[ WE'VE GOT A BIG MESS ON OUR HANDS ] CLOSED; AU NAEGI
Luck. It really was a worthless talent, wasn't it?
Honestly he hadn't paid much attention to his upperclassman that shared his title (the only shared talents in the school), though he knew the name Naegi Makoto well enough. A worthless talent, not really talented at all, but somehow... Somehow he was the last one standing. Small, talentless Naegi Makoto, up against all those impressive people filled with hope to their very core, even if they turned to despair they still were hope, but this person, this talentless creature with only luck to guide him...
Maybe they were alike in that regard. Komaeda too only had luck to keep him alive (longer than he'd been meant to live, which diagnosis was wrong, or was he a ticking time bomb?), luck and, a million times more important, a hope that he nurtured every day. With greater despair comes greater hope, and this world around him had fallen so far, so, so far into despair, only the brightest of hopes would make a difference now.
It was a truly beautiful situation.
But his hope alone would never be enough, he knew that much, and the best chance he had with his own year's students was the abomination Kamukura Izuru. And 'best' was being extremely optimistic, not to mention just the thought of the "Super High-School Level Hope" made him a bit sick. Manufactured talents were worse than no talents at all.
But even though the other members of SHSL Despair really were full of despair, lost causes who wouldn't listen to Komaeda even if they had anything left in them, it seemed there was still a little hope. Junko's latest recruit, SHSL Good Luck, a traitor who allowed despair to take all his friends. In the end, he still had hope, didn't he? Hope for survival, hope for Junko not double-crossing him, he must have had so much hope.
And where there was hope, it could be nurtured. It could be grown. Faced with the ultimate despair before them, Naegi could either crumble, or have a hope that shined brighter than any of them could imagine!! Even Junko.
When Naegi was introduced to the full breadth of SHSL Despair, Komaeda held back. He let the others do as they would, and no one noticed, of course, he was just Good Luck, he was no Princess or Gymnast or Mechanic. He didn't matter. So he waited, and when Naegi was alone, he finally approached.
"Naegi, right? I'm Komaeda Nagito, it's a pleasure to meet you! It's amazing, I never would have thought someone with such a worthless talent as Luck would have survived so long, but here we are! Ah, I mean-- I was the Super High-School Level Good Luck of my year." He was even smaller in person. Did that help his survival somehow? He certainly looked harmless, a feat Komaeda himself had never managed to pull off, no matter how pure his intentions. "To find yourself in this situation... What do you think of your luck?"