The Perfection of Despair

Chapter 3: One

o6109o

I was slow to awaken after my injury. Only the fact I wasn't jolted awake on the same desk, at that same time, told me that whatever piece of Monokuma which had struck me as the bear exploded hadn't been a fatal wound. That actually set me to wondering... Had I ever gone a reset with brain damage? Had I ever spent days, months, or even years drooling in a wheelchair while my classmates had tended to me?

I hoped not. Though the troublesome thought, now lodged in my mind, would not escape no matter how much I called it unlikely.

With an effort of will I discarded it for a time as I opened my eyes with a groan, finding myself in the infirmary. I was well acquainted with it thanks to my constant resets, but I couldn't let myself admit that.

"Where?" I asked, cautiously testing my voice. My skull currently felt I'd been on the wrong end of a serious sparring match with Oogami, not to mention the kink in my neck and the throbbing in my ankle where I'd fallen improperly. Both my wrists were bound by thick straps, feeling like the sort that are used to hold unruly hospital patients.

I opened my eyes to find myself in the darkness of the infirmary at night, lying on a bed. To my left, to no great surprise, Junko Enoshima's imposter dozed in a chair. The instant I shifted, she jerked upright. The surprising part was the handcuffs which chained her to the chair she was in, and the heavy bolts which secured the chair to the floor, and the duct tape which was wound completely around her mouth.

She was as much a prisoner than I.

The great surprise was her virtual twin, to my right. I knew, then and there, that this was the true Junko Enoshima. Her features were as purely flawless as the images of her in magazines. Truly hers was a beauty which needed no Photoshop whatsoever. Even blaspheming her face with makeup would have been a sin, because makeup was intended to cover up the flaws in a person's appearance.

She had no flaws. Her eyelashes were long and full. Her lips were plump and bright, her skin a flawlessly pale colour except for the slight, natural blush which filled her cheeks when I turned my gaze towards her. She was a vision of perfection, even though I could see no makeup on her face at all.

No wonder she was the Super High School Level Supermodel, if she truly was here for that. Junko Enoshima was a perfect vision. Even the way she wore her school uniform, in a manner which should have looked slutty or trashy, instead just looked like coy teasing.

The presence of the knife she held in her hand was no great threat to me, though I did note that it was held with a grip I wouldn't have associated with a supermodel. It more resembled the grip her faker had held the knife with, though it wasn't close to a perfect emulation of it. I knew then and there, that the true Junko Enoshima was not nearly the fighter that Mukuro Ikasuba was.

"Monokuma, I take it?" I asked after a moment, frowning at the unbound girl.

"So, you've figured it out," Junko offered, her voice low and her tone to the point. One eyebrow raised subtly, the knife lazily dancing in her hand. She flicked her thumb once, the knife dancing around her forefinger once before she caught it in her hand once more. "May I ask how you figured out there was a killing trap in the gym?"

"What will you give me in return? That's valuable information," I informed her, grinning a bit. At her stoney gaze, I quirked my head. "Come now, I know you're going to erase my memory after this. Perhaps you'll even erase Mukuro's memory while you're erasing mine and everyone else. That's what you do, isn't it?"

"What makes you say that, Naegi-kun?" Junko asked as her voice, her whole demeanor, changed in an instant. Instead of being distant, she was acting every inch the cute idol, blushing as she held the knife in her hand to her cheek, blushing. "Ne, do you think I'm a naughty girl? What makes you think I can erase memories or whatever?"

"I'm a little taller than I was when I entered this school. Not much, but I'm short for a guy, so I paid attention to it. I'm the same height as Asahina, when I know from my research before coming that I was five centimeters shorter. I must have hit a growth spurt in the months since we arrived, before you stole our memories from us," I informed her bluntly, frowning. I shook my head. "I imagine that the reason you erased more of Kirigiri's memory has to do with the fact she's a Super High School Level Detective. She'd have noticed the same, unless she didn't think she could trust her memory in the first place. The rest, they'd be too distracted by your murder game to notice any small differences. Not even Sakura."

"Was I really so predictable," Junko pouted, her face falling as she stared at her hands. Her eyes rose to meet mine, and in them I saw tears glistening. She set the knife she held down as she wrung her hands, the creak of her straining her joints audible to my ears. "How is it that someone of your level could predict me so well?"

I was silent for a moment, before I finally spoke.

"The trap in the gym," I stated, changing the course of the conversation. "When you removed the floorboards to install it, you removed the boards perfectly, and put them back exactly as you found them. Except you would have had to varnish the floor again, otherwise the cracks would have stood out. Your mistake was that you didn't use the same stuff the workers used when they installed the floor. It had a slightly different sheen when viewed from a certain angle."

"Are you really so good at observation, Naegi-kun?" Junko giggled, once more putting on the cute act. I was beginning to suspect that the girl was hopelessly insane. "Just the change in the sheen told you that there was a trap? But what if it had been a bomb? It'd have blown you into little bits!"

