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aparticularbandit · 1 month

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Oh No, It's Again

Summary: Makoto wakes while everyone slumbers and makes his way to an unlocked kitchen and sees her standing there, bag of Cheetos in one hand and a pair of chopsticks in the other, munching them a little too loudly, and when she holds the bag out to him, he doesn’t take it.

If I kill you, will that stop everything?

She grins. Won’t know if you won’t try, will you, lucky boy?

Inspired by this post, but absolutely nothing like it.

Mostly.

Rating: M for graphic depictions of violence and general Danganronpa reasons.

AO3

The first time Makoto falls down the garbage chute, still locked to a desk that, along with him, was meant to be crushed by a compactor, he reminisces about when he first came to Hope’s Peak Academy.

Then he hits the floor head first and has just enough time to hear the cracking of his skull, the sharp shattering of his spine, before everything goes black.

The second time Makoto falls down the garbage chute, still locked to what is probably that exact same desk, he has a sharp sense of déjà vu. He muses on this for a few seconds, brow furrowing, until he lands, again head first, his neck snapping at a sharp angle.

This time, though, his eyes are open, and he sees everything, but not enough.

Makoto doesn’t eat a lot of food, but he finds himself throwing a lot away.

A lot of trash. A lot of excess.

He feels bad about it, at first, because it’s just such a waste of food, and there are starving people all over the world, and it doesn’t really matter that they for some reason have unlimited food in Hope’s Peak (maybe, if they weren’t in the middle of a Killing Game – and what sort of person refers to this as a game? – it would be great to bring everyone here. Unlimited food! No one would need to starve! But first they need to get out of this alive)—

It’s not like he knows why he’s doing this.

Just something…something in him tells him that there needs to be more trash.

More trash.

Like it’s some sort of life-or-death matter.

It takes at least another seventy-eight respawns before Makoto survives in the garbage chute.

(Then she temples her fingers together and leans forward with an intrigued grin on her face. Finally, something interesting.)

The first time Junko faces the trash compactor, she glances up, waiting to see if Alter Ego will appear to save her the same way it saved Makoto.

Sayaka Maizono hesitates before attacking Leon.

He catches her in the attempt, and he attacks back.

She dies in the bathroom of the boy she’d meant to frame, blood-tipped finger trying hopelessly to write her murderer’s name on the wall beside her, everything going black before she can finish.

The second time, Junko doesn’t even glance up. She knows how this story ends.

She also knows how to get out.

Ultimate Analyst, baby!

Sayaka Maizono hesitates before attacking Leon, and when he attacks her, she has a strong, strong sense of déjà vu.

Unfortunately, she is not the only one.

Leon cuts her fingers off while she’s still alive, but he’s an idiot and tries to throw them in the incinerator, too. A few of them make it in, sure, and there’s such a stench that everyone complains as soon as they wake up. The problem is that not all of them make it in.

Makoto might be a lot of things – he might even be a murderer! – but no one believes that he would chop Sayaka’s fingers off.

Or try to burn them.

Chihiro doesn’t ask Mondo for help; he asks Taka.

Mondo, desperate to keep his secret exactly as it is, strangles Byakuya for being a prick.

(She laughs a bit at that. She’s been waiting on someone to shut him up.)

Unfortunately, without Byakuya to mess with the scene, Mondo’s caught easily.

Kyoko, impressive as always, matches Mondo’s fingerprints to the bruises on Byakuya’s neck.

Before they get to the trial, Jack snaps. Mondo isn’t killed with the same care and consideration that her other victims were given. In fact, the only reason they even know that the bloody mess is Mondo is because he’s the only one missing.

(It’s the most gruesome murder she’s seen, and she’s seen a lot of murders.)

Jack cackles as she’s led to her death.

Except that she sneezes, and Toko doesn’t know why she’s being flayed alive with her own scissors. She doesn’t know why, but she understands, and the despair on her face when she finds out that Byakuya, too, is gone—

(Oh, if only it could be like this every time. But, then, she’s seen this now. It won’t be as good next time.)

