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Chapter Text

GAME OVER!

Korekiyo has been found guilty. Time for the punishment!

Korekiyo’s bones burned as he hung from the ceiling. Oh, how wonderful that he was to be killed in the Gyaku Ebi tie!! His limbs were all tightly restrained behind him, reminiscent of a shrimp. In ancient Japan, Gyaku Ebi translated to ‘inverted shrimp’. It was a very popular method of torture in ancient Japan, and he found it so exhilarating that he was to be murdered in such a historical fashion. Oh, Korekiyo’s skin crawled with excitement already. Korekiyo did not plan to be murdered, especially not before he reached 100 friends for Sister, but he supposed 98 will do. He has done so much for Sister… He couldn’t wait to finally see Her again… To feel Her cheek again…

Shamisens filled the room with song as the two Monokubs besides his dangling form bowed. How respectful… A bow before an execution. Korekiyo closed his eyes for the smooth chhk of a katana being unsheathed from its ca-

Korekiyo’s body jolted as he was pushed circularly. Shock shot his eyes open as his hat flung clean off his head, his entire body starting to be pushed spinning. The room flashed past his vision, colors repeating in a dizzying circle. Korekiyo never had much physical activity, let alone being spun in circle after circle. Within meer seconds, Korekiyo felt his entire body loosen with sickness. His head went light, trying to keep his bearings in a whirlwind of nausea. Vomit pooled in his jaw, threatening to spill from his lips. Decency kept his teeth clamped.

It may have been hours until he stopped spinning. Well… To the outside man, it was probably meer minutes, but Korekiyo couldn’t withstand every second of the shredded burning of the red ropes tearing through his skin. While in a moment of peace and a spinning brain, Korekiyo wondered if there was blood dampening his legs.

Then, the Monokubs let him spin the other way.

How forgetful Korekiyo was sometimes. When a rope is spun, the rope must spin the other way.

Korekiyo’s adjustment to spinning in one direction did not heed well to spinning oppositely. Korekiyo tried his best but fluids did dribble down his lips, his eyes practically spinning with the room. Korekiyo blessed his mask as his vomit did not paint the room. Yet again, it must have been a meer couple of minutes for Korekiyo to settle, but his body did not acquaint well with the concept of time and his disorientation.

The rope gently started to stabilize, Korekiyo spinning side to side helplessly. Korekiyo hung his head as his vision tried to clear from its fog. The room still spun. Korekiyo felt sick again. It did not help his mask was drenched in a foul smell. He shivered in disgust. If it was not tangible before, Korekiyo could now distinctively feel blood trickling down his legs, deep cuts singed into his legs and wrists. He felt warm all over his body, yet simultaneously cold. Korekiyo’s feelings were as confused as his eyes.

Korekiyo clenched his eyes closed. Through a spinning brain, he tried to form thoughts. For Sister… He would do it for Sister… That was merely child’s play… Korekiyo could withstand it. If it meant seeing Her again.

A thunk slammed something open. Korekiyo peeked from his eyelids. The floor beneath him was now wide open. Feet… No, meters and meters below him was a pot. Confusion could not keep up with him as he heard a chhk slice through the room.

Korekiyo expected death. Korekiyo expected his head to fall.

Instead, his entire body went weightless.

He could barely comprehend falling until he hit the hard against the cast iron of a pot.

Korekiyo did not know breaking ribs would reverberate through his body like drums.

The instant sting of hot water singed his skin. Helplessly trying to wade to the surface, Korekiyo gasped for air from the top of the pot. His skin sparked from the hot, hot water it was in. It was as if Korekiyo was thrown into a hot tub without any preparation. The wounds he sustained earlier from the ropes were now screaming in pain, being scorched by searing water. Korekiyo found himself yelping and whining in agony. A dance was played by his legs as he tried to squirm from the searing hot water. His legs worthlessly flopped when trying to move his wrists. Korekiyo figured he had snapped those two. He felt his eyes tear up.

The Monokubs stood in front of him. With concerned eyes, he stared, still twitching from pain.

Dancers circled the kubs and the pot. Drums and music strung through the room. Song filled everyone’s ears.

The Monokubs held firewood.

Korekiyo felt his gut drop.

Oh… So that was how we were to be killed.

The kubs started to chuck wood to the bottom of the pot.

It was slow.

Oh, it was slow.

His pot went from uncomfortably hot to just a tad hotter. He could feel his hands tingle with heat, jolting involuntarily with shock. The water started to feel cold, making Korekiyo dread the worst. His wounds nearly boiled with agony, making his body frozen in trauma. The smell of smoke sank into his face, also burning his cheeks red. His skin prickled in waves, flushing up with pain starting to hover on his hands. Korekiyo kept thrashing, trying to subconsciously flee from the horror.

It was only prolonged. The music only grew.

The water got hotter. Whenever he thought it couldn’t burn fiercer, it proved him wrong. His skin was now boiling. Of the skin he could see under the bubbling water, it was becoming a sickening pink, bubbles popping under his skin and red rashes tearing his skin apart. His neck felt cooked, steaming from heat, only soon followed by his whole face. His mask did not help in keeping his face cool, trapping heat in and threatening to cook his tongue.

Oh, his horror only heightened. There was a disgusting smell that now burned his nose. He only knew it from when he would burn women in the campfires of tribes. His flesh was cooking. His vision started to tint pink as he felt feverish tears bled down his face. He could barely see as he felt his waist numb. He could swear his clothes were melting and becoming skin-tight to his chest. Trying to breathe in only allowed the now melting mask to bind to his lips. Sizzling deafened his ears, his arms starting to become stiff and lifeless. He could not even hear the drums and dancing anymore. Sweat on his head only built and built. The welts from his skin started to pop more furiously, giving the impression of boiling water. The exposed skin only made his agony cripple further.

Then, there was a yell from above, loud enough to pierce the steaming of his body cooking. What possessed Korekiyo to tilt his head up was beyond him. Above his boiling hell was Monokuma, wearing a chef’s hat and holding a butcher’s knife. There were two more dangling figures.

Blood boiled in Korekiyo’s eyes as he identified the yellow cloak and the green skirt.

Korekiyo was to be cooked with his victims.

His eyebrows tilted upwards as he watched the ropes cut. He closed his eyes. For Sister. For Sister for Sister for Sister for S-

The splash cooked his face.

He then truly screamed hard.

His vocal cords were still not seared, so he screamed viscerally.

His eyes popped and burned his cheeks. Blood sizzled his lips and eyebrows. The inside of his mouth was splashed with water through his melting mask and instantly burned his tongue and teeth to a crisp. Water, for as long as it trickled down his face, burned every trail it followed. The waves of water that followed the two bodies being dropped in basically destroyed everything it touched. Within milliseconds, his entire face instantly cooked. The horrid smell of burning flesh exploded into the air.

The water filled to the brim of the pot. Korekiyo’s head finally submerged.

It only took seconds for his brain to fry up and his consciousness to be freed.

Korekiyo’s blood-sealed eyelashes tore open. The stars greeted him.

His fingers were light. His chest felt light. His face was weightless and gleaming.

Moonlight shimmered on his translucent body, making it apparent that he was now merely a spirit.

Sizzling did not cloud his nose. Stiff limbs did not limit his freedom. He was now a man of the stars.

And… He was greeted by an angel.

Sister… In front of him. She smiled so brightly.

Korekiyo felt his eyes prick. Oh, how long he has waited to see Her smile again.

He reached out. As if a child were reaching for a toy, he stretched and beamed a helpless smile.

His smile faded when Sister dropped Her expression.

Fear curled his fingers.

Sister’s eyebrows tilted in rage.

Korekiyo brought his hands down.

“Sister…?”

For the second time, Korekiyo was blinded.

Salt was thrown straight into his eyes. Korekiyo cupped his holy face and screamed.

Sister yelled so loud, “YOU HEATHEN!! Why did you KILL SO MANY WOMEN??”

Korekiyo tried to push his now melting face back to its form, “W-WHAT?!?”

Sister threw salt to one of his arms, his limb crumbling, “TALK!! EXPLAIN WHY!!”

Korekiyo felt his face drip between his fingers. His hand could go straight through his head if it pleased.

Korekiyo spat some of his skin from his lips, “YOU WERE LONELY!!! I DIDN’T WANT YOU TO BE ALONE!!”

Sister gasped. She bubbled in a loathing, “YOU… YOU FILTH!! YOU DISGUSTING ROACH!! I NEVER WANTED MURDER!!!! I NEVER WANTED YOU TO MURDER!!!”

Korekiyo’s face was still burning and his whole body was now dripping from the sky. Korekiyo cried with eyes that were now nothing.

He used his remaining melting hand to hold his mush of a head, “SISTER PLEASE!! I LOVE YOU!! IT WAS FOR YOU!!!!”

Sister paused. If he could see, he could imagine She had a face of horror. She huffed.

She spoke poison.

“… Korekiyo… You only loved me. I never loved you.”

Sister did not give him a chance to apologize. Patience and silence let his brain melt into putty, salt slowly burning the rest of his skeleton.

Tears of Korekiyo’s body seared the roofs of the village below.

Monokuma sipped from a bowl.

His smile haunted the audience as he drank from fingers and ears.

Chapter Text

GAME OVER!

Mikan has been found guilty. Time for the punishment!

Mikan breathed hard. The blinding white ceiling burned her eyes as it whipped past, graining at her throbbing head. The wheels of her stretcher rattled the whole cart, suddenly slamming when they crashed through hospital doors. Her head seared with pain each time the cart crashed into a door. She must have been knocked out to be put on the stretcher because she hadn’t remembered how she got there. But, she was sick. So, so painfully sick. Her face was a melting red, dripping with sweat as her chest shook. Mikan’s heart burned. Her lungs were shriveled, struggling to scrape for air. Nerves shook as her eyebrows knitted painfully. She didn’t have the energy to cry.

Mikan bit her lip.

… For her.

Mikan’s head was slammed against the back of a hospital bed, her vision spinning with whiplash. A couple of moments gave her time to look straight, still breathing hard to control her splitting fever and the acid building in her throat. She noticed someone standing next to her. A monochromatic bear. A monochromatic bear with a massive needle. She was sure he was grinning ear to ear if it weren’t for his medical mask.

The nurse gripped her fist. She was close. She was so so close to seeing her. She just had to get a little closer. It was probably going to hurt. A lot. But… For her… For her… She could do it.

Drowning in a haze of lust for being able to die, Mikan shut her eyes. Pain can be withstood. A smile crept into her contorted grimace of pain.

Monokuma snapped on latex gloves and instantly held down Mikan’s head. She yelped in surprise, struggling as he held his grip. Sharp pain stabbed into her neck. It was so sudden, Mikan had no time to yell, nor comprehend anything. Her body went cold. Her body became limp and her arms waved with goosebumps.

Monokuma removed the massive needle, tapping out the last drops of medicine, “Alriiiiiiiight!! She’s good to go! The stimulant iiiiiis IN!!!”

… Stimulant?

A drug to keep her eyes torn open. A drug to keep her awake and conscious for everything to be done to her.

A drug to witness anything Monokuma was to do to her.

Mikan’s skin crawled with goosebumps. That stimulant must of spiked her nerves. Tears twitched in her eyes. She could suddenly feel the piercingly cold air in the room. Fingers felt like they could explode from the pure sense of touch.

She bit her extremely sensitive lip. It was going to be a little longer until she could see her. It will hurt but she had to be patient. She had been very patient. Just a couple more minutes.

She closed her eyes with extreme shock.

As Monokuma reached for his knife, Mikan found herself coughing. That… That damn stimulant brought every sense to its extreme. There was a horrid, horrid stench that filled the office, now excruciatingly obvious. It was so horrid, coughing made her body shake violently just from the sheer smell. Struggling to turn her head to locate the smell, she saw… Ibuki. She saw Ibuki and Hiyoko next to her, drained of blood and with large cuts down their bodies, some guts not even bothered to be put back in. Pale eyes and white skin laid mere inches from her. Horror gnawed at Mikan’s stomach. She was in a mortician’s office. Where autopsies were done.

She was going to be dissected.

Without second warning, Mikan jolted.

The worst possible feeling ripped through her body.

No, the most revolting feeling had just torn through her.

Monokuma had cut straight through her clothes and skin straight into her muscles.

Mikan’s voice nearly tore from the horrified scream that escaped her throat.

Air tried to keep up with her as screams kept ripping from her lungs. Every breath spiked an icy cold sting into her body.

She could do nothing but scream as the horrifying out-of-body experience she felt commenced.

Her guts were pulled out of her body like noodles. Party streamers of intestines emptied her belly, blood pouring from the seams and warming up the surrounding skin. Mikan was going to throw up. Why could she feel the beans of Monokuma’s paws grip at the soft intestine walls of her gut? It felt freezing on nerves she never thought she had. Despite her internal organs, Mikan’s skin was on fire, burning from her searing hot blood. A tingling feeling sizzled on the edges of her fingers.

Mikan finally jerked her head to the side, turning her shrieks to vomit as disgusting chunks spat from her lips. Before she could fully recover from gagging, she felt both paws lunge into her body, mixing her internal organs like it was child’s play. She vomited again, gagging up stomach acid. It felt like she was spinning, her body dizzy from the vivid amount of horror that swam through her nerves. Pain was now a blur in the back of her head. If that damn stimulant wasn’t in her system, she would have certainly passed out.

Her body twitched as a string was pulled from her body. Mikan didn’t know what was pulled from her body until the familiar rhythmic thump in her chest disappeared.

Eyes shook as Mikan strained to look down to her chest.

Just barely, from beyond her blurry vision, she could see the bear holding a clump of a red, pulsating heart.

Monokuma giggled, “Oh, so THIS was the cause of death!!! Let’s collect this tumor for REEEEEESEARCH!”

Monokuma turned his head, supposedly to Mikan’s friends watching behind a grate, and showed a pair of plyers and a girl-shaped tumor in her heart. A girl-shaped tumor with familiar twin pigtails and a haunting smile.

Mikan huffed.

Luckily, she didn’t feel it.

But, suddenly, she felt like she couldn’t breathe.

Her fingers felt cold. Her nose started to go numb.

Mikan felt tears on her lips.

She didn’t feel Monokuma stapling her back up, only the feeling of stretching skin across her ribs.

“Alright! She’s good to go! SEND HER OUT!!”

Mikan’s eyes were distant as a glass cage snapped around her, dropping her from the hospital bed and leaving her limp against the clear walls. She had no energy to look around. It was a miserable miracle she hadn’t passed out yet. A glass floor was seated at her feet.

The floor started to move.

Her head hit the roof.

Mikan lulled her eyes around.

Monokuma was holding her, as Mikan was trying to keep her footing in a massive glass syringe, now closing in on her.

Blood still pouring from her. Mikan’s eyes stared at her feet, now rapidly folding in closer to her chest.

To feel your body being dissected was one thing.

To realize that you were going to be crushed to blood and dust alive was a whole separate horror.

And that horror only amplified when you can’t move.

The last of her strength instantly translated into adrenaline.

And Mikan whimpered into a desperate shriek.

Mikan watched her knees explode; her bare, ivory bones popping and tearing through her flesh.

Mikan stared as her feet, now cracked and bleeding feverishly, were pushing against her thigh and rising.

Mikan only watched as her legs pushed against her chest, hearing a series of snaps as her ribs resonated in her chest.

Mikan was soon to be spared, as her neck would soon be snapped, but she could only close her eyes as her mouth filled with blood and shattered bone fragments.

Hajime vomited as a clumpy, slightly white blood gushed from the tip of the syringe.

Chapter Text

GAME OVER!

Mondo has been found guilty. Time for the punishment!

The spinning circus dartboard cranked to a stop. Mondo tore his eyes open, his vision still sickenin’ly dizzy. He was firmly tied to a motorcycle, arms behind the backrest and chest strapped tightly in. He couldn’ even move his legs, as every part of him was securely strapped in. The entire bike was hooked to the dartboard, letting it spin without Mondo falling out and probably crackin’ his damn neck.

That fuckin’ bear was in front of him. He supposed he deserved this. He killed a friend, he betrayed another, and couldn’t make it up to the one who meant the most to him. Through gritted teeth, he supposed he was gonna join his brother. A lovely reunion. Mondo scoffed.

Monokuma revved the hog.

In frontta them was a bike path. A long dirt track with several hoops and bumps, some hoops set ablaze. Somethin’ Mondo had seen a fuck ton. Knowin’ Monokuma, the ride probably wasn’ gonna be as smooth as he wanted. No, he didn’t deserve it. He deserved the worst.

Mondo took a deep breath. Alright, he was ready for the fuckin’ worst.

He bit his tongue. Bring it fuckin’ on.

Without further warning, Monokuma slammed the gas, the bike jolting to full speed. Despite his head close to the headrest, whiplash snapped at him hard and his head slammed back. The bike was already reachin’ 60 miles per hour. Mondo had jumped and bit straight through his tongue. His scream was stolen by the wind, struggling to breathe against the intense speed. He shut his eyes tight, holding back the splitting pain of blood filling his mouth. FUCK. A great fuckin’ start.

The bike suddenly flew. Mondo jolted his eyes awake, his body becoming airborne. His entire throat crushed, his guts flying up for just a couple of moments. Before he could even comprehend the jump, the bike turned sharply, his head snapping to the side. Swear, he must’a strained somethin’ in his neck from that turn. Eyes soon became dizzy, trying to look straight, only to lull to the back of his head helplessly. He hated to admit it, but he felt awful. He always hated not bein’ in control of his ride.

Turns and jumps kept creeping upon him. Each time, he didn’t expect the whiplash snap. Monokuma jus’ drove too damn fast; turning too sharply, speeding too fast, hitting some hills at a poor angle. Mondo tried his best to breathe, gasping against the intense speed. Blood still burned his tongue. It wasn’ a foreign taste but his tongue still stung like hell.

