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Language:
English
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Published:
2022-05-13
Completed:
2022-10-22
Words:
32,556
Chapters:
12/12
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19
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81
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The Despaired

Summary:

After the world is taken over by despair by Enoshima Junko and her pets, the world was changed forever. People would drop in the street, their eyes in swirls. They had caught the despair disease.

The disease's leading symptom was, of course, despair. However it’s second was the gaining of swirls in your eyes.

It all started when Enoshima attacked her old high school with artificial earthquakes. In the disaster of Hope’s Peak, only a handful survived—that handful only consisting of students. The rest were declared missing, and known as the lost ones among the survivors.

No first responders had done a full investigation and sweep of the fallen school, as they were busy trying to survive and dealing with other accidents. No one one had ever looked for the lost ones.

That all changes when one of the survivors decides to search for the lost ones, accompanied by another.

Now, with some of the lost ones found, the group is trying to escape a world of danger and despair. However, most of all, they are trying to escape Enoshima.

But Enoshima doesn’t want to kill them, not until she gets what she wants.

At least not until she gets the Ultimate Hope.

But is he really the Ultimate Hope?

Chapter 1: The Lost Ones

Chapter Text

Chapter One: The Lost Ones.

 

Mondo Oowada stood in front of his dilapidated school with a backpack full of his necessities on his back. He wished he would have driven there instead of walking, but his motorcycle was lost when his house was wrecked with his brother inside.

He analyzed the crack window and the half-gone wall. The bricks were messy, bits missing from them. He blinked as he remembered the memories that had taken place inside that building.

“You’re here too?” A small voice asked.

Mondo looked down to his left. “Yeah.” He sighed, thinking about his current poor life quality.
Chihiro Fujisaki was a short boy. He was insanely short compared to the very tall and strong Mondo. He had fluffy brown hair matched with hazel-brown eyes. He usually wore some kind of over shirt paired with a skirt and petticoat. Along with knee-high, black socks and brown Mary-Jane shoes.

However today, and ever since the world changed forever, he wore a big T-Shirt—one another classmate let him borrow that he failed to return—shorts, those same knee-high socks, yet rolled down to eliminate the length. These socks were under white sneakers.

“I’m glad you’re okay.” Chihiro tried to give him a genuine smile, but it was all forced.

“I’m surprised I am.” Mondo replied honestly. He shoved his hands in his pockets and continued to analyze the broken down building.

There was silence until Mondo dared to speak again. “I wanna go inside.”

“What? In school? It could be dangerous. You don’t know what’s in there.” Chihiro warned.

“Well, if I die then I die. I’m going in there. Wanna follow? Mondo replied. He was always an adventurous, care-free teenager, and even though he was now traumatized, he still showed those bits of his old personality.

Chihiro sighed. “Okay, but we’re not going too far.” He asserted.

The pair entered the run-down building.

No one had bothered to lock the door after the evacuation, even though it was the best school in the city, Tokyo—maybe even the continent of Japan.

Mondo opened the door, going in first to seem braver than he was.

After the school had fallen, multiple of its past students—from all grades— had gone missing. Mondo played their names in his head repeatedly.

Byakuya Togami.

Leon Kuwata.

Kiyotaka Ishimaru.

Aoi Asahina.

Sayaka Maizono

Makoto Naegi.

Kaede Akamatsu.

Shuichi Saihara.

Rantaro Amami.

Hajime Hinata.

Fuyuhiko Kuzuryuu

Peko Pekoyama.

Mondo walked around the first floor, constantly making sure Chihiro was behind him—he always was.

After ringing out whatever interesting stuff the first floor held—or they thought they did—Mondo started to go towards the stairs.

“Mondo! It’ll be too dangerous to go to the upper floor. The boards could collapse and we’d get hurt.” Chihiro warned again.

“All you do is worry, Chi. There’s no need. Not when you have a big, strong man to protect you.” Mondo laughed as he jokingly started to half-flex.

This made Chihiro laugh. “But if ya wanna stay here so bad, we can look around for another few minutes.”

They did as Mondo last stated.

