It is despair that they chose to follow.”

Dark, dark, yet darker. “All the men who have vanished, the men you hated, yet dreaded to lose, it is despair which has taken them away from you. Do not attempt to find us. We do not choose to be found. Do not cry that it is our duty to serve you. We do not recognize such duty. Do not cry that you need us. We do not consider need a claim. Do not cry that you own us. You don’t.”

The room

grew pitch-black.

“Do not beg us to return.”

The closed-captioning was easily able to read Boy O’s agonized scream.

“We are on strike, we men of despair.”

The credits rolled.