#mastermind au

Mastermind AU of Nozomi.

another thing i thought i'd done before haha

Ryoma had lost everyone in his life, all because of his actions. Despair was near inevitable. The only thing that would bring him any comfort was spreading that despair to others.

Killing games had been done before. That meant Ryoma could use that as a template, designing it for the most despair for the classmates he knew best.

Having himself “killed” early was part of the plan. Kirumi of all people wasn’t easy to fool, but the piranha part of the murder worked wonders for the illusion of his death.

It was almost funny, how little Ryoma had to intervene. Even with the murder he didn’t see for himself, the despair felt from the unsolvable mystery was nearly perfect.

Makoto will probably go obviously. I'd also like to think that Kyoko or Byakuya would try to either stop makoto while bargaining with nagito from the outside somehow ( it Doesn't work) or they would try to go but the Junko AI would purposely blacklist them so only makoto would go

Context: previous post

That is the basic gist of it, yes! Except I think Kyoko and Byakuya would do their best not to jump into the simulation, because that means 100% of everyone involved is at Junko's mercy, and they'd rather that not be the case.

And Makoto jumping in is a huge act of faith toward Nagito, which Nagito SUPER hasn't earned; the premise of the ultimatum is, "I'm going to kill everyone currently in the simulation unless you come inside the simulation." And Nagito is a Remnant of Despair who now knows he's a Remnant of Despair. The most obvious pragmatic move would be to cut their losses and say, "Okay, we can't save the Remnants without potentially dying with them. This was a great try, everyone. Now we know for the future the benefits and risks of this experimental technology."

For Makoto to go in, exposing himself to the risk that Nagito will just...still set the building on fire, now with him in it, and get to take the Ultimate Hope down with him on his way out...It is so heroic that it crosses the line of both tactically irresponsible and psychologically concerning.

But he does go, to pull the whole, "Komaeda, you don't have to do this! Think about all the good you've seen in your classmates; I believe they can be that again!"

And Nagito, despite having made the ultimatum in the first place, is stunned that it worked. "You came in for them?"

Context: previous post

(To answer your actual question, yes, he plugs in Junko's AI like Izuru did. Probably some amount of conversation happened between him and Alter Junko while he was in Towa City, and they probably both would love for her to leave the door open for Makoto, but I'll put a pin in that for later.)

Oh boy, what I most like to imagine is Mastermind Nagito being in the simulation with all his outside memories and having the overall attitude of someone directing a children's play knowing someone important will be in the audience.

Like, he starts out with a generally positive attitude. He's decided that Hajime is the protagonist, for projection reasons, and obviously Monokuma is the antagonist. Any early complication is just a vehicle for character development later, so he's not terribly obtrusive.

But then as the killing game goes on, he starts getting regularly annoyed with everyone involved, often to the point of leaning on the fourth wall.

An uninteresting group conversation drags on too long? "I feel like we covered Fuyuhiko's trust issues already," Nagito says, with a passive aggressive smile. "Why don't we give someone else time to talk?"

Monokuma's third motive is "despair disease"? (And presumably Mastermind Nagito doesn't contract it.) "Literally changing your participants' personalities?" Nagito says, rubbing his head in annoyance. "I don't think any audience would find that compelling."

(Monomi he treats like a noisy theater attendee; he's always shushing her or waving her away. This works on her for some reason.)

Hajime trying to wait out the Funhouse motive? Nagito literally pulls him aside like, "Don't you think it'd be kind of embarrassing if our so-called protagonist didn't do something daring every now and then?"

"I never said I was a protagonist," Hajime protests.

"No, I did," Nagito says. "So don't embarrass me. Or if you must, at least kill me."

The other side of this is, eventually he kind of internally goes, Of course. There's only one Ultimate Hope. It was a waste of time to try to build a new protagonist. Didn't Komaru Naegi prove that already?

And he gets abruptly mellow with everyone. It's back to his earlier positive vibes. No one's disappointing him, and he apologizes for being weird.

And he traps everyone in a situation and basically holds them hostage to lure Makoto into the simulation.

Something like, Nagito drugs all the food, and while everyone in the dining hall is still eating, he's apologizing specifically to Hajime.

"...And I'm sorry," he says. "For that 'protagonist' stuff I said earlier. It was unrealistic of me. Of course, you weren't the one who embarrassed me. As always, I embarrassed myself."

"Dude, I said it's fine," Hajime says uncomfortably.

Nagito smiles warmly. "That's something I really appreciate about you, Hajime. It's why I thought you could be...like him. But you were like me, and deep down, I think I knew that from the start."

"What are you...?" Hajime's words are slurring, and the drugs are seriously starting to take effect. "What...?"

"You stay there. I'll be right back. Akane's trying to take the stairs, and we don't want that."