Despair.

The meaning of this word is, quote, "the lack or loss of hope." It is an emotion that can bring even the strongest of souls to do terrible and unspeakable things. It can be found in even the strongest of hearts and while the quantity can vary from person to person, it can always be found in even the mightiest of people. The horrible emotion can pierce the mightiest of souls and leave a gaping hole in its wake. It is as terrible a thing to experience as it is to see happen to another unfortunate soul. Yet at the same time, it can be overcome, bringing wisdom that could never be found otherwise.

In some ways, the same could be said about its coexisting partner known as, "Hope." While hope can be a way to help persevere in the wake of bad times and help bring resolve to the forefront of their actions. It can bring them light in the darkest of times, helping them push forward through times of pain to bring forth a better tomorrow.

However, it is difficult to maintain and can blind a person in large dosages, making them unable to cope when an event of tragedy comes upon them. It can cause them to act recklessly and leaves them in a far stronger state of agony when misery strikes. When this happens, it will leave them in a far deeper state of its brother emotion, despair, then it would have had they come at a situation with their guard up and with caution guiding them.

These two, though greatly different in their methods, are one of many counter acts in existence. Such as Yin and Yang, Good and Evil, and Intelligence and Ignorance; it does not take too much of one to upset the extremely delicate balance with the other. The dangers of even one of these going too far can drive a person to madness. Yet, at the same time, they can save someone by acting as an anchor to their turmoil.

But through this one must ask. Does the usage of one in the name of helping bring forth the other count towards salvation, or damnation? Does causing pain in order to strengthen ones resolve to do what is right count as just, or foolish? Does bringing someone to the deepest depths of despair in order for them to bring a much greater hope to others count towards brilliance, or foolishness?

In any case, there is a place that believes in cultivating talented individuals in an effort to raise the future "hope" of the nation, earning it the moniker "The Academy of Hope". The name of this place? Kibougamine Academy, or it's more well-known moniker, "Hope's Peak Academy." A massive school that is considered among one of the best, if not the best, high school to grace the world. So much so that it has been stated that, to be accepted into their ranks and succeed in graduating is to guarantee a financially stable career and future.

Many could claim that the reason for this could be linked to their choice to employ only the highest quality teachers to help guide the youthful minds as they mature. Others believe that it is the school itself that brings this talent to the surface with their overwhelmingly diverse topics for the students to pursue in the name of their educations. However, a majority of those asked think that a good portion of their successes would be linked to the fact that, with only a few special exemptions, the only students to attend are the hand-picked "best of the bests" that can be found in the world at anything; and they do mean anything.

It doesn't matter how valuable or underwhelming your talent is, if you were the absolute best at it before you graduated high school, you had a chance to become one of the school's ultimate students. These ultimate students, or "Super High School Level" students depending on who you asked, were each capable of incredible feats despite their ages. Many of these people could be considered to be overwhelmingly spectacular at what they do and would need only need to put in minimum effort to succeed, so long as it matched with their assigned talent.

But that's all semantics at this point. The reason to bring up this school is for only one thing. It is at this school that, ironically, a series of major events happened that caused a great amount of Despair to infect the world, bringing about massive amounts of pain and misery to all who heard of the misery it routs.

The first was an event referred to only as, "The biggest, most awful, most tragic event in human history". The specifics of the incident were never truly revealed to many of the public, but those that had heard or unfortunately witnessed it could only claim that it had been an extraordinary form of social unrest, which quickly culminated into uncontrolled, meaningless chaos, violence, and death. Through this event, despair soon engulfed the world and it soon became more violent by the day. Soon, chaos and death became a normal part of society and the major world-wide event known as "The Tragedy" truly came into power. It was for this reason that the school would be put into a voluntary lock down, to protect the students within from the events taking place though the outside world.

However, the next event a year later would seal the fate of this once fine establishment. In an attempted repeat of the events that spawned The Tragedy, the instigator and mastermind behind the first attempt to bring the students of the locked down school to such a level of despair that they would attempt to end the lives of their fellow students in an attempt to escape from their voluntary prison. She did this by wiping their minds of all of the events that transpired, how so is unknown, and weaving a lie to them that they could only leave their school through the death of one of their own, intentionally leaving out why they were there in the first place. Eventually, through the mastermind's manipulations, many of the students would die at each other's hands as the days passed.