His arm slammed into a hoop. Mondo could hear the snap that cracked from his shoulder. Mondo couldn’t hold back the yelp he made. Fuckin’ hell. It hurt so FUCKIN’ bad. If Monokuma had gone any faster, his DAMN arm would’a ripped off.

Within seconds, Monokuma swerved again and barely made it through another hoop. That time, the hoop was on fire. The bike jumped off the ramp faster than before. Mondo’s foot clipped the flaming iron.

His foot tore clean off.

Mondo gasped a yell, straining to groan against the speed. Jesus FUCKIN’ Christ, his entire DAMN foot!! The WHOLE foot!! It disappeared instantly, leaving his gored ankle exposed to the ridiculous winds. The pain of a limb being ripped off didn’t register at first, but once debris and the wind hit the gored foot within seconds, the pain instantly kicked in.

Mondo was ashamed of himself as he started to scream, huffing and grimacing in complete, nerve-shredding agony. The wind was knocked out of him as turns whipped words from his body.

His foot wasn’t the first to go.

Quickly, both shoulders dislocated from impacts. A rock on the road gored a massive gash through his leg. His other foot was shredded when the bike leaned too close to the ground, leaving it as a grotesque pile of blood and white bone. Blood must have smeared the entire track, considering the damage done to his body. Even the bike was starting to shine pink from his blood. Pain was in waves, leaving some moments of numb bliss. Thank God the pain wasn’t a complete constant.

Monokuma made a loud rev of the engine, slamming the gas to drive straight ahead. Mondo, trying to keep his eyes open, squinted ahead.

“Here’s the big hoop! The fiiiiinal stretch!!”

Mondo grit his teeth. He better not lose his head.

Soon, he could see ahead of him.

Mondo’s eyes widened.

Chihiro’s limp body hung from the top of the hoop.

Her… his… body was strung up by the arms, just like how that fuck head Byakuya put them.

… Her eyes were still open. They were still scared.

Monokuma hit the ramp hard.

Mondo could see her face inches from his for just a moment.

…

Damn him.

DAMN Monokuma. DAMN HIM TO HELL!! DAMN HIM AND EVERY FUCKING PERSON IN THIS DAMN SCHOOL!!!!

Ribs broke the instant her body slammed into his.

Chihiro’s weak body snapped upon contact, her waist elongating eerily as her spine had broke. Her arms disappeared instantly, the torn limbs still tied to that hoop. Blood sprayed his entire body, blinding him moments after. Though blind, he could fucking tell that her body was stuck to his body, her corpse almost hugging him. In his mouth, Mondo tasted his acid reflex and a sickening amount of iron. Mondo choked on toxic guilt.

He couldn’t tell by the bubblegum blood in his eyes, but Monokuma had landed the bike right onto a track. The bike sped at full speed towards a massive, circular iron cage. A hinged door invited the two of them, ready to devour the guilty.

Mondo had no idea what was happening until he was rapidly spinning. Mondo’s head instantly dipped, threatening to pull his head off. It took several moments for Mondo to gain what ground he could get and forced his head up. The G’s pulling on his head made it difficult to raise it, forcing him to pull it up. It didn’t help that Chihiro’s body flew off him, tumbling around the now apparent cage. Mondo felt his entire body coat with layers of blood. He couldn’t see, but he assumed that Chihiro’s corpse had been run over like roadkill, gutted every time the bike spun past. Mondo was so fucking glad he didn’t have to see Chihiro’s disfigured corpse spitting blood and ground-up guts.

Mondo grimaced in disgust. He always had to push his head against the head rest on roller coasters. He hated roller coasters. For a bike gang leader, Mondo being scared of them seemed ridiculous, but Mondo didn’t care. Arms could disappear instantly on a wrong turn. Daiya would drag him to every coaster he could, but those G’s were always too fucking much for him.

How did Monokuma know he hated roller coasters? He really knew how to kill Mondo in the worst damn way possible.

To kill him in the sickening loop of a rollercoaster.

His head went light fast. Blood was draining from the top of his body down to his legs. His lungs felt like they dropped, his breath failed to travel to his lips. Fingers went numb. Oh God, there was a battle in his stomach. He desperately needed to vomit through his haze of dizziness, but the vomit couldn’t reach his throat.

It kept spinning. The loop of a rollercoaster was supposed to stop only seconds after introducing itself. But there was no exiting rail. He just. Kept. Spinning.

Tears did prick. He didn’t have the energy to open his eyes under G’s. His mouth had involuntarily opened. His body felt like it was crushing.

By sheer speed, Chihiro’s blood must have flown off him by then.

Why wasn’t he blacking out? He surely should be out by now. Especially with those fucking feet missing.

Then, there was an internal tear.

It felt as if his body had split.

His lungs had torn from their spot and pooled to the bottom of his waist.

The pain was horrific.

Blood started to pop in his eyes.

There was nothing left in his chest. It was all in his toes now.

A soup of organs pulled his entire body down from the inside.

God bless Mondo’s soul as his head dipped in passing out.

Makoto started to sob.

It was hard to see Mondo through the spinning. It was a blend of rubber tires and pink blood. Chihiro’s corpse had become nothing but splatters of flesh and bone. Aoi already had hurled in the corner of the room.

There were blinks where Makoto could see Mondo. He was white. His entire face was closed and he swore his body was condensing.

Kiyotaka was still sobbing, clutching the iron gate mesh. Most of us couldn’t do anything but let him wail.

Monokuma, through his dancing (he thought it was funny to hula hoop), laughed, “OH LOOK! He’s starting to crush!!”

Oh God, what does—

When looking at Mondo, there was a pop of pink. It started to spray everywhere, flying in circles. Hot blood splatted everyone, some blinding Makoto’s eye.

Wiping his eye… Makoto kept watching. He watched as a small spray turned to a larger spray, then just a radiant splash of pink paint.

He couldn’t look away.

He couldn’t stop watching as he watched Mondo bloom into a rose.

Shuffling pushed Kiyotaka away from the gate as he screamed, demanding that they unshielded his eyes.

With a horrified look, Makoto watched as Mondo’s figure slumped.

Within an instant, a ripping noise tore through the loud noise of engines and screaming.

It wasn’t immediately clear, but as it started to tumble and become trampled by tires…

Mondo’s head was torn straight off.

Vomit poured into Makoto’s hands.

Chapter Text

GAME OVER!

Gundham has been found guilty. Time for the punishment!

The iron gate sealed Gundham’s exist behind him.

The softwood shavings under his steel-toed boots crinkled when he entered. With only a couple of glances, it was apparent to Gundham that he was now in the realm of the wild. A realm spanning levels and levels of labyrinths and tricks. An iron guarded fortitude of a war’s colosseum that bore devas. And… he was to slay for his life.

Hamsters rolled past. Yet… Those devas were not of mortal size. Those creatures were of monstrous girth. Attempting to scale the devas with eyes alone posed a feat to Gundham. Yet, those devas were not mortal at all. Each step was of mechanical strength. The whirs of steel and the hisses of beasts cursed the air, nearly drowning out any outside noise. It was a shame that fear pooled in his throat. Gundham was not a man of fear. Gundham was a man of bravery and pushing through with a devilishly strong vigor. Machines, even though not Gundhams specialty, was merely another roadblock to his grand quest. Gundham was a beast to be feared as long as he had his trusty Dark Devas of D-

He patted his jacket lightly. He was only greeted with a flat chest. A fear spiked his heart. Gundham patted his entire jacket, trying to feel for the small bumps of his fiendish warriors. Alas, his search was in vain.

His Devas were stolen from his claws.

Gundham’s teeth gritted as he looked out the cage. He belted, “MONOKUMA!!! If your horrid feet reside beyond this hell, be ashamed. YOUR DISGUSTING PAWS SHALL ROT FOR ROBBING ME OF MY DEVAS!!”

Monokuma cackled. Gundham whirled, attempting to find the source of the demon. Monokuma’s voice echoed in the chamber, loud enough to overcome the robots’ steps, “Gundham, your hamsters are not here! You may see them if you can scale this dungeon!! A promise from one fiend to another…”

Gundham spat to the words Monokuma told him. Unbelievable. The foul nerve of that gargoyle.

In front of his steeled boots was a trail leading to stairs. They reached a higher level, inviting a challenge.

Gundham scowled. The thought of heeding to Monokuma’s foul scheme made his skin crawl.

The cage shuddered with rumbles as horrors of modern technology continued to roll past. Gundham pulled back his arms in retaliation to the ball’s path. He was lucky the devices were merely plastic. If it were not of that composition, he could have cut and bled his poisonous ichor.

Foul strings pulled his legs towards the stairs. He hated playing the bear’s contest. But… He must.

The second level was a maze of attractions. Similar to a child’s playground, there were slides, wheels, colorful tunnels; all of it burned Gundham’s dark eyes. He found himself crawling through tunnels, disgracing his clothing, as well as navigating down slides and ladders. Water, at some point, splashed his clothes. Containers of water were secured with clasps to the sides of the dungeon, possible food for the creatures. Gundham did not find it humorous to feed creatures of man the sustenance of mortals. Hamsters were still not scarce, rolling and even walking with their own four paws. Because of their impossible bulk, their claws were the size of dragon’s teeth. Gundham felt his gut jump whenever a claw raked the grates. The stingingly loud metal on metal singed Gundham’s ears.

Speaking of which, Gundham noticed the expanse of wood shavings was more sparse. He could feel the mesh below his feet more than before.

Gundham paid it no mind.

Gundham dodged hamsters in their rampages, nearly dodging some major gashes. A fiend must be honest with oneself; Gundham was knicked a couple of times. Gundham found it nearly impossible to fully dodge every robot. The speed of their legs was quickening. If only the beasts were mortal… Gundham could easily sway their desires away, in order to keep Gundham alive.

A bite snapped right next to him.

Gundham jumped to the side, a second too late due to the surprise of an attack.

A fierce sting hissed from his arm. Gundham cupped his arm, stopping his ichor from singeing the wood shavings.

His wrapped claws dipped in his arm where it should not.

Gundham looked to his shoulder. An entire chunk of his arm was gone.

For the first time in a very long time, Gundham felt dizzy.

Another bite snapped next to him, but he dodged skillfully, still tightly gripping his arm. Those damned beasts. He was not to lose his life to a machine. Well… He nearly lost his life to a machine, but that man did not count. He once had a heart. Those machines do not.

His body’s shock to gore had just then caught up to him. A shiver of agony waved through his body, making his legs weak. His already bleak skin was growing colder. For someone of immortal life, Gundham could feel his clock tick.

He must spare himself some time. Wounds would heal. Gundham had to leave.

Close to him was another fleet of stairs. From the grates above shone slices of light, greeting possibly an exit for the tortured soul. If Monokuma were to grant him any freedom, and especially any hope of his Dark Devas, it would have to lay in the light.

Gundham jogged to the stairs. Claws still made the ground shutter, but he did not look back.

He scaled the steps to the next floor and was nearly blinded. Bright, bright fluorescent lights shone through the grates, instantly illuminating anything on the floor. Upon adjusting to the light, Gundham found there were still more hamsters, but on that level, there was just one massive gargoyle that rolled in a cage of plastic. He gripped his still bleeding wound. The room was wide, reaching far past the original room. He only grimaced for every new step he took.

Near to him, against a wall, was a figure. When stepping to it, he noticed its form instantly. Lying against the grates of the wall, still bleeding oil, was Nekomaru’s robot corpse, headless and limp. Gundham felt his throat tighten in disgust. To disgrace the dead was a horrendous act.

Jabbed in the top of the corpse was a small uprooted wire. At first, Gundham mistook it for wiring, but Monokuma’s voice blared through the dungeon again. Gundham was ashamed to say he jumped.

“AAH, the FINAL stretch! For thee to escape, you must take the keys from Nekomaru and unlock your friends from a cage.”

Gundham stood next to Nekomaru, taking his uninjured arm to rip the wire from its sheath. Lo and behold, it was a long skeleton key, the end bearing an unhumorous bear shape. It was drenched in Nekomaru’s poison.

Gundham gripped it and looked up to the heavens, “YOU BEAR OF HORRORS! Where is this cage you speak of?”

Laughing shook the grates. Monokuma spoke through possibly smiling teeth, “It walks where you tread.”

Pause caught Gundham in his steps.

He turned to the rolling creature.

His Devas were sealed in the iron hell of rolling beasts.

Suddenly, the burst of adrenaline he received snuffed out the pain in his arm.

He tripped trying to rampage the monster. The grates below his feet were wider now, making his boot heels susceptible to falling between holes. Though, he had enough ground to leap. He jumped onto the ball, tripping to keep up with its surface. He felt his body struggling to reach the top, but all nerves kept his body moving. To his luck, he had managed to stop the hamster enough to stop moving momentarily.

A seam made itself obvious, where if kicked, the whole ball would crack open. Now on top of the ball, Gundham lifted his arm to hit it.

The slam reverberated through his entire body.

Without realizing it, he had slammed with his injured arm.

Agony shredded his nerves. Gundham couldn’t stop the scream of pain that fell from his lips.

Gundham must have blacked out for a second. Or possibly, the agony was so visceral, his body froze for just a moment.

He looked to the blinding ceiling, his head throbbing from hitting the grates below him. Eyes led to the now rolling ball. It had not budged. There was pink blood splashed on the surface.

Glass. Tempered glass.

He hissed sharply. He had missed his opportunity to shatter the contraption.

Gundham could barely feel his injured arm. To his luck, the key was in his injured arm, as the shock had sealed the weapon in its grasp.

The ball was meer feet away.

Gundham used his legs to push his body back, hooking heels in the grates and pushing. He lifted his other arm, ripping the skeleton key from the other, and wielding it like a sword.

The ball was inches away.

“RELEASE MY DEVAS!! SECURE THEIR SAFT—-”

Crunch.

His feet were rolled over.

Gundham screamed.

Nerves lingered as his feet vanished from his view. He watched his feet drip from the floor and paint the floor below. Gundham suddenly realized Monokuma’s master plan. He was to be shredded like cheese by the grates of a cage.

There was screaming from below him. He couldn’t see, but there was a chorus of mortified screaming. He recognized one; Sonia.

Ah. That was how he was to be humiliated. Shredded into the hands of his friends.

Too much hesitation caused his legs to crack. Pain had a disgusting pattern of hash marks, lines and lines crossing through his legs and cutting his meat into cubes. Agony tore at his legs, blood boiling and overflowing through his body. Blood splat into his eyes as he watched.

Once it reached his thighs, he forced himself to strike. He thrashed the key forward, attempting to stab the ball. It only bounced off. With little strength, he tried harder.

His hip bone shattering pushed his intestines further up to his chest. His spine reverberated at the snap of his hip bone. The feeling of his organs escaping to his chest from being pushed up was the worst possible feeling Gundham could feel. It was as if he were to vomit but his entire body was to spill from his fangs.

The ball rolled close. In the fog now growing in his eyes, a line stood out. A seam.

The seam.

Gundham took every last power he had to strike the beast’s heart.

The skeleton key hit the seam.

He knew more force was needed. Strikes were not enough.

Gundham pressed the key into the seam. It hurt. It screamed at his arm.

With two hands, he pushed the key harder into the seam. Skin from his palm felt warm. His skin started to tear from the palm.

The last of his strength pushed and pushed and pushed. Gundham screamed a belt of defiance. He could not hear his bones cracking.

Then, suddenly, the pressure ceased. Before his liver could be popped, the ball exploded into a thousand shards.

Peace, for just a second.

Diamonds.

The lights above made the fragments glisten so vivdly.

The cage rippled with shattered glass, dawning the entire sky with stars.

Gundham was sad he would not be murdered in nature.

He would want to see the stars one more time.

Gundham felt sleepy.

He did not process the hamster’s paws.

Hajime watched Gundham stumble around on top of them.

The room to witness the execution was set directly in the scene itself.

The group with them at the time was a weird group. Fuyuhiko and Chiaki were silent, standing and gritting their teeth. Sonia was sobbing while Kazuichi was yelping in every small worry. Nagito… was right up at the steel grates, gripping the grates and laughing. He cheered, acting as if he were watching a game. We weren’t sure if Gundham could hear us that well. The robotic hamsters moving were causing a lot of noise, shaking most of the contraption.

It hurt Hajime to know that Gundham was fighting for a lost promise. As Gundham ran around, Monokuma presented to Hajime and the others a handful of disfigured pink flesh still oozing blood, some muscles misfiring. Sonia screamed once Monokuma referred to it as Gundham’s certain ‘devas’. Hajime had to keep his breathing in check because he would have either bashed in Monokuma’s robotic head or just sobbed. It was obvious that Monokuma was a monster, but to kill the things that a dying man fought for was the worst thing someone could do.

When Gundham wielded the key, it all went downhill from there. He jumped, scrambling for a fight. Then him passing out momentarily. Then the push back for his life.

There was a silence as we all watched the ball roll closer and closer to Gundham.

Come on… Gundham… you could move.

He was so close.

He yelled a defiant roar.

And then it started.

The group scattered as blood spat from the ceiling. His feet were crushed.

Gundham screamed so loud.

Horror froze us as we watched his feet squeeze through the grates.

How… could Hajime explain what grated human flesh looked like? Most of it was blood. Strings of deep pink hung down, dripping and still twitching. Bone fragments exploded and shot down. Some flesh was still trapped in the leather of his boots, stuck to the roof, only soaked and dripping pink blood.

Sonia screamed.

Nagito went into hysterics.

Chiaki vomited.

And Hajime watched.

A canopy of pink flesh dangled from the ceiling, clumped and bones surfacing. Some meat swung, some meat fell, but most fell in uniform strips. At some point, some intestines must have burst, because a green, hissing acid splat across the floor, reeking an awful stench.

