A/N: If you're new to this fic, you can ignore this tiny bit and continue on! Yay!

If you're not new to this fic - good news is that I'm back at last, bad news is that the fic had to be rebooted. You can see a formal apology to anyone following the story, plus some stuff on why what happened, happened, on the Tumblr account everyonegetsdrunk. (I'd put a link here, but won't let me. Booooo.)

The first time Koizumi died, it was fine.

Sure, there was a lot of swearing when she was executed along with everyone else, but that was only because Hinata–stuffing–up–the–first–trial–so–badly–that–everyone–voted–for–him –"because–he–sucks–at–mysteries" wasn't part of the plan. Since they were all inside a simulation, people dying could be fixed easily. All Hagakure figured he had to do was pull out the plug, and he could reset as many times as he liked.

It was a stupid idea – or as Togami would have said, an awfully Hagakure idea – but hey, it worked. The machine rebooted, wiped everyone's minds again on startup, and the whole experience began anew. Everyone now had a second chance, and things even went a little differently.

Koizumi died a second time, because Monobear invested in these unfortunate salt–water piranha Monobeasts that ate most of the cast before the virus could actually explain what was going on. This was also fine. Hagakure just reset again,

(they ran out of time in the trial)

and again,

(drove a dinghy off the edge of the world)

and again,

(a dinosaur ate the whole cast, it's a long story)

and again,

(they refused to vote, just to see what'd happen)

and all in all, the fortune teller got pretty desensitized to them dying. It had been horrible to watch at first, but it happened so often that in just a few months he was starting to treat the group as less people, and more like they were just characters in some game he was playing. They had a limited amount of health, sure, but an infinite number of lives – and if Hagakure didn't like this particular playthrough for whatever reason, he could start over at any time.

His boss had told him not to keep pulling the plug on them, of course. When Byakyua Not–Actually–My–Boss–But–Really–Bossy–Anyway Togami had been shown Hagakure's latest achievement, there had been... well, a lot of arm–waving, something long–winded about people becoming aware of what was going on because of memory overload, and something equally long–winded about the program glitching and crashing. Naturally, Hagakure had a far better explanation: Byakuya Better–Than–Everyone–Else Togami was just a giant party pooper. Who wouldn't have wanted a better outcome than 'everyone dies except for the computer AI'?

(Byakuya No–Fun–Allowed Togami, apparently.)

And besides – as long as he kept 'working' on the simulation, Hagakure had the world's easiest job. Between cups of coffee and fascinating articles in Conspiracy Weekly, he tweaked teeny–tiny things like building locations, Hinata's dreams (and okay, he did come up with an entire case motive this one time, and that didn't go very well, but the alien invasion had sounded like an awfully good idea at the time). As usual, there wasn't much logic to his actions – just this semi–demented hope that he'd magically get an ending where despite the virus's attempts, the full group of Super–High–School–Level Despairs would at least survive to the end of the simulation.

It wasn't like it was an impossible ending to get, either. On the forty–something–th reset, a group of five survivors – Sonia, Souda, Kuzuryuu, Owari, and Hinata – had actually managed to corner Junko, all becoming close to hopeful in the process. The forty–something–plus–one–th reset was where he was at now, and tapping away at his keyboard Hagakure had a good feeling about it. This time round, if he was careful about what he tweaked, then he was guaranteed to have an ending with at least five people alive and hopeful.

Now, how to work in a sixth–?

After a truly ponderous ten seconds, he moved the lodge three metres to the right. Yes, this made the building clip straight through a tree; several trees, to be honest. However, the inherent aesthetic appeal of nature (as well as a giant awkward trunk in the middle of the secret murder passage) should encourage some extra hope. Hagakure puffed out his chest a little, sipped his latte, pressed the Enter key, swore, crawled under the desk, banged his head, plugged the thing in, banged his head again, settled back into his chair, puffed out his chest, sipped his latte–

ERROR 291:MEMORY WIPE LIMIT REACHED: STUDENT #12_

FURTHER WIPES MAY RESULT IN DAMAGE_

USE PREVIOUS SAVE? (Y/N)_

–squinted.

Death... limit...?

As it turned out, the forty–something–th time Koizumi had died, it wasn't fine at all. Hagakure must have sat there for an age in front of that message, until his coffee was stone cold and his eyes were starting to ache.

What would Togami have done here? Would he have risked the brain damage? Or would he have simply put her into the sim, remembering everything up to her death from the past loop, and hoped that it wouldn't result in a complete cast wipe all over again? Hagakure figures that the heir wouldn't have ended up in this mess in the first place, but if he did, he'd have picked the first one. After so many frustrating attempts, and knowing now that there was a limited number of goes remaining... Yes, Togami would have risked the brain damage for a run where it would be likely for at least six people to survive. Maybe more.

But what was the right thing to do? Was it really Hagakure's business to mentally scar someone, someone who had already been a complete despairing wreck when they entered the simulation, just so he could save the others? Saving five people wasn't completely guaranteed – what if Hagakure didn't save anyone with this attempt? What if the damage to Koizumi's mind was bad enough to kill her, make her forget how to breathe?

Was he okay with sentencing one person to death or despair, just to keep a likely chance–?

No.

No, he wasn't. Togami would have been perfectly fine with losing someone, but Hagakure – he wasn't that smart, wasn't that cold, wasn't that much of an expletive deleted. And besides, if this didn't work out – he could just pull out the plug, and then could continue with the run Togami would have chosen. It was really a win–win situation, since he could reset the game any time he liked.

Hagakure smiled, and pressed the Y key.

The machine hummed in response.

And this is how the whole disaster started.