Mondo decided to examine a bunch of floorboards that had collapsed. He shifted some of the boards around. When he was wiggling around one, he felt it brush against something heavy. It was hard to move with the little strength he was putting in,

Mondo lifted some of the floorboards and set them aside. When he reached the core, his heart stopped. He couldn’t believe what he saw.

When Chihiro noticed his odd behavior, he rushed over. “Mondo?” When he too saw the core, his body shook.

There was a tall girl with two loose silver braids that started with ribbons. She was in a long sleeve, dark-colored school uniform. A sword case was slung over her back. That same back faced upwards, her front turned away and faced the floor.

Her position was weird. It was bulky, as if there was something underneath her. As if she were trying to protect something from the floorboards. Chihiro noticed that.

Fighting the urge to vomit at the sight of a dead corpse, Chihiro said something. “I think there’s something under her.”

Mondo stood up straighter. “Should we move it—her?”

Chihiro climbed on to his arm a bit. “I guess. I don’t know.” His brain felt scrambled on what to do.

“So do you wanna..? Or should I..?” Mondo proposed the ideas without saying it. Chihiro could feel his body shaking.

“Well, you’re the big, strong man. You do it.” Chihiro suggested—more like stated. He stepped back from Mondo. “It’s all yours.”

Mondo chuckled a little, feeling bad about it since they were in a five-feet radius of a dead body.

Mondo took a deep breath, his chest rising and falling. He held her shoulders and shifted her over. She easily fell to her side, now landed on her back.

The two were shocked at the sight of another body. Yet this one didn’t seem dead. His skin wasn’t colorless, his chest was moving. Still, his eyes were closed.

The boy was short with blond hair. His eyes were gold and he had a light complexion under his freckles. They didn’t notice how undead he looked. So they decided to leave the bodies.

Mondo still headed to the stairs.

“Really? You wanna go further when we just saw that?” Chihiro freaked out.

“Yeah. If they’re people here, some might be alive.” Mondo replied.

Chihiro sighed. “Mondo, they’re dead.”

“You don’t know that. Now are you coming with me or not?” Mondo asked, his tone a bit rough.

Chihiro sighed, only deliberating for a second. “Okay.”

They were half-way up the stairs when they were stopped by a scream.

They turned back to the messed up pile of floor boards to see the boy crying while kneeling next to the dead body.

Chihiro sped-walk towards them. “Hello?” He sounded desperate, yet like he was trying to remain calm.

The boy, Fuyuhiko Kuzuryu, turned to face him. “Chihiro? Hey. You’re an upperclassman, right?” Fuyuhiko seemed dazed and grief-stricken.

“Yeah. Look, how about you come with us.” Chihiro proposed.

“Us?” Fuyuhiko questioned, only noticed Chihiro.

Chihiro realized and pointed over to Mondo on the stares. “Me and Mondo Oowada.”

Fuyuhiko noticed him standing on the stairs. “Oh, ok.” He was breathing heavily with tears staining his cheeks.

“Come on, let’s go.” Chihiro offered again, mpv9ng to the side to give him room to step.

“I…” Fuyuhiko started. “I can’t leave her.” Tears started to form again, this time harder.

“Fuyuhiko, she’s gone. I’m sorry. She’d want you to move on.” Chihiro smiled, making use of his kind face.

Fuyuhiko nodded, agreeing. He slowly stood up and straightened himself. “You’re right. She would want that.” He rubbed his eyes and stepped away from the pile of wood, leaving his old life behind.

The short boys caught up to Mondo, and they picked up where they left off.

Now they had a purpose to explore the floors rather than just nostalgia.

The three boys explored the second floor, making sure to search everywhere, now with a purpose. Chihiro shook as he slowly pushed up a fallen shelf. He saw the very smooshed body of a long-blue haired girl in her school uniform with a pink bow on her chest. Her skin was almost white. Her body was lifeless. She was dead.

Chihiro stepped back and dropped the shelf back on her body. The fact that she made no noise hammered in the fact that she was long dead.

Mondo rushed towards the loud thump. “Chi? You good?” You could hear the worry in his voice, his volume was raised. Fuyuhiko silently followed with panic on his face.