Hajime clasped his nose, coughing as Kazuichi was next to vomit. The smells were making him disoriented. Good Christ, it was awful.

There was a clank.

No more followed, but there was a low hum of pain.

With a horrifying determination, Gundham screeched. And, all of a sudden, a shatter exploded above them.

Hajime glanced up. The glass ball burst into thousands of gems.

Hajime shielded his eyes, the glass clinking against the floor. He still felt a couple of shards nick his arms. He instinctively shut his eyes and kept them closed.

A crack was soon to follow.

Splats of meat hit the ground. Hot liquids splattered everyone’s faces.

Iron and a foreign taste stung Hajime’s tongue.

He didn’t want to open his eyes.

Hajime felt tears prick as he fell backward. Don’t open your eyes, don’t open your eyes.

The silence scared Hajime.

Heavy breaths circled the room.

Nagito gave an airy chuckle, “The headless horseman rides to heaven, I suppose… Pffthehe..”

Hajime sobbed.

Chapter Text

GAME OVER!

K1-B0 has been found guilty. Time for the punishment!

Whiplash slammed Kiibo’s head against the back of his chair. He had just shot up from the ground, all limbs bolted down to the table with two-inch-wide bolts. Usually, others could assume that robots could handle bolts, but Kiibo was no ordinary robot. He still had pain receptors! It hurt!!! It hurt… a lot. His fingers tingled with malfunctions, feet, and hands going stiff from the battery fluids leaking from the metal screws in his joints. Despite smelling it when he had to do repairs, battery acid still stung his nasal sensors. Trying to move just grated at his already twitching and impaired limbs.

He looked up. In the back of the large room Kiibo was in laid a massive computer. Monitors decorated the room, all streaming lines and lines of code. Whirring stirred the room as keyboards were furiously being typed. Monokubs were adjusting glasses, scribbling notes, and pointing at the screens. Wires hung from the ceiling and a massive cord coiled through the floor, at least four inches in diameter and fifty feet in length. … Kiibo was confused. Yes, he was a robot and computers was his specialty, but he couldn’t fathom what computers could do for his demise.

… It hurt to be in the room that many other criminals had died in. He was no criminal. Kiibo was protecting everyone. If he didn’t kill him, many more would have been killed. His eyes stung with an overstimulated current, blue oil curling in his steel eyes. His eyebrows knitted, looking down. Perhaps… Kiibo deserved it. Murder was a crime deserving of punishment. He grit his steel teeth.

Suddenly, his head shook violently. Kiibo’s attention shot up. Within an instant, he knew what was going on. When he wasn’t paying attention, his head must have been locked into a port, a massive wire bolted to the back of his head. The weight of the cord pulled his head back, making him strain to pull down. By weight, Kiibo assumed it was the massive, snaking cord that filled the room. He screwed his eyes shut. His skull tingled with pain currents and leaking oil brimmed in the corners of his eyes. The stress to his head was constant, now that it was obvious. His fingers curled from short circuits. Kiibo prayed the execution finished faster.

Monokuma giggled. The familiar monochrome bear had walked around Kiibo to meet face to face with him. Putting one and two together, Kiibo assumed that Monokuma was the one who tripped on the cord.

Monokuma tapped his claws against a file, “I seeeeee!! It appears… We have some errors in this system. Our cliiiiiient want’s it back in ONE piece!! … MONOSUKE! Let us run diagnostic A!!”

Confusion quickly was drowned by dread. Kiibo gripped the chair handles in anticipation.

Monosuke nodded and flicked a switch.

Kiibo instantly tensed.

An electrocuting agony scattered from the back of his head, exploding through the entirety of his body. Kiibo screamed. Electricity seared the ends of his metal skin while his joints furiously jolted. Every part of his body shook; yet, he couldn’t rip from the chair. Already burning oil seared his steel skeleton as he tried to tear limbs from its spot. His main circuits could only spit out strings of code into his head in shock, fuzzy white stinging shivering between his metal plates. Waves and waves of stiff agony swept over his nerves, cracking at his nervous system. It felt like his entire body was burning from the inside. Kiibo couldn’t stop screaming.

Just before he thought he couldn’t take anymore, all his hydraulic joints relaxed. Every small symptom stopped and his synthetic skin instantly felt cold. Kiibo was shaking, trying to catch up with his erratic mechanical heartbeat. His eyes rolled to the back of his head as blaring red warnings rung inside of his head. His mouth felt numb, his tongue’s nerves completely burned. Kiibo wanted to say he hung his head, but his head simply laid back, the cord pulling him back. Oily tears had broke and started to travel down the crevises of the black grooves in his face.

Monokuma huffed. Kiibo’s vision had gone black, so he could not see the face of disgust on the bear. Kiibo couldn’t bring himself to feel irritated.

The bear said, “Goodness, these results are just not enough… Are you SURE you ran diagnostic A correctly?”

The nasal voice of Monosuke retorted, “Y-Yes! I most certainly did… It looks like Subject K is not aligning with the suggested programming.”

A twitch surfaced in Kiibo’s hand. Kiibo found himself saying, “Don’t c-call me Subject K. My name is K-Kiibo.”

Silence followed his words. He couldn’t see, but he could feel the bear’s glares.

Monokuma gave his grumbled huff, “It seems like our subject has a sentience bug. That calls for diagnostic C. MONOPHANIE!”

Kiibo braced himself.

This time, the feeling wasn’t in waves. It was much sharper. It was hard to explain, but it was as if a thousand needles shot through his head and gored his body, repeatedly stabbing until his body felt shredded. Electric blades shot through his eye displays, sparks popping and leaking from his circuits. His arms exploded in white, searing agony, his whole body instantly and painfully going stiff. Vibrations shook every nerve wire and sent the worst possible pain straight to his head. It was… so so so so painful.

The pain instantly ceased. Kiibo’s frozen stare looked across the room. Vision faded into a cloud, just enough to see that Monophanie had pushed a switch back down. But… for just a second. She snapped it back up, the electricity exploding in him again. It happened a couple of times in a row, circuitry relapses hitting him for several seconds at a time. Kiibo could feel wield-work going undone in his head. Even when it— No… fuck the technical terms. The pain s̸h̴r̴e̸d̶d̵e̸d̸ his body, b̶l̴o̸o̶d̵ inside him popping and m̴u̴s̷c̵l̶e̶s̴ ̶c̴o̷n̶t̴r̵a̵c̷t̶i̶n̶g̶. The smell of b̷u̶r̵n̴i̴n̵g̸ ̵f̴l̶e̶s̴h̴ haunted his nose, his skin s̶e̵e̴m̴i̷n̸g̴l̷y̸ ̷o̵n̴ ̵f̸i̷r̴e̸.̶ He could barely t̴a̵k̸e̶ ̵i̷t̴ ̸a̵n̴y̷m̶o̵r̴e̷.̷ I̶t̸ ̶h̴u̶r̶t̶.̴ I̵t̶ ̷H̶U̴R̸T̴.̶

I̷T̶ ̶H̵U̵R̵T̷,̸ I̵͖͋T̵͓͂ ̷͔͌Ḩ̷̓Ǘ̵̯R̵͖͘T̵̮̏,̴̗̈, İ̶͕̞̄T̷̺̋̈́͠ ̶̣͌́́̅̉H̷̢̠͌̌̈͠U̸͉͓͖͔̳̪̮̱̪̿̐͐̃̑̊̕R̸̡̛̝̮͂͋͂͊̕͠T̵̙̙̜̈̀̔̍͌,̴̬͇̙͙̘͈̗̿ͅ!!!!!!

A flick of one switch resulted in a malfunction. Wires failed to transmit necessary data and messages sparked on singed edges. A blue spark kindled in his h̶e̸a̸r̵t̶. Flames took over and b̷u̷r̸n̴e̶d̵ everything. His chest exploded with heat, plates instantly starting to sear with blistering temperatures. Actuators crawled to a stop and cables turned to fuses. Kiibo felt his p̵u̴l̴s̷a̶t̷i̵n̵g̷ e̶y̷e̷s̴ roll back in his head.

His entire body went limp. His n̶e̵r̶v̸e̵s̵ were burnt off, so G̷o̴d̸ ̷b̴l̴e̶s̶s̵ he couldn’t feel the tickling singeing in his s̴k̷i̷n̴. Vision was hazy, focus constantly attempting to adjust itself. Kiibo’s e̴y̷e̴s̴ were red from alarms. Numbness gnawed at his d̷r̷i̶f̵t̴i̵n̸g̷ ̴s̵e̸n̸s̴e̵s̸. Smoke curled from his t̴e̷e̷t̸h̸. The ground was ground up into pixels, his vision crystalizing into shards.

A blocky black and white figure leaned in, “Diiiiid it work???”

Kiibo opened his mouth. A single tone strung into the air.

Monokuma hummed, “K1-B0! STATE! Your name!”

Without moving his lips, Kiibo’s voice box played, “U̵n̷a̸b̴l̸e̸ ̸t̶o̷ ̷c̸o̴n̷t̸i̷n̶u̷e̵ ̸o̵p̷e̸r̸a̷t̷i̵o̶n̴s̸.̸ ̵P̵l̸e̵a̵s̷e̶ ̴c̶o̴n̷t̸a̷c̴t̴ ̴t̴h̴e̴ ̶K̷1̶-̴B̸0̶ ̶m̴a̸n̴u̴f̷a̵c̷t̷u̶r̵e̸r̷ ̶f̷o̶r̶ ̸f̸u̶r̶t̵h̵e̷r̶ ̷a̷s̶s̴i̸s̷t̴a̷n̶c̶e̴.̴”

Kiibo felt his h̸e̵a̶r̸t̶ twitch.

“Dawwww,” Monokuma groaned, “Looks like we went tooooo far.”

Pause let Monokuma sigh. Moments passed. Kiibo felt his s̴o̴u̷l̸ ̴f̷o̴l̸l̴o̵w̸ the flat tone that fell from his mouth.

“Well, I suppooooose we gotta toss it. BUMMER!”

Toss…

Toss it? Toss him?

Clasps released around him. The massive cord locked into his head instantly became loose, his head falling forward. Small paws struggled to unscrew bolts from his arms, g̴h̷o̷s̸t̴ ̴p̸a̷i̶n̸ ̶t̴r̴i̴c̴k̶l̵i̵n̴g̷ ̵t̵h̷r̶o̷u̵g̸h̷ ̵h̶i̸s̶ ̸a̴r̴m̶s̴ with each unsuccessful pull. He stared at the ground, feeling dizzy. He was to be… tossed? Tossed as in… thrown away? He was to be thrown away like trash?

His body finally was detached from the chair, his g̵o̷r̸e̸d̸ ̴l̷i̸m̷b̶s̴ freed. One of the kubs leaned down and grabbed his leg. Kiibo glanced down.

One of the kubs twisted his leg clean off.

N̴e̴r̷v̵e̶s̵ in his legs had not been burnt yet.

Kiibo could not scream. His entire mouth was frozen. T̵e̷a̶r̶s̵ formed in her eyes, his s̵t̸u̸m̵p̷ ̵o̴f̴ ̸a̸ ̶l̵e̷g̵ twitching and p̵o̶u̴r̸i̸n̴g̴ ̵b̵l̴o̶o̴d̵. Blue flames still burned behind his faceplates.

Within several seconds his body was torn into pieces, kubs taking legs, arms, hands, and parts of his waist. Monokuma himself torn his head off. Noises of discomfort filtered through his e̶a̶r̵d̵r̶u̴m̸s̷, as he could see his limbs melt into blue flames. Kiibo’s plastic hair stabbed Monokuma’s metal fur, the noises of shuffling and sparks echoing through the room. He couldn’t see, as oil started to spill through his eyes, possibly leaving a trail behind him. Oil dripped from his mouth.

Tossed away…

He would not have known he was in a pile of trash if his eyes hadn’t cleared up. Kiibo’s detached head stared from inside the pile of trash. He had no idea where he was outside of the piles of cords, plastic, and bolts. Everything around him started to catch fire, blue flames eating the landscape. Monokuma’s face was barely visible from beyond the plentiful wasteland. There was a blurry image behind him, but he couldn’t see through now growing flames. He thought he could hear faint cries. Everything was hot. Everything was blue.

A thump snapped in one of his ears. Robot eyes slid over to the noise.

To his horror, his body slumped over with a crack.

Korekiyo’s eyes were still bleeding from when he first died.

His neck was snapped and twisted eerily perpendicular to his body. His mask was still ripped off, and Kiibo couldn’t tell where the blood and lipstick started or ended. His hair caught fire and his entire face was framed by burning flames.

Kiibo’s pupils dilated. He couldn’t stop staring.

Kiibo felt teeth shake against each other.

He didn’t blink. His non-existent throat crushed suddenly.

Kiibo’s silent tone erupted into a scream.

Most of the crowd had their heads turned, looking away from the horror scene. Shuichi himself had his head in his hands, tears already smearing his face. He could hear Miu crying, Himiko coughing up tears, Tsumugi muffling sobs, and Gonta wailing. Kiibo meant a lot to everyone. To see him… to see him murdered just for saving the whole group from such a dangerous man was… It was unbearable.

Out of everyone to be affected, Kaede was a mess. She was against the gate mesh, hands failing to hold onto its holes. Her legs were crumbling her as tears feverishly poured from her eyes, sobs choking her. Kaede knew Kiibo on a personal level; they planned out several escape plans, always ate breakfast and dinner together, as well as talking about their life outside the dome. When Kiibo was torn out of her grasp into an execution, she was more than heartbroken. Every tear she shed possibly burned her cheeks.

Himiko suddenly screamed. Whipping Shuichi’s head to her, she stared dead ahead, tripping several steps back. When looking at the scene, it became apparent. The mangled corpse of Korekiyo Shinguuji was being dragged through the execution floor. By several paws, he was thrown into the same dumpster that Kiibo’s dismembered body laid. Soft sobbing only filled the room as everyone watched the two corpses in the dumpster.

Was… Was that it? Was Kiibo finally dead? After all of that awful screaming?

An electronic huff was heard.

Then an earsplitting jumble of tones screamed through the floor.

Everyone cupped their ears, curling up to shield their hearing. Kiibo’s screams of help were so, so loud. His voice box was so far gone; voice turned straight into garbled radio static, all fighting for the worst note to project. It hurt Shuichi’s heart so much to hear it. He could even see Kaede, in the corner of his vision, helplessly press her hands against the mesh to aid Kiibo.

Shuichi continued to cry as Kiibo screamed more and more.

A loud whir revved up, humming as mechanical parts started to crank. Shuichi looked up to the source.

His heart crushed.

A massive, clawed ceiling started to descend, planning to crush the trash into shreds for the garbage truck.

Shuichi didn’t know what kept him staring. Perhaps it was curiosity or most likely fear. Or, perhaps, it was the focus he needed not to go into a panic.

All that he knew was that the ceiling only drew closer to Kiibo.

Despite the raging flames, Shuichi could see the gore behind the flaming trash. Korekiyo’s legs, broken and limp on top of a trash hill, were first to pop. Blood gushed and soaked the indistinguishable garbage below it. White bone was visible but not a focal point, as soon after, some of Kiibo’s arms started to loudly screech against metal. Bolts flew, most bouncing off the iron mesh, but some parts embedding themselves into arms. As the group yelped, Kiibo still screamed.

Shuichi wished he didn’t have to see Korekiyo’s head squish. He wished he didn’t have to see his skull snap and a confusing mess of pink and purple chunks spit from his eyes. Kiibo stopped screaming for just a second. Perhaps he saw the same thing Shuichi saw. Perhaps, even for a robot, the wind was punched out of him.

Because his head immediately made an awful screeching noise, metal bending, and sparks exploding into a firework show.

If the blue flames were not enough, the fire had then raged into a blaze.

Shuichi watched as the teeth of the garbage truck hissed flames, chewing on its feast.

Shuichi passed out.

Chapter Text

GAME OVER!

Gonta has been found guilty. Time for punishment!

Gonta couldn’t stop sobbing.

Gonta did a horrible thing. Gonta killed Miu. Gonta swore he would never hurt anyone, let alone kill.

Gonta would never forgive himself.

Gonta deserved his punishment.

Through teary eyes, Gonta watched him grip his hands together. But, if all those executions had one thing in common, it had the culprit’s favorite things. Ryoma had tennis. Himiko had magic. Gonta was going to have bugs… The only thing in the world that made Gonta more at peace was bugs.

Gonta sobbed harder thinking about his bugs. He never said goodbye to them.

Rumbling shook the entire room. He didn’t bother to raise his head. Yet, his legs and chest started to vibrate. Gonta forced himself to look up. Horror dilated his eyes.

Monokuma loomed above him, a monstrously massive figure staring straight down at him. Monokuma was always scary, he knew that. But, Gonta didn’t know that Monokuma could make his head look directly up and make his blood freeze. Monokuma’s monstrous paws descended into the scene. Fear instantly snapped Gonta into focusing as he inched backward. With a weak whimper, Gonta spun around, sprinting in the opposite direction. He tried to force himself to accept his demise, but the claws of hell made his legs jolt with adrenaline.

Gonta slammed his head hard against the cold floor, the nasty noise of his nose cracking shivered his skin. Monokuma’s massive paw had grabbed his leg and started to pull back. Gonta yelped, clawing at the smooth marble floor, blood trailing and the glasses from his now destroyed frames. The pain of glass in his face didn’t register until he started to squirm for ground.

All of a sudden, he was lifted off the ground, his entire weight being strung up from his one leg. Gonta coughed as he tried to scream, equilibrium in his body instantly going off balance. His eyebrows furrowed, grimacing against the intense strain in his leg. As he rose from the ground, each second felt like hell on said leg. Muscles were stretched to their extremes, threatening to tear at any second. Gonta started to yell, spitting random pleads of help and pain.

