Chapter 8: Chapter 3 - Become Despair
My skinny hand meets my face with a slap as I tried to wake myself from the nightmare that I had found myself in. Of course, it couldn't be that easy, and now I had a red hand shaped mark on my pale face. Judging by the stinging sensation now on my cheek and the fact that the girl in my mirror had not in fact disappeared, I think it was safe to say that this was me now. I was officially the worst woman in the world to be. No matter how much I wanted it to be that I was just unconscious and having a bad dream brought on from eating something I shouldn't have before bed, I couldn't.
"I'm Junko now." I said, cringing at the implications of the statement and at the strangely pleasant sounding voice I now possessed. I had become one of the most insane, demented, and twisted of individuals that had ever walked the earth. The "Ultimate Despair", a person so sick in the head that she could spread her sickness to countless others in less than a year and, drove the world into a state of suffering that was slowly killing itself through ignorance; like trying to remove the poisoned barbs implanted it its skin without thinking of removing the poison itself.
My hands came back to my face, palming my cheeks as I glared at my reflection.
"Out of all the people I could have chosen," I growled at the person in the glass, wanting nothing more than to strangle this person. No. This monster in human skin. "I just HAD to pick you. Didn't I? I couldn't have picked the solider, the luckster, or heck, anyone else. No, I had to pick you."
Sighing in resigned disgust, I grabbed a brush from the stand in front of me, and began the work on the tangled mess that was my hair. As much as I hated the situation I'd found myself in, I knew panicking wouldn't help me, so I would have to accept it. At least, for now.
As I pulled on a particularly stubborn knot of hair, I continued to let my mind wonder. If I was now Junko, then did that mean that this was before, or after the Tragedy happened? If it was before, did this mean that I could prevent it from happening? And if it was after the fact, could I prevent the mutual life of killing that happens later? Could I…
My thoughts were interrupted by the sudden revival of the irritant that was the alarm going off again, reminding me that I had not turned the demon clock off from the first time and let it go to sleep; and it was rising again to torment me with its existence. My unyielding rage reignited, I quickly found the source of my rekindled fury at the top of the headboard of the bed I had been sleeping in not too long ago. Fire in my eyes, I threw myself across the room at the infernal device, grabbing it in my elegant hands with a furious crushing grip.
Then I proceeded to calmly flick the switch on the top to off.
What? You thought I was going to smash it? Please, as infuriating as it is to have, the clock has a purpose after all. To destroy it for doing its job would be a terrible waste. That didn't stop me from tossing the blasted thing onto the bed roughly with a sense of sick satisfaction. Glancing at the time on it did raise an eyebrow though.
"What kind of sadist sets an alarm for six in the morning?" I asked, my brow twitching. Shaking it off as a quirk of Junko's…myself. Whatever. I decided that I wouldn't be getting answers in my underwear, and made for the wardrobe and pulled open the doors.
I'll admit, considering the fact, that Junko was originally known as the Ultimate Fashionista, I was curious as to what kind of wardrobe she would have kept after leaving the world of glamour and fashion for a life in high school. What kind of fabulous designs would she have found worthy enough to bring along as a keepsake to remember the good times.
So, you can imagine my disappointment when all I found were four different outfits in there.
There was her usual outfit of a black cardigan with a red bow pinned to where a person's heart would be, hung with a white dress shirt, a red miniskirt, and a long tie that was both equal parts black and white, with a red "X" in a circle at the point where the colors met. The other hanger had a uniform consisting of an unbuttoned dark grey cardigan on top of a white blouse with a red ribbon. This cardigan, however, also had the logo of Hope's Peak Academy emblazoned on it, so I assumed it was her school uniform. The next was a white coat with a matching tie and ear muffs with a long pink scarf hanging on the shoulder.
There were also a pair of black knee-high boots with red laces crisscrossing up the front, a simple pair of brown slip-on shoes, and some white boots with a fuzzy trim under each respective outfit.
The final outfit was the most surprising though, as it was a light blue hoodie and track pants with a white stripe down the side of each leg and sleeve. It was surprising since the other outfits, while somewhat simple, all looked rather expensive by comparison. This wasn't something you would think of being in here with a person holding the title of "Ultimate Fashionista".
Confused, but ultimately unconcerned I went to grab the first outfit, when something stopped me. Did I really want to be seen wearing this if I was in fact the bringer of despair that caused untold pain and suffering? If someone recognized me in it, would I be attacked or revered? Could I take that risk?
Shaking my head briefly as I momentarily wondered what that line of questions came from, I decided to take the hoodie and pants. I wasn't overly concerned with whether someone would recognize me, more so I just didn't want to wear them. That was it.
Anyway, slipping the afore mentioned clothes on and grabbing the shoes on a whim, I closed the doors of the wardrobe and moved to the dresser again to begin the task of finding a fresh pair of socks.
"Gah! The hell!" I shouted upon seeing the contents of said dresser. Of course, when the first drawer has a creepy mask in it you'd scream too. Upset, I picked it up to get a good look at it.
It was quite like a luchador's mask in that it covered the head completely and tied in the back. The eyes were massive and covered by a very thin cloth that allowed the wearer to see out, but prevented others from seeing them unless face to face. There was also an absurdly large grin on it that literally stretched from ear to ear, and was far too shark-like for my liking. Both of those eyes were lined with yellow flame design, and in the center of the forehead was a jagged red eye.
I recognized this mask; and, why wouldn't I? It was an important part of chapter five in the first game and it was the same mask that Junko used when she made an attempt on the protagonist, Mokoto Naegi's life when he was sick in bed. The white trench coat that went with it had also been neatly folded up just underneath it.
Placing it back with just a bit more force than absolutely necessary, I was about to slam the drawer shut when I noticed something. Hidden just under the coat was something I really didn't want to see. A long knife, one built with combat in mind. It was about a foot long and curved to a point, and while the other half was mostly smooth, there were a series of sharpened edged notches near the base. It was almost like a duel edge in a way and guaranteed that if you survived the initial stab, the removal would be far from clean.
Shivering from that dark thought, I quickly replaced the items back in the drawer before moving to the second one. Thankfully, this one carried several neatly arranged pairs of socks and undergarments, both top and bottom. As I grabbed a fresh pair of white socks from the pile, I also noticed that a few of them had a small white or black cartoon bear's head stitched in the seam.
"I'd say, 'that's kind of cute'," I commented in a monotone voice, "but I know that bear, and that just makes it creepy." Wisely deciding to move on and forget I had ever seen that, I quickly swapped out my socks, slipped on the brown shoes, and proceeded to the ladder.
Climbing up and pushing open the hatch, I wasn't that surprised that I had entered another room, but I was shocked at which room, in particular, I was in. On one side of the room was a control console with several monitors and controls all over. The most important part was the massive keyboard that held dozens of keys and buttons and it was so large that they had to split it into three sections and run it in a quarter-circle around the large rotating chair mounted to the ground. This was the control room for a certain animatronic black and white bear that had plagued Hope's Peak during the events of the first game.
"Least I know I'm in the school now." I muttered as I finished climbing up the ladder, before closing the hatch behind me.
Not feeling especially up to messing with such an elaborate set up, I was about to walk out of the door when I noticed something out of place. Sitting on the table was what appeared to be a leather-back note book filed with several sticky notes and a red ribbon poking out as a bookmark. Normally, I might have ignored the thing as unimportant, but there was what appeared to be a name written on the front that immediately raised an alarm in my head.
Yasuke Matsuda. Now, I hadn't been able to read the novel "Dangan Ronpa/Zero" myself, so there might have been some things I'm missing out on, but what I did know about him was interesting to say the least. His mother had had some unspecified disease that caused her to forget people every few minutes till it eventually killed her and he had been the childhood friend and eventual love interest of Junko. He was given the title "Ultimate Neurologist" and apparently was a master at the field of neurology. He was also supposedly responsible for the creation of the device that erased the memories of the class number 78, including at one point, Junko herself.
"If anyone can explain what's happening," I muttered to myself with growing realization. "It's him…hopefully."
Despite the strange feeling of disgust momentarily showing up at the last word for some reason, I refused to question it as I sat down in the chair and began flipping through the pages.
In another part of the school, another person began to stir.
Washed-out Hazel eyes fluttered open as the boy they belonged to, raised his head off of the desk he'd been sleeping on, wondering out loud where he was and how did he get there. His body felt heavy and his neck was stiff from the awkward sleeping position. Brushing his spiky, desaturated brown hair out of his line of sight, he glanced around at the room he'd found himself in.
At first glance it would appear to be a simple classroom considering the lines of school desks facing a table and a chalkboard. Nothing truly amazing even with the chalk pictures and a big "WELCOME" on the board, but then he noticed several things that were... Off. For starters, there was a rather advanced looking surveillance camera and mic-piece mounted on the ceiling in the corner of the room, and if he had to guess from the rotating arm mount it could move and rotate at least a bit to view most every part of the room. There was also a monitor over a bulletin board on the other side of the room next to the door.
The thing that was truly bazaar to him, however, was where the windows were supposed be for the students to get some natural light and vitamin C. Instead, massive metal plates were held into the walls with a variety of different sized nuts and bolts and covered these portals to the outside world, leaving the fluorescent bulbs as the only source of lighting available.
"What the heck is going on?" he asked the open air, mildly hoping someone would answer him, but to no avail. He was alone in this strange room, and wouldn't receive an answer sitting on his black jeans covered butt.
Standing up and straightening out his dull green hoodie that had a red stripe running down the zipper and his open black jacket with a pin shaped like a four-pointed star overlaying a crescent moon on the left lapel, he noticed a paper pamphlet laying on the ground next to his red sneakers.
'I must have knocked it off the desk in my sleep.' He thought, picking up the paper he was rather confused to find that the contents of the sheet were a poorly hand written thing welcoming him to the new semester.
"Is this supposed to be a joke?" he wondered, growing more confused by the minute. Glancing up at the clock he noticed hanging over the chalkboard, he realized that it was almost eight o' clock, the time for the school orientation. If this classroom did in fact belong to Hope's Peak Academy, then he needed to go before he was too late and missed his first day.
Deciding not to waste any more time then he already had, Makoto Naegi put the pamphlet on the desk and proceeded for the door, hoping to get some answers soon.
I won't lie and say I understood most of what he wrote down in a majority of the book. I say this because the man apparently suffered from both horrible penmanship, and occasional spelling errors. Surprising, considering the fact, that he had convinced an amnesiac Junko with a notebook that she was someone else, but thankfully there were a few pages that were a bit neater near the middle, and they were fortunately even about somethings involving Junko.
The page I was most concerned with read as such.
"That blasted girl has really got to pay more attention. This morning I was walking to the school, just minding my business when I heard someone shouting about 'someone stupid getting in the way' or something like that and then some girl's shout. I really just wanted to just ignore it, but of course my damn sense of honor or something kicked in and I went to check it out.
Surprise, surprise, it turned out to be another mess involving Junko. Of course, this time it seemed that some idiot fell off the school or something and crashed into her. Obviously, I called for help and dragged them both to the nurse's office.
'Bout an hour later I got a report from that ugly nurse Junko's been hanging out with lately, and things were pretty bad. The boy wasn't going to last, even with her help. Several lacerations, multiple signs of broken vertebrae, five cracked ribs, one of which had punctured a lung, dislocated shoulder, and bruising or bursting of several vital organs. Yeah, the kid was good as dead.
At first it seemed Junko got off easy by comparison. Only thing she could find wrong with her was a bit of bruising on her back and ribs, some dislocation of her right hip, and some fractures on her skull. Of course, then I got to her and noticed something that idiot missed.
Apparently, some bits of her skull had come loose and gave her some nasty hemorrhage in her brain which was slowly killing her. The moron hadn't even considered it. I wanted nothing more than to hit her, and I was very close to doing it. But I needed her help if I was going to save my friend.
With a bit of persuading, I was able to convince the headmaster to let us use the operating room. The same one that I had used to help make that monster that they wanted my assistance with before. Getting to her brain wasn't much of a problem, though I know she'll be mad at me for shaving her head for this. Unfortunately, looking at the darn thing made me want to pull my hair out.
A good chunk of it had been practically mulched from the impact and bone shards, and while nothing vital was damaged, thank god, I'd never be able to fix what was left without risks I don't want to think about.
At least, I couldn't with what was there alone.
I'll admit, what I did was a bit of a gambit on my part. There were numerous risks and factors that I was unable to consider in the heat of the moment, such as conflicting blood types, hormonal imbalances caused from placing parts of his brain in hers, and the like. But the guy was responsible for this, and I felt that he should help pay her back in some way. 'Sides, he was good as dead anyway. It's only fair.