"It never would have been a bomb," I retorted with a grin, my attempt to wave my hand for emphasis cut short as the tie-down straps jolted me. I tilted my head, meeting her eyes. "You're much too blatant, Enoshima. The murder game you wanted us to play would never have worked the way you wanted it to work if you were willing to risk killing a bunch of us in something as indiscriminate as an explosion. Not only that, but a bomb in the announcement hall could have scared everyone off from the game. No, it had to be something more direct, something more focused."

It would have been mesmerizing, the way even her pupils shifted as she changed her demeanor entirely, if it weren't so chilling. Her eyes turned cold and analytical once more, her voice dropping low and to the point.

"So again, Makoto Naegi, we come back to the question: How is it that someone of your level could predict me so well?" Junko demanded of me in that calm and collected voice of hers. She allowed her brow to furrow a bit, once more flipping the knife around her finger. "More to the point, how did you notice that my sister replaced me among the students? Her cover was perfect."

So... Mukuro was Junko's sister? Interesting.

"Not quite," I pointed out, shrugging once more, smiling. "I spent a few weeks when I was in middle school helping the drama club, and I learned how to spot even a good wig from real hair. To be honest, I didn't even predict you. I just noticed the floor because my father taught me how to repair a floor once. He mentioned the difference in light reflection different varnishes could cause. Between those two simple facts and your own actions as Monokuma, I've devised your methods."

"That's impossible," Junko informed me, her voice suddenly cold. Analytical.

"Of course it is," I replied, smirking at her. I waved my hands carelessly. "It's not like I know that Celetsia Ludenburg is really Taeko Yasuhiro, a common girl who's favourite food is gyoza made in her home province, or that Kirigiri is really the Super High School Level Detective, which is why her memory is more messed up than the average student's memory.

"And it's not like I know your sister here is a member of Fenrir, a terrorist group," I finished, frowning. It was time to see what I could fish out of Junko, now that I knew she was the person behind the plot. It was time for me to lie for all I was worth. "Is this the sort of counter-intel you have? Even with my cover and my memory erased, this is a pathetic plot. How did you manage to pull off what you have, huh?"

"I'll kill you myself," Enoshima promised, her voice depressed even as the knife she held was gripped firmly.

She had, however, made a mistake. As she rose to strike me, she'd apparently forgotten that she'd left me with my feet unbound. I bucked my hips and got my legs around her neck, bearing her down to the mattress as I scissored my legs closed on her throat, the knife in her hand weakly scraping at my legs but unable to do major damage thanks to the angle.

Thank you once again, Sakura-sensei. I don't even know why her family runs a Brazillian Jui Jutsu dojo, but the techniques she'd drilled into me had just saved my life once more, if only for the moment. Junko went limp, and then still. Not dead, but damned close. Even with the revelation that she was behind it all, I couldn't bring myself to kill her.

I twisted in my bed hitching my hips up and twisting my spine painfully so I could reach the straps binding my wrists with my teeth. I was halfway through the act of working the strap on my right hand free when I felt a sharp impact in my lower back, punching through my left kidney.

I was dead, my body just hadn't stopped moving yet.

I had just enough time to realize that Mukuro had only been acting captured as I sank back to my bed, feeling my body expelling blood with every heartbeat, as I watched Mukuro move to her sister's side, panic and regret equally evident on her face as she did so. Strangely, the tears in her eyes only started their way down her cheeks as she looked at me.

I mustered up a smile, and whispered "I'm sorry," and that only caused Mukuro to cry harder, clutching Junko's unconscious form. That was a little confusing, but I didn't really have time to ponder it as my last moments approached once more.

My vision faded.

I died.

o6110o

I woke up at my desk, but immediately I knew there was something new.

A feminine figure floated in white robes, her hood pulled forward enough to disguise her features, watching me as I stirred from my recent death.

This was new.

"Makoto Naegi, you have suffered for so long... Why do you continue to press on? Why not rest?" The figure demanded, her voice a clarion perfection I doubted could exist, yet there it was. Only intense focus, the kind I'd gained throughout my time, allowed me to resist the temptation.

"Forget that, madam Ghost," I retorted, frowning. "If you know I've suffered for quite some time, you know exactly why I'm here. Sooner or later, you'll tell me!"

There was a long pause, and then...

"Suffer longer, then," she informed me.

And disappeared.

o6110o

Author's Notes:

Troll moar, Naegi-kun! Yeah, Naegi was totes bullshitting Junko about the drama club and dad teaching him to fix floors stuff. He just needed an explanation which would let him continue to search for more information and which Junko probably couldn't prove wrong, off hand.

Also, and I realize this is a rather inopportune time to be saying it, but by the end of this story everything I've written will be believable and make sense according to the rules of the Dangan Ronpa universe.