He closed his eyes, gripping the strap to his bug carrier. It hurt. It hurt much worse than any sting or punch he’s felt. Gonta’s parents and their violent disappointments felt tame in comparison to the splitting torture that shattered his leg. Gonta whimpered. It hurt so bad. The blood rushing to his head made his eyes roll back. The pain his leg burned until-

Gonta fell.

He instantly fell into another paw, cupping his fall. Gonta struggled to breathe as the wind was knocked out of him.

His fingers shook as it tried to hold the metal of Monokuma’s paw. Tears instantly started to pour again as his leg twitched. Gonta’s eyes curled to the back of his head as he dipped his head. Seconds before passing out, Monokuma yanked his head back up by his hair, making Gonta gasp in pain.

“Don’t pass out on me!!!” Monokuma’s daunting, deep voice echoed, “I haven’t displayed you yet…”

Gonta’s vision crystalized as tears poured down his stinging cheek.

He couldn’t feel his leg anymore. His body had to take those couple seconds to process the pain, but after a couple of moments, Gonta shrieked. His body had exploded in agony, blood pooling around his severed leg. He couldn’t hear Monokuma as he nearly tore his vocal cords.

He kept rising, heaving for air and grasping for balance. After a moment, Gonta was picked up from the waist, raised, and placed against a wall. Gonta stared dead ahead, breathing hard as his head hit a corkboard behind him. Gonta coughed and tried to breathe, sniffling out tears. Gonta could not see well; his glasses were shattered back on the floor, and Gonta almost preferred he couldn’t see. Worse yet, the wall was blindingly bright, lights in corners illuminating his every detail. The blurry pink mess that should have been his leg made streaks of blood down the corkboard still made him sick. Just looking made him feel lightheaded.

Yet, looking at that leg… Gonta deserved every drop of blood that dripped from him. Killing Miu was something he could never take back. Gonta felt his cries seep from his throat again.

Gonta instantly spat blood.

His entire stomach was crushed.

Blurry eyes focused on his lower body.

Monokuma had pinned his body to the board, stabbing a minuten large pin straight through his stomach.

Before he could process it, his arm yanked up, Monokuma then sharply pinning it to the board.

Gonta’s eyes watched all of his limbs be pinned, one by one, a glaze pouring over his body. It felt painless. He suddenly couldn’t feel the pain. Gonta figured it hurt too much to process. A burn was tangible, though, as his whole body was dangling from just a handful of pins. It was difficult to move, as every joint in his body was perched against minuten pins, leaving him frozen and painted in plum blood. For someone who had their stomach punctured, Gonta felt like he was going to hurl anything that was left of it.

Claws stopped picking at his clothes and Monokuma stepped back. Blood started to drip from Gonta’s mouth. He could still hear Monokuma’s laughs.

“Well, it seems my collection is fit for now. Goodniiiiiiight little bugs!”

A massive door clicked shut.

Gonta couldn’t see well but when looking straight forward, his reflection was visible, thanks to the light. A glass door.

In the reflection, Gonta saw the explosion of pink that was his severed leg. Where should be a deep purple was another object. He couldn’t even distinguish it, but if Monokuma had attempted to pin his leg back, he wouldn’t have been surprised.

A figure caught his attention. In the reflection, something was to his left. It looked eerily like him.

Gonta cranked his head to look over.

Gonta’s whole body went cold.

Her pink hair draped over her shoulders, decomposing limbs starting to slip from its pins. Her eyes were still wide and lifeless.

Miu was displayed just like him.

A maggot crawled out of her teeth.

Gonta screamed.

He jerked against the pins and then his screams peaked into shrills.

Every pin at once exploded into agony, tearing his entire body into ripples of pain. Gonta kept screaming while his limbs trembled in shock, nerves exploding at the seams. Shrills soon evolved into cries of help. Gonta could not decipher what words spilled from his mouth, but whatever they said was making his lungs cripple in pain.

Gonta screamed and screamed. Limbs couldn’t stop shaking, trying to curl in pain but moving only tore skin. Tears were already pouring, the skin around his eyes stinging from the fountains of tears it’s endured.

Gonta soon found himself out of tears. Dry crying, Gonta tried to heave for air, eyebrows still knit tightly into sorrow. He hated how he started to slump against the pins, succumbing to Monokuma’s cruel punishment.

His eyes shut. His head hung as he hiccuped breaths. Gonta wished the pain could stop. He knew he deserved it all, but… It still hurt. It still burned his fingers. It crawled at every nerve in his body. With every small twitch on his skin, nerves stung his brain. His fingers felt numb.

Gonta found his eyes fluttering open. The ground was still far from his feet. His toes were dripping pink blood.

Something fluttered past his vision.

Gonta’s pupils waxed.

Looking up, Gonta found a butterfly. A singular, fluttering bug dancing in front of him.

Gonta’s mouth parted into a small smile.

A butterfly… He missed seeing butterflies. He hadn’t seen one since he showed up at Hope’s Peak.

The wings of a butterfly were always pretty. The small white wings of the Pieris rapae fluttered so delicately. Gonta watched the small bug flutter to his fingertips.

His finger tried to move. Pins had stopped every small joint move, but tearing through skin, Gonta could curl his finger to the small bug.

The butterfly landed on his finger. Gonta watched as the butterfly stayed perfectly still, the tiniest of legs effortlessly perched on his body.

Gonta sniffed as his eyes started to burn.

Despite his glasses being torn from his face, he could still see the butterfly’s delicate movements.

Gonta looked to his hand again.

Small bumps were now obvious. They were red, somewhat large, but nothing he hadn’t seen before.

A fly buzzed by his opposite ear. Gonta turned his head, watching a handful of flies buzz around him. Catching his attention, he noticed some other bugs were landing on his body, skittering across bare skin.

The buzz around… Miu’s body had started to fade back into his ears. Glancing over, swarms of bugs were chattering around her, small legs crawling over her arms and legs, and some bugs digging into her open mouth and walking across her open eyes. Holes in her skin oozed with liquids, some puss trailing down her side. There was such a collection around her abdomen that Gonta nearly mistook it for a piece of clothing. Her stomach had an eerie dent. The smell of rot started to rise in Gonta’s nose, after dripping snot from his sobs.

Along the lit corkboard behind them, Dorylus ants skittered through holes and traveled towards Gonta. His face started to feel prickly. Gonta could feel small feet touch his lips. He could even feel an Oestridae flutter close to his legs.

Gonta’s head rested against the corkboard. His eyes closed and his smile brightened. The thought of death was a quiet buzz in the back of his head as bugs filled his senses. Bugs were back. Bugs came back to bless him. Gonta couldn’t have asked for anything else better.

Gonta chose bliss. Gonta chose ignorance.

Gonta giggled.

It must have lasted a full day.

After one hour, Gonta started to look tired, laughing and looking at his bugs. To Shuichi, seeing Gonta’s entire arch of emotions scared him. Gonta always laughed and smiled, trying his best to meet the needs of everyone with a massive smile. Gonta screaming for his life was something that grated at his ears. He was sure it was the same for everyone else; hearing his voice snap and turn to hoarse whimpers for help churned everyone’s guts.

By hour four, Gonta started to daze off, but still conscious enough to look around. Miu was nearly falling off of her pins. A decomposing body looked horrendous. They were lucky to not smell the scene, as the victims were behind glass, but it did not save them from the well-lit gore show. Gonta’s leg was crudely pushed back into position, some attempts to stop the bleeding put into place. But… It was the start for the most disgusting part of the whole scene.

Gonta loved bugs, all of the onlookers knew that much. Gonta loved bugs to an absolute extreme. It was sick that Monokuma decided to have Gonta killed by his most comforting creatures.

Ants were nibbling at his skin. Shuichi saw some flies burying small eggs into Gonta’s legs, skin beetles traveling across his face. Bugs too small to distinguish started to crawl from the gored flesh of his leg. A whole school of flies and insects crawled around the exposed flesh, battling for whatever ounce of blood they could reach for. Small maggots wiggled from pores.

Shuichi watched, around halfway through hour four, Gonta had started to cry again. He had noticed that underneath him, his bugs were eating him. He mumbled small pleads for them to stop, but they did nothing but nibble. Gonta must have been very conflicted; he was being eaten alive by creatures he adored. He quietly cried and sniffled.

Hour six, Gonta had finally fallen asleep. His eyelids slowly dropped, sealed closed with tears as his head dipped. Lice ate away at this scalp and mosquitos struggled to fly from their full stomachs. At that point, Shuichi had to start facing away, turning to the others in disgust. Once he noticed that worms started to pop puss-filled holes from his skin, Shuichi felt stomach acid bubble in his throat.

The audience was varied. Kirumi and Rantaro were disgusted; tears forming in their eyes and trying to shield themselves, despite the real shame being displayed for everyone to watch. Kaede, similar to Shuichi himself, was on the verge of tears. She was gripping her skirt hem, trying to breathe calmly, but choked on her breath in sorrow. Eventually, she turned to a corner and sat to rest her feet. He could tell that she was sobbing.

Angie was praying. Of course, she was praying. Small words to Atua trailed from her lips, hovering in the air as she had her eyes closed. Despite the burn that must have been on fire within her legs, she continued to stand. There was a point the students thought it repetitive and possibly annoying, but the white noise of her prayers gave them something to hold onto when there was nothing but silence and the buzz of bugs. Next to her was Korekiyo. He was staring at the scene. Korekiyo was known as a creepy character, unphased by executions and very mellow in his speech. At some points, he did pace and fiddle with his small charm and even trailed a finger around the bandages on his hand. But, he did stare. His eyes had no particular emotion. … Shuichi supposed that Gonta was a very fascinating human being in nature. For someone of anthropology, losing a man like Gonta would be sad.

Kokichi was someone they all tried to ignore.

Kokichi was sitting in front of everyone else, childishly cross-legged, and tapping his hands together. Shuichi never really cared for Kokichi. He was always so miserably hard to read. As someone who lied a lot, Kokichi was a man who could never be genuine in his words. Kokichi laughing and smiling while watching the kindest man of the school rot away on nails.

At some point, Rantaro tried to tell him to cut it out, but Kokichi shrugged it off and called the execution ‘boring’. He tried to annoy other people watching, poking at arms and jumping up to get into their eye line. Everyone pushed him away or gave him the silent treatment, obviously disgusted by how he acted. Kokichi tried crying to get attention. Shuichi gripped his fist to disperse his nerves, every part of his body wanting nothing but to choke him out for trying to bring attention to his childish act.

After many attempts for reactions, Kokichi yawned and curled into a nap near the back. The most peculiar noise strained from Kokichi as he fell into sleep. Kokichi whimpered. As his small hands were curled in his scarf, sniffling melting into the air with Angie’s small prayers.

They all stared at him. Attention from Gonta was torn for just a couple of minutes as Kokichi started to weep in his sleep.

Kokichi, despite being cruel towards him, followed Gonta. He acted as if Gonta was his mini bodyguard and talked to him a lot. If anyone knew Gonta well, it would have been Kokichi.

… Shuichi supposed that even men like Kokichi still grieved deep within those locked hearts.

Shuichi dragged his eyes back to Gonta. Miu’s body, at that point, had already fallen. Only fabric and pieces of grotesque red and black flesh dripping from remaining pins were left on her side of the corkboard. Her body, now a pile of broken limbs and a horrifically snapped neck, was struggling to keep the flesh on her bones. Dripping red flesh sagged on her body, some white bone starting to shine on elbows and her skull. Swarms and swarms of bugs crowded her body for a feast, bugs battling and crawling over each other just to eat from her body. Her eyes were already sucked dry, leaving holes for eyes in her skull. It was getting hard to defer where her skin was under all the bugs. If it was not known the corpse was Miu, no one could have identified her.

… Gonta was still asleep.

Bugs were still around his body. Shuichi now could not tell if his face was truly that red, or if it was all the bug bites that filled his face.

He was still being eaten alive. By their now approaching hour ten, his body was completely relaxed and just barely starting to slip from pins. Bugs were on every inch of his skin, trying to bite at anything they could grab a hold of.

Because of his initial struggle, blood was smeared all behind him. Ants scurried to the blood, trying to grab anything from the now dried blood. Collections of ants and mosquitos filled the space next to Gonta’s sides, some bugs also walking around his head.

Gonta’s arms were still pinned outstreched.

Fake butterfly wings dotted themselves around him.

A butterfly fluttered around the scene. Just one, lone white butterfly. It watched the execution with patience. It circled above Gonta, slowly descending onto his body. With delicacy, the butterfly gently landed on his head.

Its wings still fluttered.

Gonta could not move.

The wings fluttered.

And Gonta kept sleeping.

Shuichi watched as the angel desperately tried to bring Gonta back home.

Shuichi’s legs failed him. With a thump, Shuichi fell to his knees and sobbed.

Most of them were asleep by the time the massive Monokuma came back. Shuichi couldn’t sleep, though. He was still staring at Gonta. By that point, Gonta was nothing but puss and a dripping disgust.

The door opened. Monokuma raised a fly swatter.

Gonta exploded.

Shades of pink and white sprayed the entire wall. Clumps flew. Limbs popped off. Bones fell. Meat gushed between the swatter’s grates.

Shuichi felt himself crying again.

Monokuma didn’t stop swatting him.

By the time he lowered the swatter, Gonta was red puss on the ground. Not a shred of the pile was reminiscent of the man they knew.

Shuichi cried harder.

And, with a sweep, Gonta’s pile of a corpse disappeared with a sweep of a napkin.

Chapter Text

GAME OVER!

Teruteru has been found guilty. Time for the punishment!

The ground rattled vigorously. Teruteru’s head laid against a cold metal plate, his tears freezing his cheek. Arms and legs were tightly tied behind him, his body tied up similar to a trussed turkey. The kitchen twine dug into his wrists, despite the clothes he wore underneath trying to protect his skin. Dare he say that the clothes weren’t helping; the feeling of fabric scratching inside of his skin was horrid, blood instantly being soaked by his white buttoned coat.

Teruteru certainly didn’t want to die. He did what was… It was surely something deserving of death. Murder was something that he would never imagine himself committing. Something his mama certainly wouldn’t be proud of. But, he did try to kill someone else that was more dangerous. Someone ruthless and terrifying. Teruteru shivered at the thought that he was still alive.

Tears choked his throat again. No… He could get through it. Death was something everyone must face at some point. His mama did… He had no idea his mama was dead until that damn bastard Monokuma told him. That was the one thing that kept him going and he ripped it straight from him.

Teruteru’s voice hitched the instant he was reminded of the fact he would be reunited with her.

The rattling stopped. After a moment’s pause, the entire dome-like ceiling turned into a blinding white. Teruteru winced, wiggling around in an attempt to shield his eyes. The world exploded with voices; there was chatter, footsteps, metal scratching, coughs, shuffling, and small crackling noises. His head started to burn, already numb with the furious crying he had done against the metal plate.

Through snot, Teruteru smelled the air. Delicious smells suddenly filled his nose. Roasted fondue, grilled chicken, toasted bread. The whole air was filled with the sounds of scents. Within just one sniff… Teruteru knew he was in a prestigious kitchen.

Massive paws grabbed both of his sides. He jumped, yelping as he lifted off the ground. The large beans of the paws pushed against his skin, making him shiver. The paws were cold; to be precise, a cold metal. Teruteru flicked his eyes up to be greeted with Monokuma’s grinning face. Teruteru nearly screamed with surprise, his body flailing.

It was hard to process free falling until his face had already smashed against a rough cutting board. The warmth of blood traveled through his nose and spat out once Teruteru breathed for air. It didn’t help that his arms were still tied down. All he could do was stare at the board and taste chicken that used to be on the cutting board, mixed with the thick iron from his nose.

His body was turned around and he looked straight up into the eyes of Monokuma. He was a little ashamed at himself that he screamed. The bear’s paw instantly kept him still, holding Teruteru’s shaking body as he squirmed for his life. Every small nerve on his skin jumped, scrambling for something on the rough board. Only a paw to his neck pinned him down. Air was punched out of him, his eyes tearing up from the impact. Teruteru weaseled out breaths, coughing hard and gasping for air. Blood was trickling from his mouth.

“AAAAAATTENTIOOOOON!!!!”

Most noises in the kitchen fell silent, only leaving a faint sizzling ambiance. Teruteru blinked. Monokuma had just boasted those words, but it was not the bear that had his neck pinned down. Were there… Were there more Monokumas?

“MY DISCIPLES!!! You are here today to LEARN! How to COOK!!! TODAY, we will learn how to ROAST a TURKEY!”

“YES SIR!!!” A deafening chorus of Monokuma voices tore through the kitchen. He winced. His damn nose was already bleeding; he didn’t need his ears to bleed too.

“LIFT your TURKEY!”

Teruteru was yanked up. His head instantly throbbed, and his eyes spun for a moment. Two paws still lifted his head, choking him. Through tears that were streaming down his face, he saw the real Monokuma. He was massive. Ironically, if he were to be put to scale, Teruteru would be the size of a turkey compared to Monokuma. Glancing around him, he noticed other bodies held by several other Monokumas.

One was Kazuichi from a murder before. Another was Mahiru. Even Chiaki was lifted, her body still crippled from her execution… Teruteru felt his head throb.

Focus returned to Monokuma. His eyes trailed down to what the main Monokuma was holding.

Eyes froze. The worst shiver shot through his body.

Like a dead duck, Byakuya Togami’s body dangled from Monokuma’s paw. His skin was still as pale as when he died.

Teruteru couldn’t breathe.