Sayaka Maizono doesn’t hesitate, but she hasn’t thought through the follow-up.

Everything else proceeds as normal, other than killing her at the Class Trial instead of Leon.

She dances herself to death with red hot iron shoes, her screams tuned into music.

(She’d been proud of herself for that one and glad to find an opportunity to finally use it!)

Makoto doesn’t get enough trash in the garbage this time, too distraught over Sayaka actually killing someone, and breaks his neck. This time, some of his brains splatter out!

(This would be a lot cooler if she hadn’t seen that thirty respawns ago.)

Sayaka Maizono succeeds.

Everyone votes for Makoto as the murderer.

She didn’t realize her success would mean everyone else dies.

Rather than graduating at the top of her class like a good girl does, she jumps down the garbage chute.

Now, Makoto definitely has not had enough time to fill the garbage with enough trash to soften that blow, but Sayaka doesn’t land on her head. She breaks both of her legs and starves to death after eating what garbage can be found.

The next time, Sayaka realizes enough to throw herself in the incinerator instead of down the garbage chute.

It’s immensely painful, but it doesn’t last nearly as long.

(She snacks on Cheetos after the Trial, licks the orange dust from her fingertips with a sigh, and resets the chess pieces.)

Makoto, tired of falling down the garbage chute, doesn’t sacrifice himself for Kyoko.

Of course, he can’t remember falling down the garbage chute, but something in the back of his head says, Hey, don’t help Kyoko. You’re going to die if you do, and she’s not worth saving, and for once in his life, he listens.

Kyoko dies, and the only thing they hear before everything goes black is, “Boring,” in the voice of someone who should have been dead weeks ago.

Alter Ego steps in to save Kyoko, but Makoto doesn’t have the skeleton key, and she dies of starvation in the garbage, like Sayaka did, only without her legs broken. Sometimes she yells through the hatch, sometimes she makes it all the way up the ladder and bangs on it, but Hiro’s still alive and he calls it a ghost in the system.

It doesn’t matter, they still don’t have the key, and it’s not like they can convince anyone else to jump down to save her.

(She leaves it running just long enough to hear Kyoko’s wheezing gasp and then restarts the Game. It makes her stomach churn. Almost as much as seeing the image of her own skeletal frame mimicked in Kyoko’s body.

There’s nothing fun about seeing someone you love starve to death.)

Sayaka succeeds.

Sayaka succeeds, and she doesn’t try to kill herself because even though she didn’t know her actions would cause everyone else to die, she did, somehow, and so she’s prepared for what it means to graduate, what it means to win, what it means to get out alive.

Sayaka looks up at the Mastermind with eyes wide with recognition and hears, “Can’t end the show on one episode! Sorry, babe.”

(She’s cruel when she says that Sayaka’s band members are all dead. Her despair is warm as a beating heart.)

Makoto doesn’t switch rooms with Sayaka, and when Leon goes to meet with her, they have a nice conversation about music, and nobody dies.

Makoto doesn’t switch rooms with Sayaka, but Hina still hides herself with Sakura, and instead of waking up one day to Leon or Sayaka’s murdered body, they wake up another day later to Hina having disappeared and the school smelling of burnt flesh.

The thing is, they all know what happened to Hina, but none of them actually discover her body, so there’s no announcement.

It feels a bit like this isn’t the right ending.

(This time, she gives Sakura explicit murder instructions. No throwing bodies in the incinerator. You have to die this time, Sakura.

Sakura tries to strangle her instead, which is a fun thought, except that she grins and grins and grins.)

(This time, she tells Sayaka that her band members are all alive. Safe and sound.)

Makoto doesn’t switch rooms with Sayaka, and Makoto convinces Hina to sleep somewhere else, and Sakura rips off Celeste’s fake hair, and Mukuro looks up at the cameras with eyes that clearly ask, Is this what you wanted, sis?

