Danganronpa 2 - Kazuichi Soda's Ultimate Therapy Game

((All characters appearing are over 18. This story may contain spoilers for Danganronpa 1, 2, and the anime, but no spoilers for V3.))

“Are you actually insane? Some therapy might do you good, Kazuichi!”

The voice of a young woman taunted him from outside the machine. Two bright orange eyes peered in through the tiny window, the only thing providing light into the claustrophobic chamber. The one lying inside that chamber, which they referred to morbidly as the “Coffin,” was Kazuichi Soda, the Ultimate Mechanic.

“M-maybe I am crazy… But I’ve been working on this a year, dammit! I’m not gonna get killed by my own machine I’ve been working on for a year! B-but there was that one motorboat… Bah, this thing doesn’t move! I’m gonna be okay!” Kazuichi knew the Coffin was circulating air because of the checks he’d done before climbing in, and he knew the person taunting him from outside was probably teasing him as a way to calm him down. In spite of that, it felt like an especially cruel thing to say to him in this situation. He’d been against calling it a “Coffin” to begin with, knowing he was probably the one who was going to end up inside it, and it was every bit as claustrophobic as he’d expected.

Hiyoko Saionji, the Ultimate Traditional Dancer, had been the only one closely working with him since the project with this device began, and “working” was a strong word. She was basically just keeping him company during his project while practicing her dances. In retrospect, the whole arrangement seemed unfair in that way, but he tried not to dwell on that. He had to admit to himself that hanging out with a guy like him day after day was probably a job for her, and she was probably putting in some effort to keep his morale up. It was definitely true that he was more comfortable with her outside, even if she was jabbing at him, than if he were trying to do this alone. At the very least, she'd matured a lot since they were in a killing game, back when she'd been a kind of spiteful, blonde-haired gremlin.

Despite her presence, and the presence of his other friends on Jabberwock Island, this was his project; he was the only one with the capability to do it. When Hajime Hinata, the one who acted as their leader but didn’t go by any official title himself, proposed the plan to Kazuichi, Hajime must have already known the Ultimate Mechanic would accept. That said, he was up front about what it would cost, and researching the technology had indeed taken Kazuichi over a year…

Now, here he was, closed into a therapy machine that had once subjected his class, back then known as the “Ultimate Despairs,” to a killing game. Going back into that world, that Jabberwock Island… Kazuichi thought to himself that he really must be crazy. His efforts to get the machine running again had involved mountains of books on computer programming, a topic he was constantly reminding others was only loosely related to the mechanic work he’d always practiced. Then, working on the Coffin had been like writing programming on a computer with the monitor turned off.

In the midst of such thoughts, Kazuichi almost jumped when he heard Hiyoko’s voice again. There wasn’t any room to do so, he instead he just banged his knee on the lid. “Hey!” she shouted, “Seriously, idiot… if you’re not okay with this, you can say so, you know?”

A part of Kazuichi knew he should be touched by the sentiment, but being offered a chance to back out was not what he needed. “Forget it! I said I’m gonna do it, I’ve been doing it for a year, and I’m gonna finish it! This thing’s been maintained by the great Kazuichi Soda, you see! I’ll just take a little nap, then I’ll be up again in no time! You don’t even have to monitor anything.”

“Good! Your machine stuff always puts me to sleep,” Hiyoko called from the outside.

Kazuichi almost shouted back that the same could be said for him and her old-fashioned dances, but decided to hold his tongue. He wore a nervous grin, still as sharp-toothed as ever, as he heard her shout out the steps she was taking to start the machine. That and “emergency shutoff” were the only ways she’d know how to interact with it… Kazuichi found himself wishing he could have taught anyone else to do the work inside the Coffin and been on the outside doing Hiyoko’s part himself. In the end, however, when working blind, it had been easiest to do his tests using parameters that matched his own. If he had to input someone else’s, he’d probably be at it for another six months.

…

So, shouldn’t he have? Kazuichi’s grin fell as he asked himself a hard question. With another six months of precautions, he could have trained someone else to do this. He’d be on the outside, and might be better prepared to help if something went wrong. So why didn’t he?

“You’re going under! Try not to snore!” Hiyoko’s voice shouted out as though she was laughing at him again, but Kazuichi was aware of her eyes anxiously watching him through the small window, probably trying to make sure he wasn’t going bug-eyed and gasping for air.