He didn’t hear the next command, but he was suddenly only being supported by one paw. The other fumbled behind him, small claws trying to fiddle with twine. Teruteru yelped when claws scratched up his back and nicked at his hands. One by one, twine snapped and loosened. Teruteru, once one arm was free, instantly went to his neck, trying to scratch away at a paw for air. He pushed back. He tried to push it with every small ounce of energy. Once another hand was released, he used both. He pushed and pushed and pushed and pushed-

Teruteru’s gut lept as he started free falling. He was swiftly caught by the massive robotic bear, his face smashed against the metal paw. Teruteru heaved a massive breath. Oxygen graced his lungs again and the cook grasped for any breath he could heave through now streaming blood. Within a couple more moments, his legs were finally released. He went limp, focusing on his breathing more than anything. Monokuma had already cut up Teruteru so much, a warmth soaking his coat.

He still coughed, clutching any ground he could get as his voice started to become hoarse.

“Now, time to KILL your TURKEY!!!”

Teruteru’s eyes widened. He glanced up to see the main Monokuma chef. Fingertips instantly went cold.

…K… Kill…?

Monokuma set down Byakuya’s corpse. He placed a paw on his back, the corpse face down. Monokuma raised a butcher’s knife.

Teruteru’s eyes twinged with tears.

With a swift move, a slam reverberated through the kitchen. Byakuya’s head rolled. It rolled nearly off the cutting board if it weren’t for Monokuma’s catch.

The head was placed back down, his eyes facing outwards towards the students. Byakuya’s eyes met Teruteru’s. They stared. Teruteru couldn’t blink.

Screams couldn’t even escape his mouth until he was put down, his face on the cutting board. He stared at the tinted ground, dark stains from previous victims still there. A moment of silence stirred in his head. …That was it. He was going to die. Right there, his death was going to be chopped off on that very cutting board. Teruteru should have processed that fact earlier. The taste of chicken in his mouth was the last thing he’d ever experience.

…Teruteru wished he could have done more. He wished he could have cooked just one more dish. He wished he could have helped his friends a little more on investigations. He even wished he could have helped his mom one more time.

…Mama’s diner was still there. He was going to work part-time there. His relatives still ran that place, but he was going to inherit that restaurant. He was going to make his mama proud. Tears were soaking the knife grooves below him.

Teruteru stared at the board. He still had that diner. That diner was still in production. And his mama’s name was still on there. … She’d want that diner to live forever. She’d want him to run that place for years. Teruteru should do that.

Teruteru should do that. He HAD to.

Teruteru’s arms tensed. HE HAD TO.

He sprung his arms up instantly, pushing against the board. HE HAS TO!!!

A butcher’s knife slammed down.

He didn’t even know he blacked out until he opened his eyes back up again.

Teruteru’s eyes spun in his head. With blurry vision, he looked down at his body. His clothes were ripped in several places. Pink blood was smeared on him. His body felt lightheaded. He was surprised his head wasn’t off his body. He heard the butcher’s knife slam down. But… It was hard to move. It was… It was impossible to move.

He was not tied down. But, he tried to move his foot. …It didn’t budge. He tried to squirm, but no muscle in his body contracted.

Teruteru suddenly remembered something. It certainly wasn’t that common of a problem, but it could happen. If someone were to strike the back of someone’s head, especially a chicken, a strong enough hit can knock them out. But, if a knife hit hard enough, but not hard enough to decapitate, it could easily destroy nerves. Paralyze to prepare.

If he could feel, Teruteru was certain a large cut had dug straight through his neck and into his spine.

Teruteru’s eyes rolled to the back of his head. He would have closed them if he could move his eyelids.

At least kill him with pride. At least have Teruteru keep his pride of a cook then kill him. Being gutted like a turkey was the worst way he could go. Broil him with his hat, at least.

Teruteru’s body lunged forward, being dragged across the same cutting board. He could see a glistening pink butcher’s knife shine.

If he were to die for a dish, at least have his dish be delicious.

Slams of the butcher knife started to sound routine to the audience.

Hajime was getting sick with each hit and each wet cut it made. Many others had stopped watching long before they started to cut off limbs. Cracks of joints rattled the room, messy noises of tearing and peeling sinking into corners. The execution was trying to portray a cooking class, but it felt horrendous to witness Teruteru being torn apart, his body completely ruined in an attempt to cook it. Watching Monokuma crack off limbs like chicken wings made Hajime’s fingers feel numb. He had no idea why he wasn’t vomiting. Maybe the previous executions had desensitized him so horrifically that seeing someone being prepared for a feast didn’t hurt him anymore.

Everyone around him was torn to shreds. Men were gutting tears and women struggled to stand straight. Mikan had already passed out from crying while Sonia was sobbing hard, gripping Gundham’s jacket. Even people like Peko and Fuyuhiko were hiding silent tears. Hajime felt hollow realizing he was the only one paralyzed in horror and not sobbing. He should have screamed or felt sick when Teruteru was gutted like a fish just to be stuffed to a breaking point of turkey stuffing, but all he felt was a hazy tickle of horror.

It was cruel to make them all wait for an hour as Teruteru’s disfigured corpse cooked in the oven. The smell of iron and cooking flesh stung everyone’s noses. Because of Monokuma’s poor cooking and preparation, Teruteru had to… cook while the other meals were ready. Byakuya was neatly placed on a plate. How they prepared his corpse was horrific.

Byakuya’s headless body was laid down; even regarding his weight, his body was significantly more bloated, due to the stuffing from earlier. His skin was a toasted brown. The smell of charcoal and seared pork, which was becoming apparent that the mix of smells was human flesh, was enough to make some people behind him vomit. The main Monokuma took some gravy and lightly drizzled it over the body. When watching the final touches grace themselves on Byakuya’s corpse, it started to look more and more like a dish than a person.

Ibuki finally broke and started to scream.

She crouched down, cupping her ears and chanting, “STOP IT, STOP IT, STOP IT!!! IBUKI CAN’T TAKE IT!!!”

Hiyoko groaned, gripping at her kimono, “Shut up… Don’t SCREAM LIKE THAT!!”

Ibuki kept screaming and screaming, her voice tearing slowly. Hiyoko’s eyes twitched, her hands jolting.

Suddenly, Hiyoko ran up to her and pushed Ibuki down, spitting a yell, “SHUT THE FUCK UP, YOU WHORE!!!! SHUT UP!!!!!!”

Akane instantly squeezed between the two of them, pushing Hiyoko. Hiyoko shot back and scratched at Akane’s face. Akane hissed in pain but immediately retaliated in punch. Ibuki kept screaming. Nekomaru tried to stop Akane. Peko held Ibuki and tried to stop her screaming. Eventually, Nagito jumped in to hit Akane. Hajime tried to tear him off. Nagito laughed. He laughed and laughed and laughed, grabbing at her hair and tearing long marks down her face.

None of them had attention to the execution. Monokuma had pulled out a large tray, smoke pouring from the oven and an awful burning stench filling the building. Monokuma slammed his hand down, making everyone jump and look back to the scene. Around Monokuma’s fist was a cloud of ash. The smell of charcoal stung the room while Monokuma shamed his subordinate. Eyes stared at the clump, what was left of Teruteru. His head was still there. Teruteru had been reduced to bones. Skeletons are something only seen in fiction or drawings. Seeing a skeleton with Hajime’s own eyes made his skin freeze. Around his now flat stomach was an explosion of burnt stuffing. A slush of bread, eggs, and chicken broth was dripping off the table, steaming, and the same consistency of apple sauce. Limbs were gone, only leaving him his head and his gushing abdomen. Hajime felt his eyes sting.

Teruteru’s eyes were gone, only deep sockets were left in its place. His jaw was open, possibly in a scream. Hajime did not give it much thought until he remembered that Teruteru was limp up until he went into the oven. He was supposed to have something in his mouth, perhaps an apple, but without the garnish, it simply gave the hollow expression of horror.

At that point… Could Hajime even call the body… Teruteru? He was so horrifically disfigured, it didn’t resemble anything.

And, as soon as Hajime caught sight of him, Monokuma took a knife and swiftly brushed his corpse off the table. A trail of brown slurry followed the body until it fell into a trashcan. Eyes stared at the trash. They couldn’t see inside, just the cold outside of the metal bin.

The Monokumas continued as usual. They prepared the headless corpses of Chiaki, Kazuichi, Mahiru, and Byakuya and put them on serving plates.

The audience went quiet once they left.

No one said a word.

But… Faintly, Ibuki sniffled.

And, slowly, as the doors behind them clicked open, Ibuki continued her sobs.

Chapter Text

GAME OVER!

Nagito has been found guilty! Time for the punishment!

Nagito spat a giggle.

He squirmed with excitement as he was firmly bolted to a dartboard. His elbows, knees, feet, and hands were physically bolted down with large screws, pink blood pouring from the edges, but the pain wasn’t that bad anymore. Nagito was hysterical over something else.

Execution. Death. Sometimes sharp and fast, but sometimes long, long, long agony that lasted for days, slowly mellowing out to someone’s demise. Nagito always liked death. Of course, that was why he killed Fuyuhiko. Watching him drain of life was mesmerizing. Like an hourglass. The drip. Drip. Drip of blood. Of course, Nagito loved giving death, but for years and years, he had craved receiving death. He had got close a couple of times. Sadly, things stopped him like the police and even strangers, but nothing stopped him. Even after his cancer diagnosis that tore him apart for months and months, Nagito went from mourning to ecstasy. He had never been happier to have death in his hands in the next couple of years.

But now… he had it right in front of him.

Nagito snickered to himself as he heard Monokuma’s machinery whir. Casino lottery machines spun while electronic music exploded into song. Neon lights flashed around him, a string of lights circling the dartboard he was on. Monokuma truly was going all out for little-old him. Luck. A casino. Oh, how INGENIOUS that small bear was. The dumb grin that Nagito had on his face only widened.

Monokuma stood in front of the audience with a top hat and suit, mindlessly introducing Nagito. He was dressed up for him as well. Just like Teruteru’s execution. And Mahiru’s. To think he would be killed in the same fashion of Teruteru’s massive feast made him quiver with excitement. With a spin, Monokuma turned to face Nagito. His two-toned smile widened with the flick of his paw. A handful of darts appeared between his claws. Nagito snorted. He didn’t know why he was laughing at that point. Everything was funny. Anything was funny.

A crank was audible. Nagito glanced to his side as whirs started to stir. The dartboard moved.

Nagito’s eyes widened. The dumbest grin grew on his face.

Oh… how FANTASTIC!! His death was to be the most majestic blood bath the class of Hope’s Peak Academy was ever going to witness!!!

The dartboard started to slowly rotate, then speeding up to faster and faster speeds. Despite losing breath, Nagito was in hysterics. Dizziness came second to his joy, cackles ringing in his ears. Each spin was funnier and funnier, his humor spiraling into frenzied happiness.

Nagito belted, high on adrenaline, “HIT ME!!! TRY YOUR BEST!!!”

Vvvvsh.

A dart whizzed through the air and hit right next to Nagito’s ear. By centimeters, his ear was just barely grazed, but the exhilaration of the dart almost hitting him made his heart soar. Nagito let out a harder laugh, now starting to heave for air. The air whizzing past him stole his breaths, making it hard to laugh at his demise. He tried to move in his joy but was reminded by the sting of bolts. Nagito only felt the sting of much-needed despair.

He kept laughing as darts whizzed past. Despite his initial euphoria, several did hit his legs. One deep in his knee, another in his bicep, and another one in his abdomen. Several other ones dotted his body but he couldn’t focus on the pain when his joy was exploding from him.

His luck. His impeccable luck was OUTSTANDING enough to keep himself alive!!! None of the darts then had hit his vitals! He wondered how LONG he could LIVE!!!

VvvvvSKK!

A moment’s pause let Nagito process the dart that went straight through one of his eyes.

His laughter got choked into a scream. Nagito couldn’t scream loud, as the wind was stealing away any breaths for air. Oh… Oh fuck, his eye hurt like hell. He felt no blood, but he could feel agony beyond belief melting from his face.

Another slick pain shot into his shin. He gasped again, barely having time to breathe. Groans of pain hissed from his teeth, trying to endure the splitting pain in his leg.

The other shin was struck. Before he could scream for that dart, a lucky, lucky dart hit straight through his groin. Another just barely took off some skin from his neck. He screamed as the incredibly precise wounds gored his body. His mind soon started to go blank, his consciousness fading back and forth. The spinning didn’t help in the slightest.

Nagito huffed coarsely, clenching his teeth together. It was OK. He could withstand the agony if it meant his luck were to help him. Just… his luck was failing him at that moment. He just had to hold out for his luck to kick back in again. But, he supposed his luck was, in a twisted sense, very well, because he had not passed out from the pain after several darts embedded in his body. After the dart to his groin, he thought his entire vision would have gone black.

His vision was spinning as darts kept hitting him. At that point, every dart afterward had hit at least some part of him. His entire body felt warm with blood, even with some iron blood stinging his lips.

Suddenly, he became weightless. Nagito’s gut lept up into his throat, the blurry mess of his vision falling. He bit his tongue to not throw up everywhere, but it was becoming increasingly difficult, due to his dartboard still spinning whilst in mid-air. The board slammed down, Nagito’s body recoiling painfully. His body pushed against his bolts, making the pain excruciatingly worse. Yet, he kept spinning. The dartboard traveled across the ground, his vision dizzyingly circling past. Nagito’s eyes rolled to the back of his head, his head starting to tingle with numbness. Tears were starting to prick in his eyes.

Luckily, before he could pass out, the dartboard stopped.

Trying to open his eyes, Nagito attempted to get his bearings. The world was twisting. He could barely get any sense of security. But, there was a hazy floor.

Nagito coughed up some vomit, to his dismay, and spat out small chunks of his lunch. He tried to look forward. As the ground started to stabilize, he realized what had happened. At some point, the dartboard he was on must have flung off its post, due to the sheer speed, and spun through the fake casino. The board circled a pile of casino tokens on a gambling table and settled, very luckily, in a position against a stack of coins so that Nagito could see a roulette wheel. Despite his horrid condition, he couldn’t stop himself from giggling at the thought of roulette. Oh, Monokuma… He knew him too well.

Nagito heaved for air as he watched the scene around him. He must have been on the roulette table, where tokens were placed on numbers as a bet. Nagito wished he could see what number he was on.

Movement brought his eyes back up to the roulette circle. A massive Monokuma figure stood over the table, grinning his classic smile. He lowered a hand down to the slowly spinning roulette wheel and dropped a ball.

Oh… No, it was not a ball. It was most certainly NOT a ball!!!

All pain momentarily cleared for the blinding light of ecstatic joy. A giggle spit from Nagito. Then, it curled into a laugh. Then, as he watched the decapitated head of Fuyuhiko bump and spin through the circle, Nagito once again exploded in cackles.

OH MONOKUMA!!! How smart, how utterly UTTERLY smart he was!!! To use the head Nagito himself ripped off in part of his execution was BEYOND genius! Despite that, Nagito felt beyond overjoyed to see the head of his victim again. Fuyuhiko’s eyes were still rolled in the back of his head, skin paler than usual. Long scratch marks from Nagito were still visible, faint pink lines across his cheeks and forehead. Even though his head had stopped bleeding long before the head was introduced, each time it hit one of the grooves, his face indented slightly, spitting out just a bit more blood. Nagito found it funny that by the time Fuyuhiko’s head rolled around five times around the circle, blood had started to cover numbers.

His head rolled only a couple more seconds until it slowly started to descend to a number. Fuyuhiko circled the number seven.

Nagito stared. Nagito’s smile started to peak. Cheeks were burning but Nagito could not care less.

A robotic paw slammed in front of him and pulled him away. Nagito howled with laughter again. SEVEN! OH THE LUCKY LUCKY SEVEN!!! OF COURSE, FUYUHIKO HAD LANDED ON THE NUMBER SEVEN!!! AND OF COURSE, HE HIMSELF WAS ON THE SEVEN SPOT!!!

Weightlessness punched his gut as he fell onto a pile of tokens. The wind was knocked out of him; Nagito heaved as he moved with the rest of the tokens. Just then, the fog cleared and all the pain inflicted on him rose into a fierce burn. Nagito grit groans through his teeth, darts and bolts in his body starting to melt with pain, trailing down his limbs and straight to his throbbing head. Clenching his fists, despite the burn it made, helped keep his head mellow as his body bounced to the walk of a massive Monokuma robot. Bubbles of blood popped at the corners of his fist.

Suddenly, his body lifted. Monokuma picked up his token. Nagito darted his eyes around, noticing he was moving towards a large machine with small slots on the side of it. With a swift push, Nagito rolled into a slot. He instantly plunged into darkness and fell. After a couple of seconds, his dartboard slammed against the ground, and the wind was knocked out from him again. His head throbbed hard, struggling to heave for air in the dark machine. It was pitch dark, only the slivers of light from the slots showing a dim light meters and meters above him.

Nagito heard a loud slam beside him. He flinched, but he heard, the now obvious, large token roll away. Another slam hit far away from him. Nagito winced again and again as more tokens trickled in, just barely missing his body each time. He must have counted twenty tokens, maybe thirty, bouncing around the large machine interior he laid in.

Then, the ground suddenly started to rumble. His dartboard shook, lighting up every single pain in his body again. Nagito yelped as the ground only shook more.

A blaring noise shot through the entire dark room.

Nagito winced.

Then, without warning, Nagito’s body lurched forward.

It came as no surprise to Hajime that Nagito would revel in his death.

For the audience, Nagito’s death was horrific. Of course, Hajime thought the same… But after experiencing what Nagito did, Nagito deserved every last bit of it. Hajime was in the same room that Fuyuhiko was decapitated. The twisted game Nagito was playing… Having Fuyuhiko in a trap where he could not leave, only for his head to be torn off with horrific force. No one knew it was Nagito until the trial broke him, making him spit crazed laughs about “hope” and “despair” and his “impeccable luck”. Some luck he had to be found guilty.