It took several hours and there were a lot of close calls, but I took out his brain, and carefully replaced the parts of hers with the bits I needed of his. Now all that's left is to see if she'll wake up okay."
I'll admit, I wasn't expecting that. I had figured that whoever I had fallen on, Junko it would seem, would be hurt, but not in that way. But there were a few things that I was noticeably concerned about over that.
On one hand, I was technically supposed to be dead. I mean, yeah, I was alive and was Junko now, but I had been dead for at least one or two years. This was judging by the fact that he had mentioned shaving her head to perform surgery, yet I had an overabundance of hair and had no sight of a scar anywhere from such an endeavor. What was worst though was that, they didn't even try to save me. Like my existence meant nothing in the grand scheme of things.
Existential crises aside, on the other hand I was Junko in what I can only assume was the beginning of the first game. That meant that, I had control over the situation of the class of 78 and their "life of mutual killing". Heck, I could stop the game and the "mutual killing" part from even happening right here, right now.
I addition, as the "Ultimate Despair" I had supposedly had dozens to hundreds of people at my beck and call should I tell them whatever I wanted was in the name of bringing others despair. Most if not all of them would bent themselves over backwards or even end their own lives, just to keep me entertained. The thought was incredibly chilling yet, empowering.
But I was curious. If I died then, why was I in control now and not when she had recovered? Why did I take so long to come into being, and where did she go? Was this permanent, or did I have to worry about her influence popping up to give me static in the future?
I had more questions than answers and the only hope I had to answer them was in a poorly held together book made by a neurologist that, in a sense, killed me. Quaint.
Flipping through the pages and reading though the ones I could, I couldn't help but notice the ribbon that was used as in impromptu bookmark. It seemed so out of place compared to how he wrote and acted, it couldn't help but call to my attention. Deciding I could find out more later, I turned to the page it indicated and proceeded to read.
But, with every word I absorbed I could only feel rage grow and grow, and a single line rose to describe the pure hate this page made me feel. The sheer savage disgust at what it told me, and with the anger quickly bubbling to the surface, I couldn't stop it if I tried.
"Why that no good little BITC-"
"Attention. Attention. Is this thing on? Mic check. Mic check." A high-pitched voice echoed through the halls of the school, grabbing the attention of the group of fifteen students who had just finished introducing themselves to each other. "This is a test of the school broadcast system. Eh, to all incoming students, if you can hear this please report to the gymnasium post haste for your entrance orientation."
The students glanced at each other with a bit of confusion on their faces. The voice had been so cheerful and unconcerned that it felt completely out of place with the current situation. For some reason, that only seemed to add to a strange feeling of unnerving dread that had settled in more than a few stomachs.
"…That's all." The voice continued, almost sounding tired. "I'll be waiting for you all there." And with that the mic kicked off and the students were left to their own devices once more. For a moment, all was quiet. None of the students moved save for their breathing. Till eventually, one student decided to break this still with a fairly accurate vocalization to the thoughts of her fellows.
"What. The. Hell, was that just now?" Said the strawberry blond teen with blue eyes whose hair was held up into twin ponytails with a red and white bow in her left and a happy bunny head in her right. She wore a black cardigan that was parted just enough to show her black bra, a red miniskirt, had a white tie with red polka-dots all over it, and black shin high boots with red laces.
Her question went unanswered, however, as a tall slim dirty-blond with short hair who wore a pair of white framed glasses over his blue eyes, and had a classic black suit over a white dress shirt and green tie, excused himself from the group and left the others behind.
"H-hey!" the girl called after him, a bit miffed at being ignored. "What, you're gonna take off just like that!?" Unfortunately for her and her rising indignation, her question went ignored. Soon, the others began to leave as well with words of parting, and eventually there were only a few remaining. Eventually, curiosity as well as not wanting to be late and possibly receive word of trouble for being tarty, the remaining few shook off the feeling of trepidation holding them back as best they could and followed the others.
Despite this, the strange feeling of dread refused to leave the hearts of the students, even though most were better at hiding it. However, no matter what method they were trying, lies to themselves or to others, brave fronts of indifference, anger, or otherwise; they couldn't deny the truth. Something was incredibly wrong.
And they were going to be becoming a part of it.
Weekly Power Status
-- Power
Ranking 
-- Power
stone