Kazuichi didn’t respond, feeling his own eyes beginning to flutter, the onset of sleepiness hitting him all at once. He was leaving the present Jabberwock Island, where he’d worked on a machine for a year to solve someone else’s problem, into a new world where he had no idea what to expect…

“Change.” It finally occurred to him. “I did it in a year because I wanted change… I wanted respect… and I wanted… to be done with it…”

---

Kazuichi’s hot pink eyes shot open, startled, his racing mind unsure what he was going to find. Would it be the Jabberwock Island of the past? A part of him expected to find Monokuma there laughing at him, or Junko Enoshima’s Alter Ego AI grinning over him. Or maybe he wouldn’t see anything at all: he’d be floating in darkness, powerless and at the mercy of whenever Hiyoko saw fit to hit the shutdown to wake him up.

Instead, what he saw gave him some hope: he was floating in some sort of faint purple space. He kept seeing things flying by him that he interpreted as lines of code, although that could just be how he was perceiving it as a human mind in a machine. This was encouraging: in his prodding around outside the Coffin, he’d attempted to place himself into his original avatar, which wasn’t hard, but making it appear in a space outside the simulation was another matter. Now, all he could do was hope that the one he was looking for was still here, and that she found him. As soon as a user was plugged in, the therapy program ought to begin interacting with that user. So, he was hoping… and praying… that he’d see her, any second now.

A voice behind him made him jump. “Hiii Honey! Missed me…?”

That voice… didn’t belong to the person he’d come here for. Kazuichi tried to whirl around and face it, before realizing he had no idea how to do that. Instead, he was powerless, floating frozen in place until whoever it was introduced themselves.

His brain wouldn’t let him fill in the blank of who that voice belonged to. As if mocking him, it transformed into a voice he couldn’t possibly mistake. “Upupupu!! It’s a homecoming! You missed your teacher that much? I’m beary touched, upupupu!!”

Kazuichi still couldn’t even look at himself to see the cold sweat he felt breaking out across his skin, hearing the squeaky voice of Monokuma, the puppet who had served as the mastermind behind their previous killing game. If that was who he was hearing, what he said next had no purpose, since there’d be no reasoning with the Ultimate Despair. “Dammit… I fucked up! I was so damn sure only the original therapy program was in here too… W-wait! Hold up, hold up, hold on just a second!” Kazuichi had been speaking only to himself, but he began projecting his trembling voice so that whoever was behind him could hear it. “I was able to modify my code! I was able to modify it so I can’t be physically harmed in here! That means that no matter what, you can’t kill me, and if you can’t kill me, you can’t put a copy of yourself in me! If you can’t, there’s no point in trying, is there?! Aha… ha…”

The voice behind him had gone ominously silent. It finally spoke up in the chipper female voice he heard before. “Kill you? Copy myself? Oh no no no no, I haven’t got any violent plan like that! What’s the fun in killing, anyway? Kinda played out, if you ask me. Boooring! Oh no, baby, there are much worse things I can do to you than kill you…~”

Kazuichi gulped. He imagined… That was probably true. The concept of an Alter Ego Junko that had been trapped in here this whole time, dreaming up terrifying, despair-inducing plans for the people who’d trapped her there, was somehow even worse. “Oh shit. Aaah, b-b-but, there’s uh… I’m… We can-“

“Sssh. Kazuichi Soda. You run that creepy monster mouth of yours so much, but there’s no need! I know what you’re thinking! I can see what… your body is thinking…~”

The trapped would-be hero felt a shiver run through his body. The words were strange, but there was no mistaking he had become Junko’s prey. Even if he couldn’t be killed, what kind of pain could she inflict on him?

“Mmm… You’re so hard, Honey.~”

The terror he’d feeling didn’t fade, but the disorientation he’d been feeling grew. “H-huh?”

“Hey, you know what despair feels like, but… How would you like to know how Despair feels? I know you like blondes, Kazuichi… How’d you like to hold my handlebars while you get a nice face-fuck? Or what if I get to the same size I did last time and let you find out what that thing of yours feels like between some truly monster tits?”

… Being offered sexual fantasies by a former murderous mastermind he couldn’t even see was something he’d never counted on and something he’d certainly never verbally consent to. Humiliatingly, however, he was at least able to confirm one thing: the erection she was talking about was very real. He grit his sharp teeth together, trying to will his boner down, determined that he at least wouldn’t give Junko the satisfaction of- “Aah!~”

A cackle came from behind him at his reaction to suddenly having a hand tracing the bulge of his jumpsuit's crotch… Which also, oddly, was the first proof Kazuichi had that he was wearing his old jumpsuit. “Kehehe… You’re a dweeb and a loser, but you’ve got a hot bod. Really, I just got so fuckin’ horny being trapped here for years. Tell you what, I’m going to start sucking. You can either start complaining now and taper off to let me know you like it, or you can keep quiet now and start yelling later. Okay? Here I go…~”

“Oh damn! I’m not into it, I’m not into it, I’m not into it-“

“Kazuichi… the data suggests you are into it.”