Or at least, that was how it was supposed to happen.

Unfortunately for the mastermind, things don't always go the way you want and even the best laid plans can fall flat in the face of human ingenuity, facts, and luck both good and bad. Though a variable that the mastermind refused to see, a young student was able to thwart their plans to a degree, and in the end prevented the surviving students from falling into despair, and even managed to save a fair amount of their class before vowing to bring hope back to the world. In the end, the mastermind, refusing to see the possibility of such a thing, took their own life in an act of defiance to the ideals of hope the student tried to show them. This in fact, would be where their story ends.

But stories are not restricted to such things as facts and fate can be just as fickle. There can be bends, twists, and breaks in all rules and logics and these can change the way events happen, in many different ways. And just because the story for one person ends, doesn't necessarily mean that the tale of another follows suit. In other words; every story has its constants and variables.

For this story, however, I'll have to ask for a slight suspension of disbelief, for the tale I wove for you before, in my world, was but a story told several times over. In many cases a person would tell this story as if they had been unfortunate enough to be whisked into either this world or another and given an opportunity to assist the hero. Either through a representation of their own making, or by taking the place of the students fated to perish and rewriting as they see fit.

But, unfortunately for me, as I look around at the fifteen determined faces I've grown to see as unintentional comrades, all aiming for a common goal of freedom, did I feel both regrets and pride. Here, at the final curtain call trial I had helped them to reach, despite many actions and plays that had caused no end to the suffering they'd endured. Actions of which that I truly have been responsible for in some way. I can only brush my long red, bleached strawberry blonde hair out of my red eyes covered in blue contact lenses back behind my ears, as a single question that I have asked several times since my arrival came to my mind.

'Of all of the people who I could have replaced,' I thought with a fake twisted grin thrown onto my face to keep up appearances. 'Of all the people in this room that should have died.' a demented laugh that I had been practicing for days in preparation for this, burst forth from my glossy lips. 'Of all of the crazy things that could have happened to get me into this place,' the slender hand of my near hour glass body, covered in the sleeves of a black cardigan over a white dress shirt, hovered menacingly over a red button that would end this farce of a trial and allow for the freedom of these individuals. 'Why?'

"And now," I muttered in a crazed tone just loud enough to be heard by the others, "it's the moment we've all been waiting so long for." My voice raising ever so slightly with each word, my hand rising in unity. Finally, ignoring their expressions changing to that of ether shock, horror, or otherwise, my hand slammed down on the large red button despite a cry of "No! Wait!" from both the boy across from me and the soldier who had help them reach this point, and I near shouted out what would likely be my final words.

"IT'S PUNISHMENT TIME!"

'Why did it have to be through Junko Enoshima?'

Hello people of the internet. How are you doing? Welcome to my first bit of fanfiction on this sight.

Now, let us get in to the reasoning behind this fic's conception. See, in my time looking and reading fanfiction here on this sight, I have seen all kinds of stories. Crossovers, self inserts, revamps of old stories with elements either from later in the series or even ones like this where a character over takes an already established character in an attempt to save the world as they know it. Yet, in all my time, I have never truly encountered one that brings up this question.

What would happen if the good guy possessed the antagonist and had to do the wrong things to protect the main character.

I've seen it so rarely done. And never for something like this franchise. How would you react to being the bad guy and having all of their power, but being forced to use it for the sake of evil to protect the hero? Would you be able to manipulate things to your advantage to save things and people that you knew would parish otherwise, and how would you do it? How much would you risk; your morals, your beliefs, your very life?

That is my goal here, to see how much I can push myself by being the Mastermind, and figuring out just how far I will go to save everyone I can in this hopeless situation. It's a challenge I'm willing to try at the very least. Let us all join in and try to see just how far down the rabbit hole we go with this.

Oh, and one thing. If you feel up to it, try this out for yourself. Pick a series that you love, and put yourself in their main antagonist's shoes. See how long you can still be the villain while assisting the hero from the enemy's side as their leader. But all without exposing your position as the inside man. See how far you can push yourself.