"...Where am I?"
When the light vanished, what appeared before me was the beach on the first island—the very same shore where we had first opened our eyes.
'Why... am I here? Just a second ago, I was in the middle of the Class Trial...'
"This is a space created by your authority, Chiaki Nanami."
".....!"
Suddenly, a cold voice I had heard several times before rang out in front of me.
"...You?"
"It seems you still haven't fully regained your senses. Look around you."
I did as he said—and froze in shock.
He looked like Hinata, and yet he was nothing like Hinata at all.
"Despair... only despair... is all this world is..."
"Hope... exterminate it... spread... despair... save... everyone..."
"Lady Enoshima... where did you go... please love me... Lady Enoshima..."
Before I knew it, I was standing at the trial podium in the middle of the beach together with the rest of Class 77—everyone except Komaeda.
"...What is this...?"
"Originally, in the ruins, you would have activated this authority and held the final trial here with the children who gathered the fragments of hope."
"The... final trial...?"
"The final trial to decide whether to graduate or repeat, of course. However, now it has been used to separate Class 77 from the influence of Enoshima's Alter Ego."
"....."
"But there is a limit to how long this space can be maintained. In other words, if you fail to persuade them all before this place disappears... they will become despair forever. And I have no desire to do something this tedious ever again."
I stared at the man called Kamukura Izuru and spoke.
"Hinata... since when were you him? No... did Hinata even really exist...?"
"Who knows."
"Were the bonds I built with Hinata... the bonds all of us built with him... nothing more than your act?"
"....."
"...Answer me!!!"
"You can find that answer from now on."
With that, Kamukura fell silent and turned his gaze toward the children standing blankly at the trial podium.
'I... I have to persuade everyone here.'
If I couldn't reach them now, then I would never get them back.
Ever since entering the ruins, my memories had started returning in fragments—not all at once, but piece by piece. And after coming to this space, that recovery had accelerated even more.
Because of that, I remembered the truth.
Once before, I had failed to save my friends as they fell into despair right in front of my eyes.
And that included the one quietly watching them now—Kamukura... no, Hinata-kun.
'I can do this... no, I have to.'
I had to persuade everyone here, right now. If I failed... there was no telling what Kamukura, already sick of everything, might do.
"...Everyone, please listen to me."
"....."
The moment I opened my mouth, every eye turned toward me. It made me flinch for a second, but I couldn't afford to collapse here. So I gathered my courage and began to speak.
.
.
.
.
.
"So that's where you spirited Class 77 away to... they're all over there, huh...?"
"What would you even do with that information, Enoshima? There's nothing left you can do now. Sit quietly and wait for your deletion."
"Upupupu... is that really true...?"
Meanwhile, everyone left behind at the trial podium was watching the beachside trial projected on a gigantic screen floating in midair.
Well—everyone except Komaeda, who was busy chattering excitedly at Class 78.
"Ahaha, Naegi... long time no see...!!"
"....."
"I've always admired you, you know... You're the same [Ultimate Lucky Student] as me, but at the same time, you're one of the [Ultimate Hope] who defeated that Junko Enoshima, right...? You're basically... the role model of my life. Having someone like you as my junior is one of the greatest strokes of luck I've ever had..."
"K... that guy... he really got rehabilitated?"
"Why are you asking me...?"
"K...!! Now that I've got my memories back, it's even better to see you again! Back then, I really thought you'd died, and it shattered me, you know!? But then again, you were always the one taking the lead in crushing Enoshima's despair in the past... no way you'd die that easily!!"
"Uh... I still haven't gotten all my memories back because of the aftereffects of the program, so..."
"It was like you already knew the future that was about to happen! Could it be... you have a talent for luck too? If so, that would be an infinite honor..."
"....."
K suddenly clammed up with a strangely guilty look on his face, and this time Kyoko Kirigiri turned to Komaeda.
"Komaeda, you still seem completely insane... but you do seem more cooperative than before, so I'll ask. Do you know where Monaca is?"
"...Monaca? Ah, that girl overflowing with possibility? Back when I was even more obsessed with hope than I am now, I worked pretty hard to educate her into becoming the 'successor to despair'..."
"Then... don't tell me... the 'other leader' is..."
"Ah, you don't need to worry. I got a little too fired up and lectured her way too intensely about hope and despair... so she ended up getting sick of both hope and despair."
"...What?"
"She got so sick of me that at some point she started planning to escape into space. Was I really that bad? Ahaha..."
"....."
At Komaeda's utterly absurd answer, Kyoko Kirigiri shut her mouth with a look of exhausted disgust. But K twitched at those words, then immediately turned to Togami.
"...Togami, how many satellites can the Future Foundation mobilize?"
"Why are you asking that? Don't tell me... you actually believe that ridiculous story..."
"Please. If we lose track of her, we won't be able to secure proof of the 'despair' that infiltrated the Future Foundation..."
"Upupupupu... you guys are talking like you've already won..."
Enoshima on the monitor stared at the noisy group as if they were hopeless idiots.
"Do you really think Nanami can persuade Kamukura all by herself?"
.
.
.
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"Hope...? Why... why is hope better than despair...? But if Nanami says so..."