“Screw you and your data! I’m not- H-huh?” Kazuichi had screwed his eyes shut, but he suddenly became aware that the voice had moved from below him at his waist to in front of him at eye level. No one was grabbing him any longer. When he opened his eyes…

… The person standing in front of him appeared to be Chiaki Nanami. Well, not Chiaki as he’d ever seen her. This version was slightly older than the one he’d seen either in real life at Hope’s Peak Academy or in the simulation, where she’d acted as the overseer of the therapy program. She was dressed in her usual cardigan with the hood down to reveal her light purple hair, and one of her pale hands was placed pensively at her lips. Her pale pink eyes were locked not with his, but on the area of his body the two of them had just been discussing.

Kazuichi wanted to rub his eyes, but he still couldn’t move his arms. “Chiaki?! I mean… You’re not really Chiaki, but you’re the AI, right? The one with us in the game? O-or wait, you’re one of Junko’s tricks-“

The young woman finally tore her eyes from Kazuichi’s body and up to his face. “No, Kazuichi. I’m… the same Chiaki from back then. I thought I probably wouldn’t see any of you again. This is incredible to me, too. I’m… really happy.” She showed him a small but seemingly genuine smile, although her face was still a bit red from what she'd been looking at a moment ago.

“Y-yeah… Well, this was Hajime’s idea, but yeah.” Kazuichi had too many things he wanted to ask, but first and most simply: “Chiaki, what the heck is going on? I can’t move, and… and Junko was here just a second ago, I thought… Uh…”

“That was the therapy program starting before I shut it down,” Chiaki told him, averting her eyes for his sake. “Kazuichi, we probably need to have a talk about that. But first… Why are you here? Alter Ego is gone, but… in my opinion, I don’t think there’s any reason for you to be here. There’s just me… And you aren’t exhibiting the Despair symptoms we were treating you for before, I think.”

Kazuichi finally felt full control return to his body as he slowly drifted down to a solid platform he assumed Chiaki had placed for his benefit. “You’re why I’m here. Hajime had the bright idea that after we checked to make sure Junko wasn’t still in here, we could get you out. Like… I know you’re just a therapy program, but for a while, you were our friend. You’re not the real Chiaki, of course, and you can’t replace her… But you’re the closest thing we’ve got, and it ain’t fair for you to stay here rotting while the rest of us move on!”

Chiaki was silent for a while. Finally, she tilted her head and spoke slowly. “I tricked you all, but… You still consider me your friend?”

“Yeah, sure! I mean, you’re an advanced AI with all the data of her personality. You went through the same stuff as us in the killing game, and all of us agreed we want to have you back in person if we could.”

“… I can see you’re hesitating,” Chiaki pointed out. “You weren’t all in agreement?”

The mechanic scratched the back of his neck. “Well, even those of us who figured there was no point in having you back like that didn’t want to take it from Hajime. He was saying that seeing you again would be something interesting for him… He’s a guy who hardly shows interest in anything, and we probably owe him what's left of our lives. I couldn’t say no.”

That ought to have brought a smile to Chiaki’s face, but for some reason, she was still frowning pensively. “Kazuichi, I don’t know if there’s a way for me to leave here… But I think it’s possible for us to make one. Some way for us to move me from the inventory of this machine and into the personal inventory, like storage… I just need to think it up. The two of us together can do it, probably. I think… I’d be interested. But it’s going to take time. I’ll need time to create the blueprint, then you’ll need to create the device in real life.”

“Really?! Sweet! Oh man, I really did it, huh?! I’m gonna be a hero!” Kazuichi was dancing in place, pumping his fists, and nearly crying. “I’m finally gonna see all this pay off…! My year of hard work…!”

Instead of joining in, Chiaki was still frowning at him. “Kazuichi… Like I said, this’ll take time. While we wait… I think you ought to undergo therapy, probably.”

Kazuichi continued laughing, even walking up and throwing an arm around her slender shoulders before lightly ribbing her in the side. “You too, huh?! Good one, buddy!”

Chiaki shrugged him off and stepped backward slightly. “No, I’m actually serious. Kazuichi, I don’t think you understand what a dangerous stress level you’re currently teetering on. If it’s like F-Zero, I think your car is probably blinking before it goes up in flames. It’s… probably that bad.” She continued talking in spite of the young man’s sudden and visibly rising levels of confusion and irritation. “Your levels of tension are incredible. Your sexual drive is wound tight, occupying an enormous sector of your brain. Your sexual appetite is perverted and depraved.”