…Fuyuhiko and Peko were just starting to reconnect. They had finally started to find their love and passion for each other. And Nagito had ripped it away from them. …Fuyuhiko never got to say goodbye to Peko.

Hajime felt a strange joy when Nagito started to yelp in pain. Hearing him laugh at death felt so monotonous that any yelp or indication of pain made Hajime grin. He hated that he grinned… But payback felt euphoric.

People like Sonia and Mikan were sobbing, trying to hide close to the exit door. Ibuki was still sobbing, frozen in a mortified yet grateful stare as tears of confusion streamed down her face. Gundham, as well as Nekomaru, were gutting the whole performance, gripping their fists and trying their best to keep looking. Gundham had the face of metal determination. Nekomaru had a grimaced pain. They both were attempting to withstand their emotions when faced with death. Hajime felt envious of their ability to look at executions for a long time.

Peko. She… Peko was at the metal grates, one hand on the iron mesh before her. Hajime could not hear Peko talk, nor could he see her face, but he could only imagine what she was thinking. Their love was just starting to re-bloom. Peko had finally started to move towards giving Fuyuhiko the love she had to share, but it was in vain. To think that she was framed for murdering Fuyuhiko… Her hand was shaking merely at the sight of his head.

It was jarring to see Nagito roll around, blood flying and his body outstretched helplessly. Despite Hajime’s desire to watch Nagito rot on that wooden dartboard, seeing a dart lodged in his gelatin eyeball made his skin crawl.

Hajime watched as a massive robotic Monokuma swiped all the tokens off the roulette board, including the lucky number seven. They watched as Nagito fell into his paw. Robotic stomps moved over to a gleaming slot machine, starting to raise the small tokens. Token after token started to slip through the slot, the slot machine glowing up with a new row each time. Then, Nagito’s board was lifted. Before they could see Nagito’s expression, he disappeared into the machine. Tokens kept slipping in until Monokuma’s hand was empty.

Hajime watched as the slot machine, perfectly placed in front of the audience, was cranked, dozens and dozens of pictures flying by. At first, it was hard to notice what they were, but with concentration, Hajime realized they were the faces of the audience. A slot machine of everyone’s death.

Hajime could feel everyone tense up, watching faces flicker by. With patience, the faces started to slow down, and after a couple more seconds…

Nagito’s face was shown three times in a row.

The machine started to flash the number seven everywhere. Loud noises blared and lights started to flash erratically. The machine started to shake. Hajime found himself at the metal grate, holding onto the mesh. His eyes were glued, despite the visual mess the execution was morphing into.

All the small token slots in the machine started to shoot tokens everywhere. Token after token, coins flew across the casino and bounced everywhere. Eyes scanned for Nagito. He was sure the crazy bitch was going to be in that storm somewhere.

A scream snapped everyone’s heads to the floor directly in front of the cage. A large wooden dartboard spun, like a coin lowly circling the ground until it settled. Nagito’s body faced the sky. Up close, it looked so much worse. Trying to see Nagito’s skin through the dried blood was difficult, despite the line of still wet vomit trailing down his face. Clothes, skin, hair; nearly everything was a sickening deep shade of magenta. Even the dartboard was turning purple. The bolts that kept his body in place were deep. The bolt heads were barely visible as they were so deep inside his limbs, the flesh concaved and starting to split around the holes. Flesh, despite not an uncommon sight, still gave Hajime chills when he could see the bright pink seams of someone’s body. Darts dotted his body. There were darts all over his arms, legs, body, and the obvious dart to his eye. Up close, seeing a dart through someone’s eye made Hajime shiver. The eye didn’t pop. The dart simply lodged itself into the soft organ, small blood vessels in the eye bursting. He could see Nagito’s eyelids attempt to close but they only awkwardly warped around the colorful tail of a dart.

Nagito gasped, shallowly attempting to breathe in. His eyes seemed hazy. Hajime could see the small movement in his eyes from how close he was. Truly, if he could reach past the holes in the grate, he could touch his skin.

Hajime flinched and stumbled backward as a token viciously bounced off the grate. Yelps echoed as tokens flew by, smashing without reason or warning, accompanied by loud crashes. Some people were now screaming, begging for the coins to stop. Nagito still looked confused, flinching to each loud smash.

Hajime didn’t even think Nagito looked up before his head exploded against a flying token.

It took everyone a second to process the hit. Hajime blinked blood out of his eye.

Then screaming scattered through the audience.

Ibuki and Sonia tripping away and trying to run to the door. Nekomaru and Gundham tried to calm everyone down, faces still blood-splattered and their eyes distant. Mikan was screaming and clutching her scalp, just seconds before she tumbled and threw up.

Peko stood next to Hajime. Hajime stood next to Peko.

They both stared at the headless corpse. Blood was everywhere. A clump of pink slush was all that was left of the lucky man’s head. Hajime felt bile in his throat rise as he stared at the gored face. He could even see parts of Nagito’s shattered skull, as the ivory white bone shined against the ambient casino lights. Hajime’s skin waved with goosebumps.

Hajime felt like he would have gotten closure from watching Nagito die a horrible death. Nagito had finally paid for his horrific crimes against a man who should have lived his life. Hajime stared at the mangled corpse a bit longer, tokens still bouncing across his body and against the metal grates. Then, Hajime realized something simple.

Nagito wanted to experience his death. He wanted to dance and cheer when he was dying.

But, he died within an instant. An instant he did not see coming.

Hajime felt a small smile rise in his cheeks.

But, as another token smashed through and cracked his entire chest, Hajime blinked back to reality. Blood was still on his face. And Nagito was still dead. Nagito’s chest was shattered, his ribs bent which pierced his lungs, seeping more bubble gum blood. Nagito was dead. The screaming behind him had resurfaced to his ears. Hajime’s eyes started to sting. His throat tightened as bile turned in his gut. He opened his mouth shakily. Nagito was dead in front of him.

With a strangled huff, Hajime found himself stepping back. He screamed.

Chapter Text

[In this short, Celeste’s extensions are part of her hair. This may seem like a weird choice, but it will make sense as the execution progresses. Thank you and enjoy the short.]

GAME OVER!

Celestia has been found guilty. Time for punishment!

Celeste’s eyelashes parted.

Her ruby eyes blinked a couple of times before starting to sink in her scenery. Her small heels stood on top of a wooden stage, the floor’s lines splitting with small splinters sprouting from seams. Rusty nails kept the stage together as her eyes shifted up to an audience. Dozens of small simple colored bears belted, dancing with various weapons. Spears rose, torches swayed, and pitchforks danced in a sea of rage.

A collection of thumps rattled through the room. On her sides, two massive houses flipped up. Only slightly startled by the sound, more houses started to flip up, as if popping from a children’s picture book. With each slam, her environment only grew and grew, row after row of apartments and factories littering her vision to make a town blossom with a rustic smell. Her eyes widened as she watched small lanterns glitter and chimneys start to billow. Celeste found her skin prickle with goosebumps.

What a gorgeous sight for someone’s death. Oh, but of course, Celeste did not want to die. Not wanting death was a common thread in most men’s minds. Celeste most certainly shared that sentiment; she wanted to go to Europe and fancy herself with the towns and life that strolled the streets. She wanted to sip tea while on an elegant throne of pearls and silk, peasants kissing her boots of royalty. It was a future that Celeste had worked her whole life towards; she sewed her attire, grew out her hair, and changed her name everywhere applicable. She even placed a bet. A bet of survival within a class trial. Oh, she fought for that bet. She had never lost one, so of course, she was fighting to keep her reputation. But, alas, there she was, hands and legs tied, her wrists firmly bound behind her as Monokumas belted in a chorus for her death.

Celeste found bitter disdain in knowing her death was due to a lost bet.

Small paws walked across the stage. Celeste looked down to Monokuma, who was wearing a felt hat, a ruff, and a doublet, obviously imitating the style of an old 17th-century man. Fitting, she figured. Monokuma was always stylish when he executed his victims. An annoying pompadour for Mondo and a baseball outfit for Leon. For herself, Monokuma had dressed as a pilgrim with a Bible in hand for a witch’s execution. If anything, it was flattering. To be killed in such a regal fashion made her smile. Monokuma could have easily put her in a casino, as she was the Ultimate Gambler, but he knew better.

The bear looked up at her figure. She met his eyes. For just a moment, their red eyes locked. But, Monokuma parted their stare for him to read his Bible.

He spoke with a distinct ring, “CELESTIA LUDENDBERG!”

Celeste twitched to the volume of his cry.

“The witch of Hope’s Peak Academy. A witch who hides her real name, which so happens to be Taeko Yasuhiro!”

Once again, Celeste flinched to the use of her real name. She felt her wrists flex against taught rope behind her back.

“Taeko, do you plead guilty for the murder of Hifumi Yamada, and consequently Kiyotaka Ishimaru, as well as deception, sly of hand, and lying?”

Celeste looked down at the bear. Her mouth stayed still. Monokuma’s eyes stayed locked to hers. Celeste found Monokuma’s beady black eye, along with his piercing red eye, to be striking. A world of teddy bear-like warmth, yet another one of hatred and death. He could easily deliver one or the other, just hide one part of himself. Celeste found it interesting. A mirror, perhaps.

With a snap, the book slammed shut, “Aaaallright! The deal is set.”

He looked behind Celeste. With a cry, he rang, “RAISE THE WITCH!”

…Raise? There was nothing attached to her that would warrant raising.

A loud crank started to turn. Snaps rattled behind her, the crowd in front of her started to roar with joy. Celeste spun her head around, trying not to lose her balance. What… could be lifting her? Her wrists had no rope to go with it, neither did her legs. With no noose around her neck, Celeste found herself at a loss.

But… She had some sort of freedom. She was not restrained fully, at least not to a post or bodyguards. She could hobble to the edge of the stage and escape. She could burn her ropes and run. If it was a matter of bodyguards lifting her, she could run.

While her head was turned, Celeste’s eyes trailed to her pigtails. Long, long parts of her hair were wrapped around a noose. In a knot, both ends of her pigtails were tied together on the loop of the rope.

The loop raised higher.

Celeste felt her hair start to become lighter on her head.

She felt her body go stiff. So that was how she was going to die. Raised to the sky as the torches lit her feet.

She watched the noose rise higher.

Of course, the method of hanging a witch by her pigtails was not common, but it was still an effective way to kill. The pain alone would nearly knock a woman out.

She felt her arms tremble. Cranks continued to ring out to the roaring crowd.

Her hair started to feel a little tight. She had to turn her head back to the audience to keep strain off her head. Celeste bit down on her tongue hard to stop herself from crying. She was not a fool. She could withstand the pain if it meant her death was elegant. Surely, she would die with pride.

With one particular crank, her hair yanked up, tearing at her scalp. Celeste gasped in pain, only for her to calm herself. She rose to balance upon her toes, trying to keep the pain at bay. Her scalp was tingling with pricks, a warm wave of nerves trickling down her head and to her brain. She gripped her fists, fingernails making painful divots in her skin. Her eyes screwed shut. Deep breaths, Celestia. The horror would subside.

A loud splat was heard underneath her feet.

She opened her eyes, startled. Celeste looked down to the ground in front of her. Hifumi’s beady eyes stared right back at her.

Celeste felt her gut curl. Blood started to pool on the floor where his body laid, hot pink trails dripping from his face and mouth. His glasses were in pieces, scattered across the ground with some small glass fragments chipped into his cheeks.

Around Hifumi, a couple of small cardboard standees flipped up. For the split second she looked, they had the shape of cartoon flames.

A loud crank rank sounded.

Celeste’s toes rose off the ground no more than an inch.

Celeste screamed.

Her entire scalp exploded into agony, a pain setting aflame on her head. She swore her face was being pulled up along with her hair. Legs helplessly wiggled as the entire 101 pounds of her body was being held on her hair follicles. As another crank sounded, Celeste still screamed, trying to rip through her constraints and loosen the weight on her head. The initial instant of pain she felt once her body was lifted only prolonged, the same splitting agony making waves through her trembling body. It did not help that a growing heat was raising around her, becoming apparent that a fire was starting.

Her eyes rolled to the back of her head. The cheers of the crowd had started to melt through her screams and surface in her ears. Her name was being chanted, demanding her demise and celebrating her pain. The name of Celestia. With each chant of her name, the more grotesque her name became. It filled with hate and disgust, growing a horrid tumor when just uttering it. Celeste drowned out the chants with her wretched screams.

All of her screaming peaked into a hoarse yelp as her voice snapped. Her throat exploded in pain, only making it harder to scream as each mumble from her lungs was a thousand shards to her tongue. She whimpered in slivers of pain, a grating tone tearing away at her nerves. The blood that had just started to trail from her scalp was gargling in her mouth, spiking her taste buds with the sharp iron taste. She blinked blood from her eyes as real tears started to trickle down and drop down into the flames below her.

The cranks continued to sound and her body slowly raised step by step into the air. It was becoming hard to hear, as the air was filled with cranks, the bears’ cheering, Celeste’s screaming, and the crackles of fire licking at her feet. But, in between the noises, she heard another splat below her. Celeste, through excruciating pain, yet a disgusting curiosity, looked down to see that Hifumi had another body on top of him. The bright pink face of Kiyotaka was laid against Hifumi’s chest, his eyes staring up to the sky. Blood smeared both of them, making it difficult to defer the two bodies.

Celeste stared and found something peculiar. For just a moment, the pain subsided. She looked to the bodies, then to the cardboard standees of flames that were raised earlier that execution.

… There were no actual flames.

Another crank lifted Celeste higher up, making her involuntarily yelp a cracked cry. As she squirmed in her restraints, she felt sweat build on her face. As she glanced around, she couldn’t find any fire. Not one small spark or lick of flames. Yet, she felt as if she were burning. She could only see cardboard cutouts surround her, waving as if to create the illusion. But… why did she feel as if she were on fire?

Squirming made her whole contraption turn. Her body rotated on its noose-like execution, her body moving to face behind her. Still blinking away tears and blood from her red vision, she looked up.

Her eyes instantly focused on the sight before her.

She had expected to see a large wooden frame, raising a rope noose slowly higher and higher, controlled by a man with a slow crank. But, instead, she stared straight at Monokuma behind the wheel of a construction crane, using the arm to raise her body into the sky.

An eerie screech sounded behind her. Celeste darted her eyes to the side. She could not see much, but she could decipher a box of some sort. The metal cover popped off and bright orange heat coils pulsated. The metal cover sparked. Celeste’s eyes widened.

Fire exploded from the box.

Her body tilted.

And then, her scalp was ripped clean off.

Makoto knew that Celeste wanted nothing more but elegance and respect. She wanted a grand life; a life where she could dine on fine seafood, rest on velvet beds, and demand servants to do her bidding. She had changed her whole life just to achieve her royal fantasy. But… Makoto found it disgusting that Monokuma was killing her in a cardboard dollhouse.

It made Makoto happier that Celeste couldn’t see half of the horror. As she was restrained to her noose, she had a foldout scenery. Towns, people, and even her floor were cardboard. Flames that burned her alive were moving standees that Monokumas danced with. The fire was recreated with dozens of heaters scattered behind her, placed on shelves and cardboard tables against a wall. A massive crane was waiting behind Celeste, holding the noose that was tied to her hair. Just out of Celeste’s vision were cloth curtains, framing the dance for her life in a theatrical performance. Makoto bit his lip. Makoto figured that he and the others were the audiences.

When she rose, the audience was restricted to small gasps and tiny whimpers. Makoto expected there to be screams, or maybe curses to Monokuma, but there was just silent horror as Celeste writhed in her raising coffin. It felt miserable to watch her scream for her life, yet there was nothing she could do but dance in the hope she would be saved. It only made it worse as Makoto knew that with each shake, her scalp grew thinner.

Celeste, after several minutes of squirming and screaming on her hair noose, had started to turn towards the crane. Makoto felt his chest crush. She was about to see the seams in this execution. He heard Hina make a deep breath, obviously shaken. Glancing behind him, he saw Hina gripping Sakura’s hand, tears streaming down her face. When looking to Sakura, she too was concentrated in a furrowed look.

A spark flashed. Makoto darted his eyes back to the scene. One of the several heaters had just popped open. The heat coils within the box were bright orange, bordering on a white. Steam was freed from the box, but for just an instant.

Because, the next instant, the box exploded.

Makoto flinched, his eyes burned from the instant flash. Blinking away the light, a scream erupted from Hina next to him. Makoto rubbed his eyes quickly, trying to squint and focus on the execution.

Celeste was gone. Makoto’s eyes were fixed on Celeste’s raised scalp.

Suspended in the air, held up by long onyx pigtails was a thick pocket of skin, pink blood pouring down like rain. Makoto’s eyes fixated on the disgusting clump of thick leather, the wretched magenta pile twirling on its black-haired noose.

Around the dangling blanket of blood was an explosion of flames. Quickly overtaking the scenery were the piercingly white flames that had instantly spread across the cardboard performance. Makoto quickly shielded his eyes, other audience members yelping from the instant bright lights. The burned lights circled Makoto’s head, but he heard voices like Hina and Yasuhiro whimper into screams. He even felt a thump of someone hitting the ground.

Adjusting to the now raging fire, Makoto looked at the scene. The whole stage was engulfed. The crane was just barely visible, the protruding arm peeking from the fire. The curtains behind her were falling. The cardboard audience turning to ash. The poles keeping the entire structure up were slowly wavering. Stage lights started to dangle.

It was… a spectacular sight. The entire set was on fire. The blazing heat was soaking into Makoto’s face, furious bright lights raging with its burnt orange tips. He couldn’t see Celeste in the catastrophe, as he could only see the raging fire that was devouring the stage.

