Sae Yozuru

**Spoiler warning: *Plot and/or ending details follow. Read at user's own risk!***

## Characteristics

### Family

Unnamed Father †
Unnamed Mother †
Four Unnamed Husbands †

## Debut

### Novel

*Danganronpa Kirigiri* Volume 2

**Sae Yozuru** (夜鶴 冴) is a character featured in *Danganronpa Kirigiri* Volume 2. She is a participant in the Norman's Hotel Murder Case Duel Noir, claiming that she was a widow who was left with an invitation to attend the hotel's auction by her deceased husband.

### Prior Life

When she was a child, Sae's father ran a television show that invited Meruko Mifune and gain fame from having her bend a spoon for the audience. However, the media soon grew bored by Meruko and turned against her, calling her powers a fake. As a result, Sae's father was criticized heavily until he couldn't take it anymore and committed suicide when she was twelve. Her widowed mother soon became the victim of various hoaxes and scams, from selling her things after learning of Akio Chage's predictions or getting swindled by the likes of Seiunsai Toyano'ō. Eventually, her mother killed herself by jumping out of a window and plummeting to her death. Due to these circumstances, Sae had to work late to put herself through high school, had no time for clubs or friends, and had to face harsh bullying. When she became an adult, she started to do marriage scams, in order to gain money from men, though left them when their money ran out. For her fourth husband, he eventually killed himself when he could no longer give money to Sae, who collected the insurance check for his demise.

Eventually, she was approached by the Victims Catharsis Committee who offered her a chance to gain revenge on Akio, Seiunsai and Meruko, in addition to gaining a massive amount of money. Unable to bear her current life, she accepted and thus worked to create the Norman's Hotel Duel Noir, which revolved around using a set amount of money to bid at an auction, with the prize being in order to gain the Detective's Right, which will prevent them from being killed by her at night. However, she is limited to only killing one person a night and, due to the Duel Noir rules, can't kill in front of the detective. In addition, even if she gets the Detective's Right, due to her also being the killer, it just means she wouldn't be able to kill anyone.

Still, she also has a master key that can allow her to move freely throughout the hotel and not have to worry about being locked in her room. Her main trick to kill is to use room 307, which has a removable bars and make her way out to the roof, where she then lures her victim to their own room window (where they have to stand on their own money to reach her) before trapping them via tying a rope around the bars and strangling them with her gloved covered hands. From there, she uses the rope tied to an electric car motor, to toss their body back to their beds, and let the money get removed from those who hold the Detective Right (who would use such money in order to acquire additional funds to bid), assuming that they would go that route.

### Norman's Hotel Murder Case

Once everything was prepared, she went to Norman's Hotel herself. Sae is the last to meet Kyoko Kirigiri, Yui Samidare, and Suisei Nanamura, with her being draped over the sofa, appearing to be asleep. Mikado Shinsen speaks to her, telling her it’s her turn to introduce herself. Sae first says she wants to die, then explains that her husband passed away the other day and an invitation to this auction was one of the things he had left behind. Sae came to this auction because she wanted to know what her Stoic husband was after. While Sae appears to drift back to sleep, Yui notices slash scars on Sae's wrists peeking out from beneath her mourning suit and feels that they speak a lot about Sae's untold story.

When she meets Norman, she acted more depressed that she has to give up her money and sees it burn, before bouncing back into happiness when Norman gives them each a bag full of one hundred million yen. She set up Taehime's death in order to prove how serious the situation was serious. During the first auction, she opted to not bid after seeing Suisei's grand display, and scolded for Yui for wasting money when she was the only person to bid. When they got to their rooms for the night, she ensured she got room 307 by taking Seiunsai's cards, on the guise of making sure they weren't rigged, by marking the card she needed to get room 307. Once in there, she had set up a ruse to get Yui and Suisei into the vacant room, luring them in long enough for her to kill Akio in ten minutes before heading back to her own room and striking up a conversation with Meruko in order to maintain an alibi.

The next day, she defended Meruko when she was accused by Shinsen of being the culprit, but this was just to ensure that she also had a cover story. Like the remaining survivors, she didn't believe Seiunsai when he suggests a boycott of the auction, instead opting to bid a little of her money in order to gain the same room again. When Yūzen Minase won the Detective's Right in the second round, she scolded Meruko of being so willing to 'please' Yūzen in order to gain safety, though went about and offered him a 'night of fun' in exchange for ten million yen. That night, she killed Seiunsai and left a doll there to throw them off the scent of her trick.

By the third auction, she accused Yūzen of being the killer by claiming he was the only one that could really pull it off due to having the master key for the room for that day. When the detectives asked if anyone had done any major crimes, Sae confesses about her marriage scams, which makes them believe she'll be targeted next. For the third auction, she opts not to bid, with the Detective's Right being won by Yui. Since Yui cares about their well-being, she immediately freed everyone from their rooms once she's allowed, thus preventing a murder for the third day. During the fourth day, Sae teams up with Shinsen, who claims that he's helping to ensure she isn't targeted by the culprit, and Suisei, who is willing to work with her on the promise of monetary gain, and they give her all of their funds. By this point, Kyoko and Yui have already deduced from their investigation that she was the culprit of the Duel Noir, and that Meruko was the last person she needed to kill to complete it, thus opting them to team with Meruko and Yūzen to gain funds as well. Thus, the fourth auction pit her team against theirs, with Sae acting as if she was going to make a large bid, but opting not to bid anything (using her money obsession as an excuse to why she didn't bid). In contrast, Meruko, who had all the funds collected from the others, had bid all of their funds in order to gain the Detective's Right. Thus, protecting her for that night.

