Fanfic / Kazuichi Strangelove

Kazuichi Strangelove or How I Stopped Worrying and Learned to Love the Time Loop by Gars is a complete "Groundhog Day" Loop fic set in the aftermath of Danganronpa 2: Goodbye Despair.

Following the events of the Killing School Trip, the survivors decide to return to the Neo World Program in hopes of rescuing their comatose classmates. Due to a freak accident, Kazuichi ends up the only one of them who remembers anything, from their history as Ultimate Despair to the events of the game to their goal. He decides to use this time to win over Sonia...but is that really all he's capable of?

There are major spoilers for both Danganronpa: Trigger Happy Havoc and Danganronpa 2: Goodbye Despair as well as spoilers for the anime: Danganronpa 3: The End of Hope's Peak Academy.

Kazuichi Strangelove contains examples of:

• 100% Completion: Saving all of his classmates' lives isn't enough to break free of the loops; Kazuichi has to collect everyone's hope shards too.
• Awesomeness by Analysis: Part of the Ultimate Impostor's talent is being really good at reading people (he's gotta have a good handle on the character of the people he impersonates), and he consistently manages to figure out that Kazuichi knows more than he's letting on.
• Better to Die than Be Killed: Or rather, "better to commit suicide than experience one of Monokuma's punishments".
• Big Damn Heroes: Alter Ego once again saves the day, this time by curing the Despair Disease once everyone is infected.
• Break the Cutie: If you thought one killing game was bad for Kazuichi's psyche...
• Character Development: The fic may as well be called "Kazuichi Soda: Character Development", as it follows his journey from a terrified teenager who just wants to escape the loops, to a selfish teenager who wants to exploit them to make Sonia fall in love with him, to a genuine hero who vows to rescue every one of his classmates.
• Chekhov's Gun: After Kazuichi stops Fuyuhiko from committing suicide in order to break the others out from the Funhouse, the two share their own past, leading to Fuyuhiko sharing a hand gesture called the Russian Doll to request aid from the Kuzuryuu Clan. In future loops, Kazuichi uses this gesture (under the claim that he learned it from Fuyuhiko when they were classmates at Hope's Peak) to request Fuyuhiko and Peko not to go after Mahiru for thinking she had a part in Fuyuhiko's sister's death.
• Commonality Connection: Kazuichi and Mahiru eventually grow close bonding over their shared poor childhoods and being forced to parent for their dad.
• Death Is Cheap: Deconstructed. Being trapped in the same killing game over and over means Kazuichi has witnessed his classmates die horribly multiple times, not to mention been murdered himself and even been executed in a loop where Peko successfully framed Hiyoko. Between this and the fact that everything eventually resets, he grows so desensitized to death and trauma that he casually contemplates suicide to escape loops he doesn't like. Both Chiaki and the Imposter are very worried about this when they find out and beg him to be more considerate of his mental health.
• Determinator: Eventually Kazuichi develops into this. It doesn't matter how often someone dies and forces him to start over, he will repeat this game until he figures out how to get everyone out alive.
• Earn Your Happy Ending: After who knows how many loops, several bouts of depression, and severe trauma, Kazuichi is able to break the loops and graduate with all his classmates, who are all cured of being Ultimate Despair.
• Everybody Lives: Kazuichi eventually realizes that achieving this is likely what will end the loops. He's partially right, and in the end everybody gets out of the Neo World Program alive and cured. Even (AI) Chiaki has a shot of living, as the fic ends with Kazuichi and Alter Ego beginning a project to rebuild her.
• Forced to Watch: Happens whenever Kazuichi manages to detain Mikan; Monokuma gets pissed off and declares that he won't be infected with the Despair Disease until he's watched all his friends succumb to it.
• Heroic Willpower: Fuyuhiko is the last (save Kazuichi) to fall victim to the Despair Disease, and staves off its effects for a whole day through nothing but sheer willpower. This, along with Nagito's luck, gives Alter Ego the time he needs to cure everyone.
• Hidden Depths: The Ultimate Imposter is skilled in reading people's emotions, which he uses to deduce that Kazuichi went through the Killing School Trip before. He also notes traits in Mikan that revealed she had an abusive past.
• Hope Spot:
  • Chapter 41: For the first time, Kazuichi is able to stop disguising himself and feels truly accepted among his classmates. Then Akane challenges Monokuma and dies because they were all on the first island, and thus unable to get to the beach in time.
  • Chapter 56: Kazuichi finally gets past the Despair Disease and keeps everyone away from the Funhouse. On their way back, Monokuma destroys the bridge, trapping Nagito on the fourth island and ensuring he discovers the truth that drives him mad.
  • Chapter 64: Kazuichi navigates all the dangers of the islands, keeps all his classmates alive, finds love with Mahiru, and gets all the way to the sixth trial. When he completes it, he wakes up in the classroom again.