The next time, Mukuro hesitates before the Spears of Gungnir hit her. She looks up at the cameras and blinks twice. Her head tilts ever so gently to one side. Then her gaze flicks to the spears. Her mouth makes a small, Oh.

(She hits the respawn button so hard that it nearly breaks.)

(It doesn’t matter.)

Mukuro hesitates before stepping on Monokuma and decides against it. She doesn’t know why. She trusts her sister, obviously, but something says not to provoke her right now.

Even if it is scripted.

When Chihiro doesn’t die, Alter Ego is a lot more aggressive.

(Unfortunately for them, she has her own Alter Ego by this point, working in the shadows, stopping them at every turn.)

Unfortunately for Mukuro, when she doesn’t get killed by the Spears of Gungnir, Sakura kills her instead. Grabs her head between both hands and presses together until—

Well.

Mukuro tries to stop her. Claws shreds in Sakura’s legs with the razor sharp bear claws she’s been given in the place of fingernails.

Her head explodes, eventually. Blood and brain mixed together all over the walls. Not as cool as when Jack killed Mondo, of course, but still pleasantly appealing. It’s hard to even tell the difference between the pink of her blood and the pink of her brains.

Kyoko finds the small bits of flesh under Mukuro’s fake fingernails, notes the gauze wrapped around Sakura’s legs, and puts two and two together.

(Maybe next time Sakura should kill Kyoko.)

Mukuro turns before Sakura can grab her head between her hands, but it doesn’t do any good.

Sakura grabs her head between her thighs and smashes it faster.

(She’s not gonna lie – that was impressive. She should save a video of that just for her own personal use.)

Sakura tries to strangle the Mastermind, and a still living Mukuro slits her throat before any harm can come to her.

Unfortunately, this is still considered a murder.

The Spears of Gungnir make a return! It’s not as fun this time.

(This time, she tells Sayaka the truth: There is no escape.)

Sakura strangles Kyoko, and none of them are smart enough to figure out that she did it.

Sakura confesses at the end because, unlike Sayaka, she will never find it acceptable to sacrifice the rest of her classmates just to find out the truth.

Hina drowns in the swimming pool.

Chihiro is impaled with spears that, really, no one else should have access to.

Makoto thinks he’s seen all of this before, his stomach cramping with nothing but déjà vu.

(The Game is boring without Kyoko.

The Game is worse when she has the same memories everyone else does.

The Game suffers because even without her memories, Kyoko can’t be anyone other than who she is.

The unfortunate thing is that this has never worked out for her. If she lost her memories, she would be an entirely different person. But no one ever takes her memories.

Yasuke tried, sure, and would have succeeded if he had figured out a way to make it permanent.

Unfortunate, then, that she was the one to figure it out.

It could have saved so many problems.

Not least of which is how bored she is getting with this entire thing.)

Makoto wakes up.

Makoto walks into the front room to meet all of his new classmates.

Within thirty seconds, every single one of them is impaled.

He doesn’t understand what’s going on.

Blood trickles from his lips.

He looks up at video cameras and wonders who, in their right mind, would enjoy this sort of thing?

(No one. She doesn’t even enjoy this. She just had to do it. At least once. Just to see what would happen.)

This time, only most of them are impaled.

Makoto and Kyoko are both left alive.

Mukuro tries to pull a Sayaka and write something in her blood, but another spear stabs direct through both of her hands, stopping her.

Even without her memories, Kyoko knows enough to know that Makoto didn’t do something like this, although she doesn’t know how – or why – she knows this. It’s baked into her blood, after all.

It’s not baked into Makoto’s blood, though.

He drops to his knees and sobs.

(There’s something fun about seeing Makoto break, she can’t deny that. But even that gets boring after a while.

When Kyoko figures her out, she yawns. She waves her fingers at Kyoko, who stares at her through the video cameras, and resets the Game again.)

Once, Mukuro points a gun at the back of the Mastermind’s head.

Enough.

The Mastermind just laughs.

What’s enough?

The Mastermind resets the Game again before Mukuro can stop her.

(Then she makes some changes in the code so that can’t happen again.)

