Hope vs Despair

Man, you ever think about how Ouma was probably super betrayed by Akamatsu’s actions in V3? You ever think about how, at least in canon, he probably had a lot of resentment towards her, not even just because she murdered someone, but on the grander scale of the fact she literally made the single worst mistake any leader possibly could?

That is, assuming you are unequivocally morally just because you want what’s best for everyone and thus know better than everybody else in the room.

You ever think about how that one thing was what led her to the conclusion that she could totally do whatever she wanted if she felt it would be in the group’s best interest, even if she KNEW they wouldn’t like it, evidenced by the fact she felt the need to sneak around behind Saihara’s back? You ever think about how she absolutely wasn’t prepared for the consequences of those actions when she inevitably was proven that she WAS fallible?

You ever think about how Ouma, with his own experiences in leadership, is intimately familiar with how DANGEROUS those types of leaders are? You ever think about how he put his trust in her to take a back seat and let her lead the group anyway? And then it blew up in both their faces.

You ever think about how even after the fact, he couldn’t bring himself to blame her for her inexperience? You ever think about he on record, in canon, blamed himself for being useless instead? You ever think about how being the true leader in the room just by Talent and knowing how dangerous it is for a leader to ignore their capacity for error and making bad decisions, he went through the entire rest of the killing game acutely aware of his responsibility for every single bad thing that happened from then on? You ever think about how Akamatsu and her mistake probably haunted him?

I think about it a lot.

Like, do you ever wonder how fucked up it was that Ouma ended up pushed into a role within the group where he had no choice but to do what Akamatsu did and make big mistakes for the good of the group? Because over the course of the game they kept writing him off and by the time things were getting really bad they wouldn’t have listened to him so he was forced to pull an Akamatsu about it?

You ever think about how he sets out to avoid Akamatsu’s mistake in chapter 2, by proposing the Motive Video Watch Party so that everyone was privy to the same information and no one would slip through the cracks again like Akamatsu did? You ever think about how it was Saihara, who was radicalized by Akamatsu’s tragedy in the opposite direction because he doesn’t have Ouma’s expertise of leadership and transparency, who thought that was a bad idea and shut Ouma out of this plan?

You ever think about how Ouma makes a point to be involved in as much as possible so that he can keep tabs on things (the Motive View Party, the seance, helping Miu set up the computer), but no one actually listens to his proposals so he ends up having to make decisions on his own the way Akamatsu did? You ever think about how this blockage in communication ended up putting Ouma in a corner where he couldn’t be upfront with anyone but a select few people?

You ever think about how this ultimately results in his hand being forced to stoop to Akamatsu’s level and scheme behind everyone’s backs, resulting in the deaths of not one but two more people?

You ever think that since he’s been acutely aware of the responsibility of a leader to shoulder the blame for bad things happening, that just as he blamed himself and his own inaction for Akamatsu’s mistake, he was very much of the idea that this whole outcome was entirely his own fault, due to his own failings as a leader, because if he had just been good enough, none of this would have happened?

You ever wonder if he thinks he’s worse than Akamatsu because of it?

Food for thought.

A Kokichi-centric collection of vignettes across multiple AUs for the April is the Cruelest Month Whump prompt event.

Actually rather than try to keep up with cross-posting the flash fiction I'm writing on my personal journal over here every single day, I'll just copy and keep updated my directory list linking to the original posts on my journal. Some of these are from several different canons, so the list here helps keep them straight. I'll add tags as fic links are added as well.

At some point when I have enough vignettes for a particular canon, I plan to stitch them together into a fuller continuous fic. When that happens, I'll crosspost them here in their entirety. Until then, enjoy my vignettes as I write them: