What is an Ultimate?
It is a specific title bestowed upon someone considered the absolute best in a specific field, talent, or profession.
And I… am considered an Ultimate even among the other Ultimates.
Why?
Because I possess every Ultimate talent possible at Hope's Peak Academy.
They gave me the same name as the founder of that academy... Izuru Kamukura.
They worshipped me like a god.
They gave me the title...
Ultimate Hope.
Tell me...
What is Hope?
...
..
.
That was how it was supposed to go. I was supposed to be liberated from my confinement by Enoshima Junko to encounter something unknown and interesting.
So... then, how am I here?
I wondered, my blank crimson eyes scanning my surroundings. I was in a typical Japanese classroom.
At the neighboring seat, a boy was reclining on his chair at an exact angle of 122 degrees. His left eye was micro-twitching, darting repeatedly toward the girl sitting adjacent to him.
I didn't even need my talents to deduce that every word the teacher spoke was going completely over his head.
Boring.
The conclusion hadn't even fully solidified before my mind fractured into countless streams of thought, my crimson eyes observing the room with a long-held apathy.
[Ultimate Analyst] talent scanned every inch of three-dimensional space around me in widening sweeps. One meter. Five. Ten.
... No spatial irregularity.
Nor any spatial anomalies, gravitational fluctuations, or thermal displacements.
"..."
A genuinely interested glow began to radiate from my eyes.
Someone had displaced me from my confinement zone to this location before I could react, leaving behind not a single visible trace.
This occurrence was new for me, outside of my usual predictive model. I possessed the [Ultimate Soldier] talent, along with the [Ultimate Martial Artist] talent.
Which meant in a physical confrontation with another being, my probability of victory was a fixed 99.78%, with the remaining 0.22% reserved only for those I found too boring to even fight.
More importantly, in terms of reactions, my neurons fired well above humanity's recorded peak. Someone out reflexing me was a logical impossibility.
Yet I was here.
Sedation or drugs were ineffective too.
Manipulation on a cognitive level was one branch, but [Ultimate Cognition] made me highly immune to hypnosis, brainwashing, and mind control.
So then... how?
An inbuilt kill switch installed during the surgery by Hope's Peak scientists? Illogical.
Another being with similar physiology to mine, having undergone the same procedure? Very low probability.
Or... Something completely beyond my current well of information?
Something... Unknown.
Deducing theories and hypotheses right now was useless; I needed more information to trace an outline of the how and why.
Even though my thought chain was long by normal human standards, only a few seconds had passed since I snapped to awareness.
Letting my eyes wander as I rose from my chair, every eye in the classroom shifted onto me.
But my steps were already moving towards the classroom exit.
Two seconds before the teacher at the lectern could open his mouth, I flashed a hand gesture that indicated needing a restroom.
Some things might have gotten interesting, but others still remained predictable.
The teacher's reaction was plainly textbook, a slight tightening of his jaw, eyebrows furrowing, grip over his duster increasing by fractions. Telltale signs of irritation.
Before I strode out, my gaze flicked toward an open notebook on a desk close by.
Date: 15th January 2004.
2004? Not 2010? It should be 2010 from what I was taught, unless I was being lied to, which was highly improbable, because lying to me was futile.
So, then... Is it temporal displacement? A parallel timeline? Or am I existing at two different points in time?
I didn't know concretely, and that mystery made my heart beat faster than it had since... ever.
For now, the first order of business was to locate a computer lab and search for Hope's Peak Academy.
The academy that created me, and confined me.
I stopped beside a female classmate scrolling through her phone inside the hallway, my long and unruly hair ruffling against my back, still somehow silky, like it always was.
A voice emerged from me, monotonous and stale even to my own ears.
"Classmate... Do you know the way to the computer lab?"
A question this direct should've prompted a clipped answer, alongside maybe a gesture. But I already knew her reaction, and a sigh nearly slipped out from my lips.
The girl opposite me was frozen, hand rigid on her phone and whatever she was scrolling through forgotten. Her eyes were locked on my face, cheeks flushed, heart rate climbing upward, and I heard it loud and clear, like the beeping of a thermometer.
A face enhanced to the pinnacle of male beauty, body made to be the very epitome of prime genetics through scientists who wanted to create a blemishless being.
Her reactions were justified, if entirely logical. Logical meant predictable, and predictable was at the end of the day, boring.
I brought two fingers up right before her face and flicked them together with only enough force to wake her from the fantasies plainly projected on her face.
Snap.
She jolted, jerking back unconsciously. Then caught herself and shook her head.
"T-There..." Pointing a single finger further down the hallway, she rushed away, hands rising up to grab her cheeks, her phone's glass cool against flushed skin.
I put that interaction in a corner of my mind tagged as junk and walked in the direction she had indicated.
An overlapping sound spread from my every step, footfalls synchronizing with heart rate, a constant 45 bpm, maintaining optimal body temperature and blood flow for instantaneous muscle acceleration from zero to one hundred.
I reached the computer lab a moment later. It was just a room with two parallel rows of computer terminals, every seat empty. Empty was good; it meant no disturbances. Stepping inside and reaching a seat, I sat down at an already open terminal.
Making these ancient computers work was a genuine headache for a normal person.
I didn't know what normal felt like.
[Ultimate Hacker] talent. Two clicks, some shortcut keys, one life-hack that only professional hackers know, and this terminal was up to speed, running faster than it had any right to.
Thirty-six seconds. That was all the time it took me to bypass every government firewall worldwide. Lines of code cascaded down the monitor's screen, breaking apart in real time like ropes tearing. Even in 2010, a security system would need to be fifty years ahead of its time to make me actually try.
The results were here.
No mention of Hope's Peak Academy in any database. Where it existed in 2010, that place was currently occupied by an amusement park chain, and it was quite famous too.
I blinked once. From the place where the greatest talents of humanity gathered to an amusement park?
Silence fell for a long while.
The clicks of my cursor broke it. And even after triple-checking just to be sure, it still remained an amusement park.
This world really did not possess any academy resembling Hope's Peak.
"Haah..." With a sigh, I slid the cursor downward, and checked the current location, essentially my second reason for coming here.
Click. Click.
Hmm... Fuyuki City?
I knew for certain that my old world didn't have a place by this name, even if the year was currently 2004. [Ultimate Cartographer] never lied after all.
A location that should be there gone. A new location that shouldn't be there materialized. It seemed like updating my knowledge on this world just became more necessary than before.
Shutting the old computer down after deleting my digital trail, I rose from the seat.
Deleting the trail was a basic procedure for every half-competent hacker. Though I had read about some professionals who didn't bother and got caught later through their digital snooping.
That was a piece of basic knowledge taught by scientists at Hope's Peak, and instead of giving it deeper thought, my legs were already moving, out of the lab.
Someone or something had sent me here...
And their purpose was a mystery.
Since I had been sent to this Homurahara Academy, it was self-evident that "they" wanted me to do something specific... which was once again likely connected to this academy.
The next goal on agenda would be to scout the entire academy first. I needed to gather more information to deduce my true situation.
My mind was already tracking the dust I'd kicked up, calculating where each particle would still be drifting, minutes after I was gone, stride leading away, and into a corridor alongside other moving students.
I needed to get my footing as fast as possible.
Whatever had sent me here, it wouldn't be without a reason, and where there was a reason, conflict was inevitable.
Only one question remained unanswered.
Perhaps I'll find it here.
Hope.
...
..
.
[Ultimate Analyst]: Junko Enoshima's Talent. Izuru is able to read and analyze anything virtually instantaneously, being able to determine the personality, abilities, thoughts, and history of his foes with a mere glance. As such, he is able to predict virtually anything that comes his way unless it is completely outside of logic and possibility that Izuru has witnessed.
[Ultimate Detective]: Kyoko Kirigiri's Talent. Izuru is an extremely skilled detective and should be able to solve mysteries with little to no clues, bordering on the level of precognition and future sight if he ever got serious.
[Ultimate Soldier]: Mukuro Ikusaba's Talent. Izuru possesses every skill related to combat and has mastered them to the point of gaining inhuman levels of strength, speed, and endurance. Allowing him to wade through gunfire without taking a scratch and disarm a group of armed soldiers with ease.
[Ultimate Martial Artist]: Sakura Ogami's Talent. Izuru is a master of every martial art known to man, being able to flawlessly utilize any number of martial arts at once to create a mixed martial arts style that went undefeated for over 400 victories and even overwhelmed Mukuro Ikusaba's talent as the Ultimate Soldier in Danganronpa IF.
***
[300 Power Stones = 1 Bonus Chapter]
[5 chapters ahead on P@tr3on = [email protected]/Not_Aaryan]