Sakura catches the Mastermind exactly once.

She pops her head between her thighs with a strange sense of déjà vu.

But with the Mastermind dead, that should be it, shouldn’t it? Everything should—

(She had to know. She had to know what it felt like. She planned it so that her hand would fall on the reset button as she died.)

Junko resets and she resets and she keeps her memory of every Game and she has clips here and there and everywhere. When she gets bored, she replays some of her favorite moments, but they don’t have the same appeal they once did. Unfortunately, she can feel herself growing tired even of those.

And while there are still a lot more versions of the Game she could run, a lot more deaths she could see, she’s….

Tired.

Sure, sure, in a real Game, there would be a secret ending to unlock if she got every ending, but let’s be real here, how long will that take? And it’s not like there’s a guide for this, or anything like that.

Junko runs the pad of her thumb on the button and wonders just what would need to happen for Makoto to kill someone.

Then, she grins.

Makoto figures it out.

Kyoko doesn’t figure it out; Makoto does.

It’s something he can’t even name, something about seeing Junko’s freckles and Junko’s magazines, and it hits him like a wave of…of something.

That’s not figuring it out, of course.

He’d say he was remembering it, but it feels like…like there’s a lot he doesn’t remember.

Makoto wakes while everyone slumbers and makes his way to an unlocked kitchen and sees her standing there, bag of Cheetos in one hand and a pair of chopsticks in the other, munching them a little too loudly, and when she holds the bag out to him, he doesn’t take it.

If I kill you, will that stop everything?

She grins. Won’t know if you won’t try, will you, lucky boy?

A complete set.

Junko looks at a complete set and lets out a sigh.

That’s fine, then.

She can be done.

This time, when she resets everything, she wipes their minds again. Sure, sure, it’ll play like it did the first time, probably.

Unless she makes some adjustments.

(Makoto doesn’t know what he needs to do to keep himself from dying. She’ll fix that. But nothing else.

That Game wasn’t the most entertaining, but. Well.

She’ll give them the highlights of the other Games afterwards. Won’t that be fun?

Oh! And she’ll reset it and let them out. A final prize! Everyone’s alive!

But all of you have killed each other so many times.

That will be fun to see!

Puhuhuhuhu….~)

Junko has seen these executions hundreds of times, knew how to beat them after once. Ultimate Analyst, baby.

It’s only the compactor that she has no real control over.

Of course, by now, Junko knows how to beat it, if she wants, but she’s playing it like she should have that first time. Instead of pulling out the button and triumphantly pushing it right as the compactor falls (resetting everything and saving herself the pain of being crushed), she lets it fall.

(She has already been crushed by the compactor. It hurts, but not in the warm, comforting way that having her head crushed by Sakura’s thighs had been. This way, she’s conscious enough to feel every single one of her bones break, splinter, cut through her fragile skin. Sometimes, her teeth shove up into her brain instead of simply cracking. Sometimes both. Her fingernails split down the middle, tear through her skin. What a way to go.)

And even still, she looks up.

Maybe Alter Ego will save her this time.

It happens, every now and again.

(Sometimes, her own Alter Ego saves her, too, and she sees the despair of there being two of her entering all of the survivors before she resets the Game. It was splendidly thrilling the first time, but even that has lost its luster.)

But no.

She set this to end the way it should have the first time Makoto was smart enough to save himself.

It’s not the most painful death.

But it will suffice.

When Junko dies, crushed beneath the compactor that should have (but did not) crush him, a red button skids across the floor, spattered with her blood. Makoto picks it up, only for Kyoko to take it from him. She comments on how the button itself seems well-used, how this is not a brand new shining button but that the color has started to fade, how some of the patterns around it have worn off from use. She puzzles over that; it doesn’t make sense that the button intended to let them out should look like this.

But the others don’t care, but Makoto doesn’t care.

Byakuya snatches the button from her hands and marches to the door, pretending to be their leader again when everyone can see that he very clearly wasn’t.

They gather in front of the door.

He presses the button.

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