“W-what the hell are you talking about?!” Kazuichi couldn’t find the words to argue about it, so he treated it like she was telling a joke.

“Kazuichi, why do you think the program took the form of Junko Enoshima trying to have sex with you when you first arrived? My readings are indicating that you have a large number of unfulfilled desires and regrets. Since you’ve gotten out of here, have you been satisfied with your life? Would you describe yourself as happy?”

“… You’re puttin’ me on the spot here.” The mechanic crossed his arms sulkily. “Yeah, sure, whatever! I’m not a Remnant of Despair anymore! I helped save the world! I live on an island with some of my friends… What’s not to be happy about?”

Chiaki tilted her head curiously. “For saving the world, were you recognized as a hero?”

“Well, uh, more like I’m hero behind the scenes! Sure the world thinks I’m a villain, but-“

“Do you get to work on the machines you love?”

“I mean, I’ve… mostly been working on this project recently…”

“Did you successfully confess to the love of your life?”

“Hey, I’m happy for her and Gundham!”

“Have you… had any sex?”

“… That’s… pretty invasive! W-why are you asking me all these questions? If you’re an overseer program and I’m in your computer world, can’t you see inside my brain anyway?!”

“I’m asking the questions because it’s important for you to ask the questions.” Chiaki walked a bit closer to him, holding a finger towards his face. “Kazuichi, you had a number of strongly-held goals, not one of which you’ve achieved since you left the simulation. Instead, I think you’ve burdened yourself with satisfying someone else’s goals. Once you return, having succeeded in that single goal that kept you occupied, what do you think will happen? For someone of your talent and repressed depravity, the results could be dangerous.”

“Y-you’re calling me a dangerous, degenerate pervert?!” Kazuichi held a hand to his lower lip in hurt shock. “What the heck kind of therapy is this, Chiaki?!”

“This isn’t therapy, it’s making you aware of the need for therapy. Kazuichi, while you and I have been talking, the program has already created a new simulation I think would be perfect for you. A way for you to deal with all of those frustrations… And, probably, a pretty fun game, too. I’m a little jealous you get to play it and I don’t. Why don’t we call it a Therapy Trigger Game?”

“… Therapy… Trigger Game…?” By now, the young man was totally disoriented. He didn’t know how to converse with the program he was speaking to other than to keep asking her for clarification.

“Mm.” Chiaki nodded, then shifted the backpack she was wearing off of her shoulders and placed it on the ground, then bent her knees with her legs together and began rummaging through it. “This is an Usami Tablet. It’s a magical device that lets you play a game within the simulation. I believe that playing this game will be highly therapeutic for you… probably.” She passed him what looked to the young man like a very feminine pink handheld gaming console, with a design reminiscent of their former teacher, Usami. “Whether you do or don’t, though, I believe you’re stuck in this simulation for some time, right?”

“That’s right… Hiyoko’s been instructed not to hit the simulation end until 2 or 3 hours have passed.” Kazuichi reluctantly took the console. He’d played a video game and used electronics before, but he was still pinching the thing like a foreign object he expected to explode.

“While I work on constructing the blueprint, you can either enjoy the simulation… Or, you can just wait. But as a therapy program, I really think the Therapy Trigger Game can help you. And, as a reminder… This machine is like a black box. You’re the only one who knows how to get any data in or out of it. Anything you do in here is a secret… So, I think it’d be healthy to let yourself have fun…” As Chiaki rose, Kazuichi noted a healthy bounce of her chest beneath her buttoned-up white blouse. She’d had been nice to look at since he'd known her, even back in the original simulation, but the extra years that pushed her into adulthood seemed to have filled out her soft, curvy figure even better. “Probably,” she added, drawing his eyes from her chest and back up to her own face.

“Well, I’ll think about it… B-but a therapy program like that sounds super embarrassing for me. I can’t picture it at all!” Kazuichi felt driven to defend his honor, even if it was only to a simulation.

“Never hurts to consider your options in any game, and some games are more fun with cheat menus… I think.” Chiaki made a yawn that Kazuichi found very in character for her. “Either way, I’m getting to my work. Have fun on your vacation.”

“My vactio- Woah! Wooah haaaaaa-!!” Her guest suddenly shouted as the purple space seemed to close around him. All of the purple left with him, leaving the Chiaki AI floating in a dark space by herself.

She smiled as she got to her work, speaking only to herself. “Yeah… I hope you’ll have lots of fun. At least I hope it won’t be boring.”