• Official Couple: Sonia/Gundam, much to Kazuichi's despair. Hajime/Chiaki, Nekomaru/Akane, and Fuyuhiko/Peko are also consistently romantic pairings throughout the loops. Kazuichi/Mahiru eventually becomes one too.
• Race Against the Clock: When Kazuichi learns that Nekomaru has an incurable heart disease that can strike at any time, he realizes that if the sports manager's heart goes out in the real world, he can't use the "Groundhog Day" Loop to bring him back. This gives him a time limit to saving his classmates.
• "The Reason You Suck" Speech: Kazuichi gets a couple good ones on his classmates when they're acting stupid.
  • He gives Junko one by proxy against Despair!Mikan, saying that she's a loser who was too weak to find fulfillment in things other than despair, and that the despair she loves is itself too weak to survive without parasitizing other things.
  • He tells Mahiru off repeatedly (on different loops) for defending Hiyoko, noting that by defending the bully she's saying that the feelings of Mikan, the one she bullied, don't matter.
• Ripple-Effect-Proof Memory: Chiaki doesn't quite remember the other loops, but because her nature as an AI lets her "see" the game's codes, she can tell that Kazuichi is forced to repeat the killing game over and over.
• Ship Tease:
  • Kazuichi gets some with Ibuki, Mikan, and Mahiru. Ultimately Mahiru becomes his Second Love.
  • Nagito and Mikan, in the loops where Kazuichi facilitates their friendship. Particularly post-Despair Disease when she Glomps him after he forgives her.
• Shout-Out:
  • One loop has Hanamura successfully murdering Nagito before being caught, the Imposter stationing guards around the Twilight Syndrome game, a fire breaking out and killing Peko, and Sonia being the second trial's killer.
  • In the loops where they become friends, Mikan scolds Nagito for wanting to eat nothing but bagels.
  • Chapters dedicated to one of Kazuichi's classmates^note usually but not always in the form of Free Time Events have titles that reference relevant Dangan Ronpa fanfics. These include System Restore (the Imposter), The Lion's Den (Nagito) and its sequel From the Ashes (Fuyuhiko), Hope on a Distant Mountain (Mikan), and Extra Life (Chiaki).
  • Part of the secret code Fuyuhiko teaches Kazuichi is the phrase Russian Doll (which is also the chapter title).
  • When infected by the Despair Disease, one of Nagito's lies is that Monokuma has turned into a giant ball and is rolling this way.
• Shut Up, Hannibal!:
  • After despair!Mikan and Monokuma try to turn Kazuichi back into despair by unlocking his memories as an Ultimate Despair, he fights off the memories and proves himself stronger.
    Kazuichi: Despair is weak, Junko is dead, it feeds off of things around it and it cannot survive.
  • And when Mikan tried to use a Breaking Speech on him by stating his own faults and flaw (calling him a coward and nothing more than comic-relief), he admits that it's true, but he still manage to find accomplishment as the Ultimate Mechanic, while Junko choose not to find happiness in others instead of despair.
• Skewed Priorities: After posing his situation as a hypothetical question to Nekomaru, Kazuichi is told that he should, hypothetically, use the loops to improve aspects of himself. Instead of doing that or trying to stop the loops, he promptly decides that he should use them to figure out how to win over Sonia.
• Spot the Thread: How Kazuichi manages to get Fuyuhiko to back off Mahiru; he notes that, by his own admission, Fuyuhiko had already had Sato, the person who actually killed his sister, killed- so if Mahiru was so heavily involved, how had Fuyuhiko not managed to deal with Mahiru before getting kidnapped?
• That One Boss:
  • Mikan, in-universe. Once she gets infected by the Despair Disease, she causes Kazuichi no small amount of grief when he starts trying to ensure Everyone Lives—between her wiliness and surprising strength, she often either kills someone or someone kills her in self-defense, forcing a reset.
  • There's also Nagito, because his luck makes it means that most attempts to stop him go awry in ways Kazuichi can't plan for, and his mental instability means that persuading him to let off is difficult.
• That One Level: The Despair Disease is an in-universe one. Suffice to say, Kazuichi is stuck for a long time trying to figure out how to get all his friends through it alive. In fact, when asked which island frightens him the most, he easily declares it's the third solely because of the disease.
• Translator Buddy: Kazuichi drags Hajime along to his meeting with Gundham because Hajime is better at deciphering Gundham's Chuunibyou way of speaking.
• Trust Password: Fuyuhiko gives Kazuichi one after Kazuichi manages to save Peko.
• Unwinnable Training Simulation: Downplayed; Chiaki gives Kazuichi a dating sim with the chance to romance different characters, and she notes that while the game is perfectly completable, there are some characters, notably a blonde foreigner, who are simply not compatible with the main character and as such lack romance routes. This was meant to make him realize he has no chance of being more than friends with Sonia.
• Vengeance Feels Empty: One loop has Nagito murdering Hajime to kick off the first trial, which pisses off Kazuichi so much he decides to wait on resetting the loop until he's made Nagito pay. ...But after watching the execution, he notes that all he really feels is hollow.