The Sins of the Father

Kyoko Kirigiri's dream starts as blank nothingness; a white canvass almost. The scene quickly changes to a more than familiar location-Hope's Peak Academy. Specifically this time, though, is when she and Makoto Naegi were in the Headmaster's Room on the second floor.

After Makoto enters in the Headmaster's password that opens the secret office, and after he and Kyoko discover the box with Jin Kirigiri's bones inside, Makoto lets out a blood-curdling scream, and a long conversation ensues between the Ultimate Detective and the Ultimate Lucky Student about the bones in the box and who those bones had originally belonged to.

Makoto then spies an old photograph on the Headmaster's dresser. The photo shows a happier time, with a man's back to the camera and the man's arms holding a young, laughing child up off of the ground. The photo is faded, but the subject of the photo is easy to discern for Makoto-it's a much younger Kyoko. The Kyoko standing next to Makoto, however, has a much different reaction to the photo.

"...!" Kyoko's purple eyes expand as she places a gloved hand over her mouth. She then immediately switches to a look of.. anger? Disgust? "Well. This is certainly annoying," Kyoko quietly had said. "I came here to cut myself free of the past, and yet... to find something like this..." She trails off momentarily, then asks a question that confuses Makoto at first. "So what do you expect me to do now?"

Makoto is stunned into silence at first, until Kyoko breaks that silence.

"Why? What...? I wanted to face him and tell him myself, to cut him out of my life for abandoning me. That's the whole reason I came to the Academy, and now he's abandoned me again-this time, stealing the only opportunity that I had to move on. Has there ever been a worse father?"

Makoto can only silently sympathize with a more emotional Kyoko than he's ever seen, as he carefully moves to find the emergency e-Handbook. Kyoko absently dismisses Makoto giving the handbook to her, telling him to keep it for his part of the investigation instead.

Kyoko then speaks up once again. "Listen, Makoto...?"

"Huh?" Makoto asks, shocked by the entire situation that just unfolded.

"May I ask for a favor?" Kyoko continues.

"Of course, Kyoko, what is it?"

"I know that it's completely unreasonable of me to ask you this, and I know that it'll only inconvenience you that much more. However... could you please... leave?" Kyoko asks this hesitantly, her normal confident veneer a bit shattered at present.

"Huh?"

"It's... just for a little while. I just... need to be alone for a bit."

"Kyoko..." Makoto trails off, inadvertently showing his deeper concern for his lavender-haired friend.

"Don't worry, I'm fine. I just need to calm down a little so I can... get my emotions in order."

"You know, Kyoko... you told me before about the relationship that you had with your father. You know, how you're only connected by blood and not by heart or soul. But... " Makoto trails off, attempting to help Kyoko through her emotional state, making it obvious that he really doesn't want to leave her alone right now.

"Maybe that photograph motivated him. Maybe he'd hoped to see me again someday. Is that... what you were going to say? If so, that's just a theory, and this isn't an issue that can be settled with theories. That photo... doesn't change the facts of what happened, or what I went through. That's a problem that cannot be solved so easily." Kyoko regrets her words somewhat, since she really didn't mean to be that harsh to the brown-haired luckster.

"Kyoko... you're right, I'm sorry."

"Once I've gotten myself under control, I'll return to the investigation immediately. So please, Makoto? May I have some time to myself?"

"Okay, I understand. Then... I'll see you later, Kyoko."

Makoto sighs softly as he sees Kyoko turn her back, then he reluctantly leaves the secret room.

Kyoko, almost on auto pilot, takes the box and arranges its contents to appear as if it's a crime scene or autopsy. She doesn't investigate the bones any further, though. She sits beside them on the floor, then waits to hear Makoto leaving the outer room before she speaks softly.

"Why did I make myself display my hidden pride, just for a glimmer of hope that's now shattered? You abandoned me. You also abandoned Grandfather. But then to hold out hope that I would forgive you, after everything you did? After I swallowed my pride to join the Academy in the first place? I put myself in danger, and for what? Nothing. Now I can't even tell you how much of a horrible father you really are."

Kyoko then lays beside the bones, not even seeing that they're there but needing somehow to be close to them. She couldn't have prevented the footsteps of the God of Death this time. This fact didn't bother her. What bothered her was being robbed of the opportunity to cut her father out of her life for good.

She doesn't hear quiet footsteps into the room until they're right behind her. "I was a horrible father to you, Kyoko. That I cannot deny." The voice is masculine, and is also filled with regret.