The young woman grinned and giggled to herself. “Oopsie! Not ‘hope.’ I meant I think it won’t be boring. Prob-ab-ly!” She drew out her syllables with a sing song voice as she continued.

---

Kazuichi had no idea when he’d passed out, but when he woke up, he was splayed out on a concrete floor, staring with bleary vision at some creaking, mechanical thing that was taking up his entire vision. He leaned up, quickly…

Too quickly. Kazuichi banged his head on what seemed to be a motor hanging over him, suspended on a chain. “Aaagh! Craaap! Pain, I can still feel pain! I can’t die but I can still feel pain after all!”

The young man took the beanie off of his head and felt around his layered purple hair for a bump he was sure must be forming. He looked down and saw his favorite yellow jumpsuit that he’d worn in the original simulation. It was like being in a dream, only the knock hadn’t woken him up.

Quickly, he scrambled to his feet. Before anything else, he took a rag from a nearby worktable and rubbed down the partially-assembled motor hanging in front of him, polishing it to a reflective shine. When he looked in that reflection…

Well, it was distorted, but there was no mistaking it. He was dressed like he had been back in the Game, for sure, but he was sure he hadn’t been this old in the simulation. In the real world, before he entered the coffin, he ought to have been in his early twenties. He looked slightly younger than that now, probably nineteen. Somehow, that difference of two or three years made him feel like an entirely different person.

The other thing that reminded him he wasn’t just in a dream was the Usami Tablet on the floor in front of him. Chiaki had sad this was the key to the Therapy Trigger Game…

“Therapy… I still can’t believe it. Why the heck would I need therapy?! What have I got to complain about in my life? And like… Yeah, I’m… Not getting any, but what the heck does she think I’m gonna do in a simulation that has anything to do with that problem?! This whole thing is insane!” He defensively slid the thing across the floor into a corner, still trying to prove to anyone watching that he was above it. “Who needs it, anyway?! There’s a perfectly good freakin’ motor to work on right here, hell yeah! I haven’t touched one of these babies in like a year… Maybe the program put it here so I could work on it? As part of the therapy? Anyway, I’m gonna dig in-“

As Kazuichi began reaching for the wrench, he noticed something on the wall. There was a pinup calendar there, the kind with babes in jean shorts splayed across cars. It spoke to both his sensibilities as a mechanic and as a man. But… “Dammit! Am I really that horny? Is the program thinking I’m so bad off that I’m gonna start masturbatin’ in some garage I just woke up in? As if!”

Feeling as though he was dodging that trap, the mechanic instead picked up the device he’d kicked around before. It hadn’t taken any damage. “All right, what the heck. Let’s see what this Therapy Trigger Game is. It’s just a game! If it’s bad news, I turn it off, work in this garage for a while, then Hiyoko snaps me out of it. No sweat. I can at least take a look.” Grumbling, he found the power button, then flicked it on…

It didn’t look like much of a game. When it came to games, Kazuichi was the kind of odd duck who liked looking at their menu interfaces more than anything else. This one was super bare-bones: he thought it had space for more added features, but all it had now was a black background with green text. His name was displayed at the top, and then a list of what he took to be buttons with the names of all his classmates. He was able to touch a bar at the side to scroll through them. “Kehehe! Yeah, I’m totally turned on. Great game!” he joked to nobody, as he tapped on the first name that caught his eye. A menu expanded from his choice and new text appeared. It read:

“HIYOKO SAIONJI - When she’s cruel to you”

Kazuichi stared at the screen. “This game looks broken… What is this?” He tapped a few more out of curiosity.

“MIKAN TSUMIKI - When one of her accidents turns you on”

“BYAKUYA TOGAMI - When he uses his position to talk over you”

“SONIA NEVERMIND - When she talks down to you”

Kazuichi almost threw the tablet across the room. He was halfway through the gesture before he tightened his grip, then stared at the thing furiously. “What is this?! What kind of therapy is this?! This is so damn cruel!!” He pressed through the remaining ones at a rapid pace, reading the lines out with shaky disbelief. “’When he argues with you… When she calls you a weakling… When she’s more interested in her games than you… When he disrespects you… When she laughs at you… When she insults your manhood… When he laments your wasted talent… When he pushes you too hard… When he makes up nonsense to you… When she gives you a cold response… When he calls you a pervert.’ Oooh, you’ve done it now, AI! When Teruteru frickin’ Hanamura calls me a pervert?! When he calls me a pervert?! What is this-?!”

Lost in his own anger and shouting about being called a pervert, Kazuichi was slow to realize that the door to the dingy mechanical room he’d woken up in was open, and he now had an audience.