The cardboard audience had burned down enough to see the stage clearer. Makoto could see Celeste’s figure crawl up from a pile of ash. She was limping across the burnt bodies of Hifumi and Taka. Against the blazing fire, he could see every detail in Celeste’s silhouette. She had no hair. There was an eerie indent where her scalp should have been. He could see the blood drip from her body, only for her to spit more from her mouth. Her frame shook. She barely moved as her limbs trembled.

Makoto felt his eyes sting. He felt bad. Of course, Celeste did an awful thing. She should have never killed Hifumi, and she certainly shouldn’t have convinced him to kill Taka. But… Monokuma shouldn’t let her die like that. Makoto felt cold shivers go down his spine watching small drops drip from Celeste’s eyes.

A loud screech was audible. Makoto whipped their heads up to the top of the stage. Hanging above were several stage lights, some already knocked out, some on fire. But, one had just snapped off its supports. It dangled precariously, swaying with the small wire that was strung to it.

Makoto saw Celeste. She was looking up. She had noticed the light.

There was a pause that hung in the air. The fire still furiously crackled, and the stage was still falling apart with cranks and crashes. But, Makoto watched Celeste. They both were still. Makoto couldn’t see Celeste’s face, but he could only imagine what her expression was like. He imagined it was of horror. The horror of failure, the horror of embarrassment. Maybe, it was intrigue. Maybe she was confused about why her execution was treating her as it was.

Or, maybe, Celeste was accepting her death. She was staring right at the dangling star, watching it sway with a strained hope keeping it afloat. Or, perhaps, she was simply watching a light dangle.

Unfortunately, no one in the audience would know what she was thinking, because the wire had snapped. And, the light fell. It crashed into Celeste’s body with a loud smash. And Celeste’s siholette silhouette.

The three bodies erupted into a grand fire. And the audience started to whimper as The Tragedy of Celestia Ludenburg closed its curtains.

Chapter Text

[Miu, in this short, is 18 years old. I understand this may be viewed as a cop-out, but not only is this a personal headcanon of mine, I also will never write underage pornography in any sense. This piece is not meant to be an erotic piece, it just has extremely strong sexual content. Thank you for understanding.]

GAME OVER!

Miu has been found guilty. Time for punishment!

Miu furrowed her eyebrows. Tears were already streaming down her face, but she used every ounce of energy within her to stop sobbing. She was not a wimp. Yes, she did kill him to protect everyone else, but it still fucking sucked to get caught. She thought the plan was foolproof. Put the blame upon Gonta, let natural motives work itself out, then she could go home. But… she supposed it wasn’t that simple. Whatever… Miu lived a somewhat good life and she was gonna go out in a bang.

The ground rattled around her. She was gently reminded that her wrists and ankles were firmly tied behind her to a pole. Miu forced to bring her head up, huffing away any remaining tears to look around. It was quite dark on the execution floor, but a neon glow started to fade in. Around her, a scene started to fold out, tables, walls, chairs, and steps slamming down around her. Lights flipped up and neon signs blared. When the floor behind her started to take shape, she realized where she was.

Monokuma was creating a strip club for her.

Miu felt her expression curl. Goosebumps waved her skin as she realized that all the scenery framed her. She was the dancer. And her wrists were tied to the pole.

In front of her were the iron gates she knew all too well; the gates that held an audience to watch her die. Despite the dim lighting, she could see a handful of horrified faces, staring at her dead-on. She felt her heart twinge. Monokuma could kill her, but to kill her in a strip club in front of her classmates? Sure… She was very raunchy… But she didn’t want everyone to see her on a pole; especially not Kiyo, that weirdo. Whatever, she was going to die soon anyway, it wasn’t like she was going to be shamed afterward. Regardless, those fuckheads were all virgins!!! They were going to experience a strip club first handedly from someone who knew what they were doing! Plus, those weasels were going to get a sneak peek of the adult world, from the one and only legal student!!! Well… she knew Kiyo and maybe Kaede were also 18, but that didn’t matter. The show was going to be a taboo performance for those who were underage. They should have been taking notes, those whores.

In the fold-out chair audience below her, the small monochrome bear was wearing a casual jacket and holding a whole handful of cash. Miu grimaced. Funny. Very funny Monokuma. What would he do to her? Throw some money? Make her dance through robotic parts? Have her spin until she faints?

He gave a low laugh. Monokuma turned over to his side and bumped his shoulder with someone. Hidden in the shadows, someone Miu couldn’t see until then, was… Him. Kokichi was slumped over, eyes still rolled to the back of his head and pale-faced. His hair was tangled, obviously matted with the struggle he faced while trying to stop Miu from strangling him. The push that Monokuma gave him had shoved his corpse to the side, making his head lay on the far side of the chair, his arm slumping over the armrest. Miu felt a shiver run down her spine.

Oh, how humorous. To make her victim “watch” her death. That was truly something. …She didn’t like the idea of Kokichi watching her strapped to a pole. Even if he was dead, she didn’t like watching his face pointed towards her as she died. …It better go fast.

Monokuma threw some money on stage. Instantly, Miu’s robotic arm swung around the corner. Seconds after she processed the arms were her inventions, her clothes were painfully ripped off her.

The wind was knocked out of her for just a couple of seconds. Her entire dress was now in shreds in the hands of her robot arm. Oh. So that was how her death was going to play out. Humiliation first, death second. Oh great! Oh, how wonderful. Miu was embarrassed about her clothes being removed, but she skipped past shame quickly to some sort of pride. They weren’t taking off her undergarments!! Usually, she had simple underwear, but for that day, she decided to wear an intricate leather lace with metal circles dotting her skin that was connecting the leather. She wasn’t that much of a freak to be one hundred percent nude, as she wore simple laced pair of underwear and bra.

Her skin tingled with shock as the cold air bit her body. A small shiver trickled through her limbs as she looked back to Monokuma. The money he threw was still on the floor. Squinting, and thanks to the dim, neon purple lighting, she counted the money. Five hundred yen. Miu scoffed. Five hundred for clothes? Jeez, Monokuma’s strip club would have been in the gutter if five hundred yen was for clothes, especially for them to be ripped off. Miu pushed it aside momentarily. Monokuma was still there, holding more cash.

His small paws shifted the bills against each other. Monokuma’s smile was still shinning. She hated that smile.

Monokuma tossed a bigger handful of cash on the stage. The noise of hydraulics revved up underneath her. Miu’s hands twitched. Two panels underneath her snapped open. Miu instantly got the gist of what was happening.

Miu gasped as two dildos smashed into her body.

The pleasure was not the first feeling. The pain of an instant penetration rippled through her body, causing her to yelp. Her whole waist felt on fire, tingling from pain and going warm with blood. With each thrust of the two toys, her torn holes stung fiercer, causing her to whimper in pain. They were far too big for her, making the pain unbearably worse. Walls and holes warped further and painfully cramped up her entire body. Groans soon hissed into screams. Miu could even feel each dildo rub against each other, the thin tissue between them quickly going tender and numb. She felt tears resurface in her eyes, grimacing to try and keep the pain under control.

She knew what those machines were, as Miu had an obscene amount of free time during their days locked from the outside world. To cope with the stress of a killing game, Miu did what she knew best; invent a machine to release her …stress. …She didn’t know how Monokuma found them, or how he reassembled them, but now they were inside her, smashing as hard as they could into her shaking body.

But… Holy fucking SHIT. Waves of white-hot pleasure shivered her nerves, giving pained screams a turn of lust at the end. Her legs furiously shook from over-stimulating nerves, both wonderful and horrid feelings blending together to melt her body. Breathing was getting hard, the wind getting punched out of her nearly every time the dildos snapped back up.

Tears had started to travel down Miu’s face again. She couldn’t hear anything anymore, noises and sight giving way to the feelings that raked her body. The feelings… They were so so FUCKING strong. Maybe… it was too strong. Each time the dildos smashed into her, they pushed harder and harder against her cervix and the back of her rectum. Even though the cervix stopped the dildo at a reasonable height, the rectum was far higher, giving her a disgusting feeling that shriveled her whole back. All of that hurt!!! Every time it slammed to the back, it gave a guttural cramping feeling, so having that feeling of pain within less of a second, back to back to back, it quickly built. As soon as pleasure surfaced, it started to fight against the rising pain. On top of that, just because of how fast it was going, her lower half was going numb, the tingle of cramping traveling up her body and crushing her chest.

Miu’s eyes rolled to the back of her head. She shut her eyes quickly to stop herself from looking ridiculous. Feelings were piss hard to distinguish. Everything was happening at once and way way too fast. The toys were going further and further with each hit. If they were to go any further, it would… She didn’t want to think about it.

From peeking through her eyes, she noticed a small movement. Focusing, she noticed the floor was several hundred yen richer. Miu’s eyes widened.

With a sudden push, the entire dildo in her pussy smashed through her cervix.

Miu screamed.

Miu had always thought about what it would feel like to push through the small cervix at the back of her vagina. Surprise, that was the same hole that opened when a woman gave birth. And giving birth was the most painful experience any human could have. Made sense why Miu’s entire body tore through a violent shiver.

The lower half of her body crunched, an awful, awful haze of agony condensing her entire waist. As if the initial wounds weren’t enough, her entire vagina was on fire with pain, as the dildo was practically rubbing against an open wound. Miu gasped for breath, the pain stealing every bit of air she got. Without pause, the dildo continued at a rapid pace, now going much further due to more room. The feeling of the tip pushing up to touch her small intestines made her stomach threaten to hurl itself.

Miu sobbed, tears flowing steadily as she tried to endure it all. Every second she had to endure the condensed agony felt like full minutes. Her legs painfully stiffened up and didn’t budge, no matter how hard the toys pressed against her. She thought an execution would be somewhat painless. She hadn’t felt that much pain in her whole life. But, her execution… Not only was he killing her through pleasure, but with her creations. Her toys weren’t designed to push that far, so Monokuma must have tampered with them, or… they were malfunctioning. No, they couldn’t be malfunctioning; those were her inventions. She was perfect with her creations. She grimaced at the thought of Monokuma snipping wires and making her toys work against her.

Any pleasure had soon fizzled out into excruciating agony. She bit her tongue. Surely, blood loss would kill her at some point. She must have been pouring blood then; Miu’s body was so shocked with pain that she couldn’t move to check. Miu looked back up to a crystalized audience, blurred through her teary eyes. They were probably laughing and pointing their rotten fingers. When looking back down to the audience, she swore Kokichi’s corpse was laughing. Miu’s eyebrows only furrowed more.

Flicks of paper went past her eyes. Miu’s eyes dilated. Focusing her eyes, she watched dozens of bills float down to the now plum-colored pool of blood that was slowly filling the stage.

Miu’s eyebrows tilted up in heartbreak.

Before she could brace, a horrendous ripping noise shook through her body.

She didn’t have to look. She knew that the dildo in her vagina pushed through her uterus and broke skin to tear through her belly. And the dildo in her ass broke through and was in the slush of flesh, blood, and small intestines.

Miu’s head naturally dipped, eyes wide and mouth agape as she numbly watched the dildo pump through her skin. The tip nearly touched her nose with each thrust it spat out through her muscles. Pink was everywhere. Blood started to pour from the open wound on her stomach, sprinkling her face whenever the toy shoved up. The dildo in her ass had finally gained free-range as it started to slush through her belly, threatening to push through her stomach and into her lungs. Eyes rolled to the back of her head shortly before she felt her stomach hurl. She vomited hard, coughing up whatever she had left in herself, not letting up for several seconds. Even after vomiting, she found herself gagging and coughing out stomach bile. She screamed between gags. Some bile spits turned into shrieks, slamming her wrists against the restraints. Miu closed her eyes, screaming as her face still got splattered with blood. Some small chunks of vomit flew back to her face, catching in her mouth once again.

Screaming, by that point, was just supplementary. Pain, despite being excruciating, was starting to numb out again. If anything, she felt dizzy, especially through her guts being slushed and pushed around. Her body still flexed to hurl itself. Her eyes were so blurry she could barely distinguish the blood on her body from the blood on the floor. Miu finally felt light-headed.

Before she could close her eyes, a flurry of money drifted into her vision. Miu’s eyes widened.

Her face trembled. She couldn’t… She couldn’t bear it anymore. What Monokuma was doing to her was already enough.

But… She needed to know.

With a weak pull, she slowly raised her head. Monokuma was frantically tossing as much money as he could, throwing hundreds and thousands of yen. Miu stopped screaming. Her face froze, her teeth slowly starting to chatter.

Then… Miu’s body stiffened

Kaede could not believe what she was witnessing.

Monokuma was cruel, she knew that much. But… He couldn’t be that cruel. To kill someone with sex toys was something that would be simultaneously wonderful yet horrifying. Kaede couldn’t imagine the pure pain she would experience if her body was torn in half by toys that could not fit in her.

The scene became more and more disgusting with each passing second. Miu had gone limp, her body shaking by the force of the dildos. They had torn through her skin and shook her pink body vigorously. It hurt Kaede to hear her vomit and scream.

Women around her were also panicking, holding their stomachs and turning away in disgust. People like Maki were standing silently, but Tenko had screamed at Monokuma to stop the horrendous performance. …Kaede couldn’t guess what the men were feeling. Horror had to be the main feeling, but she couldn’t read Korekiyo’s face as he stood in silence, watching every small movement as his fingers twitched in flinches. Gonta, despite being framed, was sobbing and at the front of the gate. He tried to possibly break the gate, but God knows what Monokuma made his school out of for Gonta not to tear it.

Shuichi was next to Kaede. He shook, gripping the edges of his suit with tight fists. His legs shook as silent tears were trickling down his face. Shuichi was not close to Miu, but Kaede knew he was shy and couldn’t handle the gore of the killing game well. Kaede gulped silently.

Her eyes trailed back to the execution. Monokuma started to throw more money. …He was throwing a lot more money. The last time that happened, skin broke and Miu vomited everywhere.

The audience went quiet for just a second, watching Miu.

Then, a loud spark cracked from the stage.

Below Miu, a large white spark scattered across the stage, only followed by another. Then another. Then, as Kaede stared, an entire firework show started to explode below her body. Kaede shielded her eyes as Miu shook from electrocution on stage. Horror wrenched her heart as Miu shrieked, shaking against her constraints with metal scratching screeching through the room. Kaede found herself still staring through her fingers, watching Miu gasp for air as she shook violently in her spot. The machinery behind her hadn’t stopped. If anything, it pumped faster, starting to carve her body as her blood and flesh were being shaped to the toys. Smoke pooled below her, raising to cover her face.

Kaede felt her face curl as an awful, awful stench crept into her nose. It smelt like burnt steak, but with a strong iron hint, nearly burning her mouth from the sheer abundance of the scent. She coughed, holding her nose while trying to spit the taste out. Kaede couldn’t pin down the exact smell, as she had never smelled anything like it, but… She could only guess what it was.

Kaede heaved for air. She felt her throat tighten as she tried her best to mutter a scream. …Human flesh. The smell was the scent of Miu being burned from the inside out with her toys.

Monokuma’s money kept flinging on stage with no mercy.

Shuichi’s legs buckled and he fell forward, vomiting.

Miu continued to shudder, screaming almost to the point of her voice giving out. Her cries of agony were nearly drowned out by the deafening sparks, persisting and beginning to sprinkle Miu’s body. Red dots splattered across her belly area, sparks burning into her skin. Her legs started to shake viciously, slamming hard against her cuffs.

Miu was still screaming. And, when Kaede thought that the scene would stop, she just screamed louder.

Kaede felt her stomach turn. Her legs gave in as she dropped to her knees. She cupped her ears and curled up, feeling her throat tighten with tears. It was too much. It was all too much. Kaede had enough. Monokuma had truly done his worst. She muttered over and over and over for the execution to end, cupping her ears while shaking.

Miu suddenly stopped screaming, her vocal cords finally burning up. The audience kept whimpering, various yelling still ringing in Kaede’s ears. But, after just a couple more moments, the machinery stopped. A hush fell over the audience. There was a hum of crackling still audible, but all whirring and shaking had ceased. The room was slowed down to sniffles and small coughing.

Kaede kept her eyes shut. She didn’t want to see anything.

The crackling was starting to hear like fire.

Kaede didn’t want to look. She shouldn’t look. She wanted to live without that image.

Small panting rose in the audience.

Kaede’s brain itched at her to glance.

She forced her jaw to stop chattering for her to turn around.

Kaede stared at Miu. Miu was slumped against her pole, but both dildos had disappeared. Miu’s body had stopped moving, slumping against her restraints and looking straight down at her slowly darkening corpse. Blue, electrical flames had started to sprout from her body. From her eye sockets and mouth, there were nothing more but slowly licking flames pouring out. She gave a hollow expression as her face leaked flames. No other movement haunted the stage. Miu was simply dead, and she was melting.

Kaede watched her body burn. She felt her teeth chatter.

Ever so slightly, Miu’s arm twitched.

Kaede stuttered while breathing in.

And, as the small group of students processed the scene, a chorus of shrills exploded through the execution floor.

Chapter Text

GAME OVER!

Kiyotaka has been found guilty. Time for punishment!

Taka found it cruel that Monokuma simply left him alone, standing in an empty room. He was still sobbing, his vision blurry and his head burning with agony, but he could tell he was standing on top of a red velvet carpet. The room was fancy; trophies glittered in his teary eyes and a regal chair sat near a desk. Through teary eyes, he saw a glittering gold chair, resting elegantly at the main table. He would have looked around more if his head had stopped pulsating with pain.