"Why... why are you doing this to us...? We were... just..."
"The person... the person who loved me... it wasn't only Miss Enoshima... but... but I can't remember..."
"Guys!! Please, snap out of it!!!"
Nanami called out to Class 77 in desperation, but they only kept clutching their heads, writhing in confusion.
"It's useless. Even if Enoshima's influence has weakened... this appears to be the limit."
"No!! If I just keep trying a little more... then surely...!"
"No. According to my [Ultimate Analyst] ability... this is the limit of your capabilities. If we return to the trial grounds like this, they will undoubtedly revert to a state of despair."
At those words, Nanami clenched both fists tight and glared at me as she spat the words out.
"How could you possibly know that!? Don't you dare decide people's limits for them!!!"
"Even if I don't want to, I can still see them. Your limits, that is."
"Even you can't know how this ends!! I can still do more!! I can make the ending with my own hands...!"
"No. I just saw it."
"What...?"
I gave the answer I had seen to the girl staring at me with wide, stunned eyes.
"...The ending where despair wins."
".....!!!"
Nanami went rigid.
"In the end, between hope and despair, the more unpredictable one was despair. Even if the forced shutdown activates here, the despair side will secure a copy of Enoshima's Alter Ego with a one-hundred-percent probability."
"W-What are you even..."
"And as for the chain reaction that will occur when the despair side, having secured that copy, encounters the girl we met in Towa City... I don't even need my analytical ability to predict that."
"What are you talking about!!!!!"
"Did you fail to understand what I said?"
How dull. Everything in the world had become unbearably dull now.
Because the one truth I had never known had finally been clarified.
No... there was still one thing I didn't know. The meaning of life.
But now that I had learned even the final truth I wanted to know, what meaning could there possibly be in continuing to live?
"Then let me deliver the verdict."
I had just found the answer.
I simply had to end it. End everything.
"...Your... and..."
In a cold voice, I declared it to her, to the people in the trial grounds watching this scene, to the members of the Future Foundation watching through the monitor, to the people all across the world who would soon be swallowed by overwhelming despair, and... to myself.
"The defeat of hope..."
"That's wrong!!!"
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"H-Hinata...!?"
".....?"
When Hinata suddenly appeared in the courtroom, not only Nanami but even Kamukura looked shaken.
"...How are you able to exist?"
"....."
"You should have been suppressed deep within me."
"....."
"What exactly did you do?"
Kamukura's question was thick with curiosity, but Hinata merely stood there with his eyes closed in silence.
"Hinata-kun...? Is it really... really you?"
At last, when Nanami asked carefully, Hinata slowly opened his mouth and answered in a quiet voice.
"...I don't really know."
"What...?"
Hinata began to speak in that same quiet voice—but it was clearer than it had ever been before.
"I don't really know who I am right now, how I'm able to exist here, or what it even means that I exist."
"....."
"But like you and K said before... the definition of 'me' is shaped by bonds, right?"
".....!"
"The me that exists right now has the memories of the time I spent on this island with everyone... and with you. I have those bonds."
"Th-Then that means..."
"Yeah. So... according to what you said... and according to what K said... I'm Hajime Hinata."
"Hinata-kun!!!"
Nanami cried out through tears of joy, and Hinata smiled with his eyes still closed.
"...This is the second time my prediction has been wrong."
Watching him, Kamukura asked in a low voice,
"If it's you, then you should be able to change the ending. So... what choice will you make?"
"....."
"Will you side with hope, or will you side with despair?"
"....."
"Well, naturally you'll side with hope. In the end, no matter how you look at it, the ending is always fixed as one."
"...That's right. In the end, the ending is fixed as one."
Hearing Hinata's words, Kamukura's expression turned cold again as he began to speak.
"But unfortunately, I don't think that will do. Now that I've already seen the ending, I have no lingering attachments left."
A nameless unease crept over Nanami, and she asked,
"...What does that mean?"
But Kamukura didn't even glance at her. He kept his eyes on Hinata and continued.
"If the future proceeds as it is, then you and I will probably merge. I have no desire for something so troublesome. I've already grown tired of this world."
"...Yeah?"
"It's true that, in my final moments, I felt a brief flicker of interest because of something unexpected. But that was only possible because you existed—my copy, possessing abilities completely identical to my own."
"....."
"So in the world I would live in from here on, nothing would ever happen to make my heart race again. Because once I merge with you, the only being capable of creating something like that would ultimately be myself."
Kamukura looked ready to finish speaking with an expression that said he was tired of everything, but then—
"So yes, I should end everything after all. I only need to erase my existence before leaving this place. What happens after that has nothing to do with me anymore. Well then..."
"Your argument is wrong from the premise up."
"...What?"
At Hinata's words, Kamukura's expression twisted.
"I... won't choose either hope or despair."
"How absurd. To choose neither hope nor despair... that's nothing but escapism."
"No, it's not escapism. I'm choosing something more dazzling than either of them."
"...What are you talking about?"
Kamukura asked with a look of utter incomprehension. Hinata snapped his closed eyes open and—
"What I chose is..."
With an aura blazing from his entire body, he shouted,
"The future!!!"