Kyoko bolts up, the looks of disgust and anger that Makoto saw on her face now amplified. "What? How...!? WHY."

Jin Kirigiri just shrugs, then replies, "The how I don't know. The why? You're my daughter. Regardless of your want to cut me out of your life, I will always be your father."

"No, that's wrong! Ojiisan was more of a father to me than you could ever be, and you turned your back on the both of us!" Kyoko replies with a fire not usually seen or heard outside of the class trials that have taken place before now.

This truth hurts Jin, the emotion palpable on his face, his light purple eyes closing at the verbal blow he was just dealt. "Kyoko... there's no excuse for what I did. I know that. I was so lost after your mother died. I couldn't face being a Kirigiri anymore, which hurt your grandfather... and you, too. I was a coward."

"That still doesn't change the fact that you could have prevented all of this. Most especially leaving me, when I needed you the most. I barely remember Mother, and my only memories of you are tainted by you leaving the family."

"That's true, but I was so lost that I just... I didn't know if I could live up to the Kirigiri name anymore. But I knew... that you could, given time. You were always such an inquisitive child. You were wise beyond your years."

"Again, Jin, that doesn't change the fact that you decided to check out. You're only bouncing back in because it's convenient for you to do so."

"Kyoko... do you really hate me that much?"

Kyoko doesn't answer right away, her pain and sorrow etched on her face as she starts to quietly cry. "I... I want to..."

Jin, seeing his daughter so emotional but powerless to do anything, stays silent.

Kyoko continues, her voice getting thicker with the emotions she's buried for so long. "I didn't even have time to grieve for Mother when you left. I lost both of my parents in less than a week, and... Ojiisan had to pick up those broken pieces. He did... a good job, but... that hurt is still there. Can you not see it!?"

Jin cannot help but look crestfallen to his only daughter as she cries the tears she's not allowed herself to shed to this point. "Kyoko... I do see it..."

"I'm not finished. Far from it. Then, on top of that, you made Ojiisan take care of a broken, young girl when he should have been able to enjoy his elder age. He never saw me as a burden... unlike you."

"Kyoko..."

"Shut up! I am allowed to speak my piece, as I should have been allowed to long ago. Then, you decide to hide in the one place that should have been a haven for talented students like me. But you allowed the Despair Twins to run rampant over YOUR Academy, not to mention all of the slimy back door deals you were involved in. How could you let that happen to the charges that you swore to protect!?"

"You're right. I should have... been more vigilant. I should never have let Ikusaba or Enoshima within 50 meters of the Academy, but I was overruled."

"By... wait, I know. The rest of The Steering Committee." Kyoko replies dully, her face still wet with her tears.

"Yes, correct. They deliberately kept things from me until it was too late for me to do anything about them. I never would have sequestered all of you if I had known that Ikusaba and Enoshima were in actuality Ultimate Despair. I made... so many mistakes, Kyoko. you have to know... I am so very sorry... if I had it to do over..."

"That's just one theory out of many." Kyoko's lack of outward emotion tinges her quick response, but it isn't without a scathing undertone.

"What, that I'm truly sorry for screwing everything up? Kyoko, I never intended to hurt you, or abandon you."

"Well, that's just it. You're really not in any kind of position to prove your point." Kyoko gestures to the bones arranged on the floor. "I'd say that a bad end had something to do with this. But for now... please, just go."

"Kyoko..."

"GO."

"This isn't over. I will prove to you, somehow, that I mean every word that I say." Jin sullenly turns to leave his secret office. Kyoko turns around in time to see him vanish into a cloud of nothingness.

"Jin... Father..."

Kyoko's words fall flat as she crumples to the floor, her tears now fully flowing once again as she grasps Jin's left ulna...

... Kyoko wakes to see that she gently holds Makoto's right arm in her right hand, her pillow and face wet with tears. She drapes the slumbering Makoto's arm around her shoulders, burying her face into his chest as she continues to softly cry.

A/N: This dream was taken from a roleplay that was done on a Discord server that I am no longer a part of. Some minor changes needed to be made to the text to preserve some of the past knowledge that Kyoko (who I was roleplaying) had at that time in Trigger Happy Havoc versus the time in which the roleplay was set, which was after the Danganronpa 3 anime. Plus, given the fact that there is sometimes current knowledge in dreams of past events, I decided to not edit the original text too much. Hope you enjoyed it!