On the final day, Sae is confident that the others have no money left, which would allow her to kill Meruko without worry of anyone protecting her. Thus, she is shocked when Kyoko wins the auction by betting her one million yen that she had gotten from Taehime without anyone noticing. Enraged, she accuses Suisei of backstabbing her, but he denies any involvement in giving them money. After Kyoko explains how she acquired it, Sae becomes extremely dejected and wishes to die, but refuses to admit defeat. She does explain why she took upon the Duel Noir, and claims that she'll use the money in the machine (on top of her dead husband's insurance money) to pay off the Victims Catharsis Committee before running away. When Yūzen and Yui claims they'll stop her, she shows off her gun that she's been hiding. This dissuades them enough to back off, thus leaving her to head back to her room by herself, while the other survivors stay in Kyoko's room to wait out the night.

### Sae's Fate

Unfortunately for Sae, she couldn't enact her plans as Suisei wanted the nine hundred million yen for himself. When she objected, Suisei killed her by bashing in her head with a hammer that she got for the Duel Noir, to the point that when Yui and Kyoko walked into room 312 (which was where she was killed) her blood was splattered everywhere, even the ceiling. After her death, Suisei stole her gun, which he would use to kill Yūzen and Meruko.

## Appearance

Sae is a fair-skinned tall widow. She has long dark purple hair that reaches her lower back, dark purple eyes, and pink lips. For her mourning garbs, she wears a long-sleeved black dress that reaches above her knees and shows her cleavage as well as a white pearl necklace. Sae apparently has slash-shaped scars around her wrists, which are usually hidden under the sleeves of her dress.

## Personality

Initially, Sae comes across as a very depressed woman, something that is initially believed to be as a result over the loss of her husband. She is very wary and tired, usually found sleeping during the game. She often mumbles about how she would want to die or feels like she's dead. With the scars under her arms that she covers, it heavily implies that she practices cutting herself. When not completely depressed, she occasionally acts flirtatiously and cordial, though that's usually in order to gain advantages from others, such as when she bargained with Yūzen to gain some security.

Money is the only thing that can usually shake her mood and turn her unbelievably happy. When Norman grants her a large bag of money, she caresses it and holds it as if it were a child. This worship of money is so strong in that she designed her Duel Noir around it through auctions and even pushed her desire to gain vengeance to be only a bonus in order to obtain wealth. She believes money is, figuratively, made from the lives of others, where collecting enough means she would have enough 'lives' that would allow her to live as she pleased and that a lack of it is what caused her parents to kill themselves. This also means she has zero hesitation in killing or hurting others if it means monetary gain can be acquired. With the funds from the Duel Noir, if she had won, she would have considered such a thing as gaining 'Catharsis'.

Despite being a victim of scammers, she shows no qualms in doing the same thing with her marriage scams, though justifies such things as it being a game that save her money, showing no true concern for her husband who had killed himself or any of her husbands who she left once their funds ran out.

Being the 'Victim' of a Duel Noir, she hates the targets who wronged her, though was skilled enough to hide such disdain while living with them during the duration of the Duel Noir, even acting amicably with them when the situation arose. Sae possess a great deal of determination and stubbornness, such as her refusing to admit defeat even when found out in order to draw the time limit of the Duel Noir out. She is also capable of a good degree of foresight, intellect and pragmatism, best shown with her having a gun prepared in case anyone tried to capture her during the Duel Noir, and even when she had lost had prepared to use the funds stored in the machine to help pay back the Committee in order to stay alive.

## Relationships

### Mikado Shinsen

Of the participants in the Duel Noir, Sae seemed to be closest with Shinsen who respectfully woke her up when she was asleep on the sofa. Shinsen was even willing to work to ensure that she was safe from getting killed by the 'culprit' by working with her via giving her his funds, under the 'belief' she would be targeted due to her being a criminal. Given that he is the Chairman of the Victims Catharsis Committee, its very likely he knew about her role of being the Culprit ahead of time and chose to work with her regardless, though Sae would not be aware of his standing. However, this partnership was temporary as once she loses the Duel Noir, he leaves Norman's Hotel early the next day without any regard for her safety afterwards.

### Suisei Nanamura

Given that Suisei was the detective selected for the Duel Noir, on-paper he would be her enemy. However, since Suisei also shared her extreme greed when it came to money, the detective was willing to allow her to win, if it meant acquiring some funds for himself. Sae offered to increase Suisei's gains tenfold if he would give her his funds, which he took from Akio's body, thus he agreed and worked with her in an attempt to gain that goal. This relationship was purely business, with Sae immediately turning on Susei once Kyoko foiled her plans. When the Duel Noir was about to expire, Suisei had no qualms in murdering her in order to gain the nine hundred million yen left for himself.

### Meruko Mifune, Akio Chage & Seiunsai Toyano'ō

Sae despises all three of them due to the roles they played in various hoaxes and scams which ruined her life, whether intentional or not. Thus, she had no problem in taking on a Duel Noir to gain 'Catharsis' by killing them, and succeeds in killing Akio and Seiunsai. However, she is capable of feigning goodwill and acts amicable towards Meruko, though this was just to save face. After her plans are foiled and Meruko demands as to why she wanted to kill her so badly and that her powers are real, Sae lashes out in anger at how childish Meruko was.

## Name

"Yozuru" (夜鶴) means "Night's Crane", matching her whole distinct color scheme. The single character name "Sae" (冴) has four possible meanings: "clear", "cold", "serene" or "skillful".

## Trivia

* Sae is the first culprit of the Duel Noir to die prior to the case's completion.