Chihiro was shaking, trying to get words out. It was hard after a second traumatic experience in the span of ten minutes. “Sayaka…” Was all he could mutter.

They knew exactly what he meant when they saw bits of long blue hair peeking out from under the shelf.

Fuyuhiko placed a hand on Chihiro’s shoulder. “I don’t know what to say, but you scared the shit out of me.” He joked a little, but he did almost pee in his pants.

Mondo shifted the bag on his back a little before continuing searching without saying a thing. Chihiro and Fuyuhiko soon did too. The two short boys searched together, flipping every floorboard and wreck insight.

Fuyuhiko spotted a pile of those foam-like, hole-y ceiling tiles. He and Chihiro went towards it, with Fuyuhiko removing the pieces. They knew what they were going to find, and weren’t surprised when all the tiles were removed.

There lay a rich teenager with blonde hair and blue eyes. He wore a suit with a green cross tie instead of your traditional tie. His dress shoes were scratched up, along with his face. His hair was frizzled but his skin wasn’t too light of a complexion.

Fuyuhiko didn’t seem fazed. His voice didn’t even shake when he called, “Mondo!”

Mondo went over to the mess, his heart stopping when he saw the person laying on the floor. His face shifted to disappointment and grief.

Fuyuhiko knelt down, pressing two fingers to the teenager’s neck. “There’s a pulse.” He stood back up, removing his hand.

“How do we wake him up?” Chihiro questioned.

“I don’t know. Fuyuhiko just woke up.” Mondo replied. Then his eyes widened a little and he got an idea.

He slid the backpack off of his shoulder and unzipped it. He took one of the room-temperature water bottles and twisted the cap off.

“What are you doing?” Chihiro questioned. His arms were shaky and cold.

“M’gonna dump water on his face.” Mondo replied, doing as he stated,

The body squeezed his eyes at the contact, lifting his upper-body. He grunted as he used his hands to balance himself.

“Fuck!” He cursed. He moved his hands to wipe his face.

Mondo drank water contents the bottle had left, a bit of water dripping down the sides of his face as he tilted to head to make a landslide of water slip into his mouth. He closed the empty water bottle and chucked it to somewhere to the side.

“Sorry. Had to wake ya up.” Mondo explained with a half-hearted apology.

Byakuya Togami scowled at the delinquent and pulled a handkerchief out of his pocket. The corner was dirtied, but he used the clean part to wipe his face. His face was still a bit moistened.

He used one of his arms to stand himself up. “How about ya screw off.” Byakuya mocked his slur.

“Don’t talk like that. Or I’ll gladly shove you under a few pounds again.” Fuyuhiko snapped, referencing Byakuya’s embarrassing position just a few minutes ago.

The 6’1 teenager scoffed. “Sure you will. Now shut that piglet mouth of yours.”

Fuyuhiko quickly got heated. His ears turned wed and his brows furrowed. His eyes twitched and his hands shook as he tried to contain himself. “You bi—!”

“Stop.” Chihiro ordered. “All this shit you guys are doing isn’t getting us anywhere. So get your shit together and move on.”

With that, Fuyuhiko’s face faded into its regular complexion, and his hands steadied. Byakuya crossed his arms, embarrassed that such a person had to tell him off like that.

“Let’s just get out of here.” Byakuya said. Mondo grew increasingly mad, but evened out his temper before he spoke after thinking of what Chihiro said.

“Dude, we haven’t searched the whole place yet.” Mondo argued.

“And? No one wants to be here.” Byakuya argued back.

“It;s not that hard to wander around. You’re free to go, ‘cause no one wants you here!” Mondo shouted. His body grew tense and his head started getting hot.

“Mondo! Why would you say that?” Chihiro yelled. His voice was booming. He was pissed. “Of course we want him here. Now move past your stupid ass anger and stop yelling!” Chihiro roared.

Mondo bit his tongue, mumbling, “fine, but I’m not leaving.”

Mondo made his way towards the stairs, followed by the two short boys and—surprisingly—Byakuya too. They all made their way to the third floor to track down the remaining lost ones.