He had been crying for the past thirty minutes at that point. He had truly done a horrible thing, murdering Mondo Owada. He was just going to retrieve his spare bandages he had left in his locker when he saw Chihiro’s pink blood lathered on the floor with a dripping dumbbell. He wouldn’t have initially killed him if Mondo was calm, but he launched at Taka, trying to choke him to death. He only killed Mondo because Mondo almost killed him. But, Taka couldn’t lie to himself. He was in shreds. The only friend he’d ever had was killed by his own hands. Mondo’s draining body, slowly crawling for its life, while laying on top of him was something that would stick with him forever. The taste of iron had seared into his tongue for eternity. His classmates only found out about his crimes until the rotten stench of human flesh started to reek from the boys’ locker stalls.

But, Taka couldn’t dwell on his crimes for much longer. He was now being executed. He had to focus on his life.

Taka found it confusing that he was left in a room all by himself with no constraints. His hands were rubbing his eyes, not bound by any cuffs, and his legs were struggling for balance, not chained together. He had a free range of motion. Once he had fully realized that fact, his cries started to dissipate. Taka’s trembling hands lowered, staring at the carpet underneath him. Why wasn’t he locked in a dark, dreadful cage? Why wasn’t he serving a punishment? Why was he being treated like royalty?

His eyes trailed to the gold chair. It simply sat there. The chair sat at a fancy table, a gold lining curled on its edges with a shined, bright glimmer. He noticed a small name tag. Taka sniffed and leaned in to read the fine print.

Ishimaru.

The student stared, his body stiffening. Was… No, it wasn’t

He looked to some shelves, which were next to the desk. Rows of books were lined up, all with finely printed spines, the titles barely legible. The books were old and worn; not one book was new. Taka felt his fingers cramp up. He shot his eyes around, looking at the Japanese flag next to the regal desk. Worn. He looked down to the intricate laces across the desk and the small decorative items that decorated it. There were tiny Japanese phrases and scriptures carved into the corners. Even the lights that lit the room were constructed into a delicate chandelier.

Taka’s sniffling grew harsher. He stiffly walked to the desk, looking around for any clue to his search. Luckily, he found a pile of paper that was brushed aside and hidden under some paperweights. He struggled to lean over, his body starting to lock up from his nervousness. He dragged the paper across the table and into his view. He read the small print. Shock struck his entire body as he painfully froze.

Toranosuke Ishimaru has been issued an immediate escort mission. Please follow all instructions listed below.

His grandfather. A former Prime Minister of Japan. Toranosuke Ishimaru. That room was Toranosuke’s.

With a loud bang, Taka’s head whipped around. There was a large window behind the desk, overshadowing a large, royal square. To his horror, hundreds of Monokumas were littered everywhere, all holding pitchforks and torches, chanting and screaming. The “bang” noise was a bomb that blew up part of the entrance fence, letting even more Monokumas in. Pink blood was already smeared across their faces. Fires were breaking out across the fragile garden. He could see nicely dressed guards face down in their own blood, hands still on their spears in possible attempts to guard the palace. Monokumas were pouring through those now unguarded doors, pushing each other to get through first.

Taka had no time to think. All that mattered was that he had to act fast.

His fingers curled in harder, painfully cramping up in stress. He growled, forcing his legs to trip over to a cabinet. Luckily, from his youth, he visited his grandfather’s office and was given a tour. He remembered within seconds where the guns were. When he swung open the creaky doors, he realized that of course, the guns had to be of old metal, handguns that mustn’t have been used in decades. All that he could easily grab was a smooth metal revolver. A stressed wine hissed from his lips as he grabbed the revolver and stretched for the bullets. He figured the gun would do.

Thumps in the building were audible. Taka felt his hands cry in pain as he tried to load and arm the gun. Each movement felt gave him a ripple of pain, his hands trying to awkwardly navigate the small bullets into chambers. Taka must have forgotten to breathe because once the last bullet slipped in, he took a deep breath and felt a wave of nausea crash into his head. He nearly dropped the gun, but his head slammed backward from almost going faint, waking him up with a snap.

He heaved. …Toranosuke went through everything Taka was feeling. A revolt started when he was revealed to be a poor Prime Minister, more specifically after he failed to do his duties as an acting leader. He was stormed and nearly killed by his people. It was nightmarish news to the Ishimaru family. Within a single revolt, an already weary leadership was turned into an embarrassment to an entire family line. Taka was just as embarrassed as the rest of his family. He hated his grandfather’s “genius” and his attempts at monarchy with his “talent”. He was a pitiful leader and the fact his people tore him from his seat was a disgrace.

Of course, Monokuma’s cruel joke to him would be making Taka relive his most hated man’s downfall.

But… He held a revolver. There was a good chance he could fight back. He also did Aikido and excelled in their techniques, so he could swiftly take down the Monokumas. …If only his body could stop SHAKING!

He leaned against the cabinet, gripping his gun harder. The gun shook so much, the bullets giving their metallic clatter. His fingers were painfully stiff around the trigger finger. He shoved an exhale out of his body, breathing in. Taka, get a HOLD of yourself. You weren’t a crybaby. You could do this. It was just a gun. And he was is a revolution. FIGHT.

The Monokumas were getting closer to him. The ground started to shake more and more. His legs were failing him. He kept all of his weight against the cabinet, as well as making sure his feet were rooted strongly into the ground. The trampling thumps of the bears were meters from his office.

Then, without warning, the doors smashed open with a powerful slam. Rows and rows of Monokumas were bearing their fangs. The front row of Monokumas had weapons and torches.

Taka whipped his gun up and took aim. His gun was roughly aimed at one of the Monokumas when he curled his trigger finger.

In a twisted turn of comedy, the gun did not fire a bullet. Instead, the gun’s chamber exploded into a popper, streamer confetti flying everywhere.

There was a small moment of silence. Taka looked at the slowly falling confetti with a petrified heart. The confetti sprinked ontop of the Monokumas. The bears looked at the colorful streamers in silence. Taka stared on with horror in his eyes. He should have known better than to be given hope. Why wouldn’t Monokuma do that to him?

The gun hit the ground with a rattle. The Monokumas returned their look to Taka.

He contorted his face into defiance. He gripped his fists. If he were to go out, he was to fight.

Taka screamed.

He charged forward, his legs sprinting him into the crowd. His body quickly reached the riot, his legs kicking the front row with ferocity. Monokumas were shoved back into the crowd, falling over and hitting each other. Due to the relatively smaller height of his capturers, he could crush several of them. He snatched a pitchfork from one Monokuma with a painful grip and slammed it into another one. He used his now crafted mace of a malfunctioning robot bear to bash oncoming Monokumas. Yet, the riot fought back. A pitchfork stabbed into his back, piercing through his flesh. Taka strained a pained yelp, turning around and managing to pull the other pitchfork out from himself. He smashed the attacking Monokuma into an explosion of sparks and bolts. His back stung with pain, as he felt his flesh and shirt dampen with blood.

Taka heaved another breath. His blade was growing dull. The crowd closed in as Taka quickly stomped on the destroyed Monokuma on the edge of his pitchfork. Dodging another jab at him, Taka sheathed his weapon once more. He fought more. He felt that him screaming as he fought helped his adrenaline pump. With each swing, he heaved, belting his fear of his attackers instead of letting it fester.

Raising his mace once again, he aimed to crush a Monokuma that held a blazing torch. Just before he could lower his weapon, a sharp bite rippled from his ankle. He yelped, his leg stiffening with pain. Taka felt his body fall forward, but he stopped himself before he crashed into the crowd. His mace turned trajectories and slammed down to his feet, smashing the Monokuma that bit his feet. Despite killing the bear that bit at him, his foot still bled. He groaned in pain, his foot starting to tingle with agony. He ignored his pain. He swung his mace once again, but his other ankle was punctured by long canines. Taka found himself screaming, slamming the mace down and loosening his grip. He stumbled forward but tried to keep his stance.

It would not be long until another bite snapped at his leg. He buckled his legs forward and felt himself fall into the crowd.

He was grabbed. Claw marks of strong grips tore his shirt and left long marks down his chest. He hissed, trying to wiggle from several paws and get back on his feet.

He was dragged down. He hit the floor and felt his body become pressed with Monokumas. Blood warmed his skin as he started to lose his breath.

Taka looked at the floor. That would be the last thing he’d ever see. He would taste blood on a velvet carpet as Monokumas tore his back apart.

He took a deep breath. His life was a good one. And he’d die a killer, as he deserved.

…Taka could apologize to Mondo.

Taka twisted his eyebrows into sorrow.

But, before he could stifle tears, Taka’s gut lept in his chest as his body suddenly lifted.

Makoto couldn’t see much of the execution. The iron mesh that locked him and the audience away from the killing floor was in the courtyard itself. They couldn’t see much of the room that Taka was being kept in, as the window was at a weird angle. They could see his body run forward into a mob of Monokumas that had burst through the doors minutes prior. Screws hit the windows, sparks were visible from the corners of the window, and some blood dotted the ceiling.

Despite the horror of whatever fight was happening in the office, there was something much, much worse unfolding in front of them. Hidden from Taka’s point of view was a large guillotine, the blades being strung tight by Monokumas. The blade was directed towards the audience so that anyone could witness a body’s head be chopped off and fall into a twine basket. The guillotine was also very close to the fence; if there were no basket, the heads could have easily fallen and rolled up to their gate.

It also did not help that the head of Chihiro was cut clean off and was bleeding into the basket. When the blade dropped, several people screamed, with Hina and Toko’s shrieks haunting everyone’s ears initially. Seeing the blade slowly lift back up, pink blood coating it, and the stump of a body left made Makoto curl up. He shivered, holding his mouth, and faced away. Leon’s execution was already brutal. Makoto couldn’t gut seeing another brutal death.

After a couple of minutes from watching the scene in front of them, including eyeing the window intently, the Monokumas ceased their march into the building. The audience stared, Makoto’s eyes fixated on the Monokumas whispering to each other. Then, incoordination, they all stepped back, cheering and inching back to the guillotine. Dozens of Monokumas piled out of the building, all cheering for the crowd behind them. Eventually, a familiar face spilled out.

A couple of Monokumas were holding Taka above them, Taka squirming and screaming while demanding that should be let down. His white clothes were soaked with a sickening magenta color, torn in several spots and showing deep wounds. Makoto found himself wince as Taka spat dots of blood to the ground. Taka was carried closer to the audience. Then, Taka made contact with his friends. His eyes locked to Makoto. He stopped struggling.

Taka’s eyes were wide. His pupils were dilated to a pinpoint, eyebrows scrunched, yet scared. At the distance of merely five or so meters, Makoto could see his eyes glimmer with tears. Even though Taka was being carried and shoved around a lot, Makoto could tell that Taka’s body started to tremble.

The Monokumas brought him closer to the guillotine. They had turned a corner, Taka finally being able to see the horrid attraction that awaited him. Beforehand, the audience saw the Monokumas swiftly dispose of Chihiro’s corpse, replacing it with Mondo’s.

Once Taka turned the corner and saw Mondo, he was frozen with horror for just a couple of seconds. Several seconds of stillness… before he erupted into screams.

If he was not struggling before, he was now thrashing, trying to rip himself from the claws that kept him still. His screams melted into whimpers, calling with small desperate cries of help. The blade was secured high in the air, the pink blood on its edge dripping down to Mondo’s pale neck. With a chorus of Monokuma cheers, the blade quickly slid down as Taka shrieked.

Mondo’s head dropped into the basket below him. Taka’s screams curled into sobs, his body going limp in his riot’s arms. Mondo’s decapitated body was pulled off the guillotine, a sickening trail of pink blood following his corpse. Makoto felt his legs go weak. He stumbled and fell to his knees as Taka was pulled on stage, his face now starting to burn with tears. Taka was strapped into the guillotine with bloody, slippery leather belts that pinned him down. Makoto could barely defer between Taka and the guillotine through teary eyes, as both were soaked with a plum coat. Makoto couldn’t tell if Taka was sobbing, because the floor itself was being haunted with various cries, all melting into a dreadful sorrow.

…Taka had killed in self-defense. He didn’t mean to kill his best friend. But, he was being executed under the same guillotine Mondo his head in.

When Taka was situated into the guillotine, his head was faced directly down into the populated basket below him. Makoto couldn’t imagine the horror of seeing two decapitated heads in a basket, less than a meter away from Taka’s face, especially the heads of his allies. Cries from Taka warped from sorrow into a shriveled wail, shrieking in horrid despair. He slammed against the restraints. Thumps and whimpers of pain filled the execution floor again. The Monokumas raised the blade. The bears cheered.

Taka had no time to close his eyes before the blade dropped.

Taka’s cries suddenly cut off.

The Monokumas gasped.

Makoto blinked away his tears. He stared at the guillotine. Makoto’s eyes froze on Taka’s neck.

The blade had only lodged itself halfway through. Taka’s head was limp, blood gushing from his neck and creating a trickle of blood pouring down from his head. Makoto felt his head throb painfully, his head going light while trying to look at Taka’s gored neck. His lungs closed up as Monokumas jumped up to the stage. They lifted their feet and stomped down on the blade. Makoto was failing to keep his eyes open, dizzy from nausea as the disgusting noise of stomping continued to shudder the room. Gross, wet noises squished through Taka’s neck, blood spitting everywhere with each powerful stomp. After several hits, a shiver shot down Makoto’s spine as he heard an awful snap. Taka’s neck had shattered. After a couple more stomps, his neck bone was cut through completely and his head fell with only a thick sliver of flesh keeping it from falling off.

Makoto curled up and faced the floor. He felt vomit spill onto the ground, his body convulsing as he could hear Monokumas’ cheers. He could hear the disgusting tearing noise of Taka’s head peeling off. It fell and thumped against the basket. Only moments afterward, another thump was heard. He couldn’t tell exactly what it was, but he could hear a couple of splats and yelps behind him. Makoto scrunched his eyes closed. He spat small dribbles of vomit as he sobbed.

Aoi shrieked, her cries starting to shorten and hyperventilate. Makoto’s jaw grew sore from clenching his teeth. He didn’t want to look. He desperately didn’t want to look up. But… He felt Aoi fall next to him, still heaving for air through weaseled cries.

Makoto slowly opened his eyes.

All three heads had rolled out of the basket, leaving a pink trail of blood behind them. They had rolled up to the gate, some faces turned away but some facing the audience. Taka’s head was sideways, dribbling blood and eyes wide.

Makoto and Taka stared at each other. Makoto’s eyes were frozen, silently locked with his. His fingers stopped trembling. Makoto ceased breathing for a second.

Taka’s eye twitched.

Makoto’s mouth shuddered into an agape expression. Finally taking a deep breath, Makoto belted a horrified shriek.

Chapter Text

GAME OVER!

Chiaki has been found guilty. Time for punishment!

Chiaki sat down patiently. Usami was holding her hand with soft paws. Chiaki had her eyes focused on a large, metal block in front of her, obscuring most of her view. Everything was strangely quiet. For an execution, there wasn’t much noise. She expected loud 8-bit sounds, or maybe a video game tune (considering that Monokuma would always poke to the guilty’s interests), but there was nothing but ambiance. Instead, a small revving noise and the clinks of controller buttons filled the execution hall. Chiaki didn’t mind the noises much. She didn’t find them ominous or scary; it was comforting in her last moments.

Of course, she had killed someone; that was why awaiting her demise. Well, it was not a malintent kill; Nagito had set up a devious plan to get the traitor to kill him, using random elements, fires, and his incredible luck to his disposal. It was a mercy kill. Nagito simply wanted to know who the traitor was, and even if he weren’t able to know the answer, he would weasel the traitor out for everyone else to witness. It was a smart plan and Chiaki admired that. She never viewed Nagito as a horrible person. He was a genius. She was going to miss Nagito.

In all honesty, she wasn’t sad about dying. She had accepted that fact during the whole trial. She knew she would have to die sometime during their island trip. Hajime was very set on escaping their world, but Chiaki could not follow him. She would have to accept her death and reveal her true colors if Hajime were successful in leaving. …She would be sad, of course. She had grown to love everyone on their island. But… Hajime was a man of wonders. He was going to escape their world and move on to change everything. He could tear down the digital walls of their island getaway and restore everything beyond their cage.

Chiaki stared ahead of her. Hajime was going to escape. He and the others were going to escape. She believed in them. Her death was just another step towards their freedom.

She smiled.

Suddenly, a loud explosion rattled the ground.

Chiaki jolted, squeezing Usami’s paw hard enough to cause a yelp. Above them two, Chiaki could see fragments of blocky textures fly, hitting against the walls. A groaning engine noise sputtered through the room, rolling back and forth. Then, another explosion shattered the air. Chiaki flinched but kept her eyes still.

Slowly, it was becoming apparent where she was. …Monokuma was playing a game. A game of Breakout; an old arcade game in which the player’s objective was to bounce a ball against walls to destroy dozens and dozens of blocks. And… Chiaki was one of them.

She grimaced. How else would she be killed? It was fitting for someone obsessed with video games. To be executed by what she loved. She expected as much from the horrific bear.

Chiaki’s eyes lulled to the ground, exhausted. The ground below her shook as more explosions dotted around her, starting to ring her ears into numbness. The floor was smooth and cool, a sheen of polish that shimmered like a quiet lake. It bore several grains embedded inside, dotting the ground with a constellation of gorgeous white specks that just barely shined against the harsh fluorescent lights above her.

…Chiaki had never seen the stars outside of the island. She always stared up into the night sky after everyone went to bed in the silence of midnight. The wind would gently brush her hair to and fro, as well as lap the hotel pool into small waves. Crickets hummed night sonatas and small moths danced around cabin lights. With the slight smell of coconuts, thick brush, and chlorine, she would stare at the fake stars. They were always gorgeous. Small paint splatters against the onyx dome that surrounded their world. Some were brighter than others, yet some connected to create small figures. Chiaki had a lot of knowledge, including some on constellations, so she could easily point out the Big Dipper, as well as the Ursa Minor. The night sky was gorgeous. She pondered if the real sky was gorgeous.

…She didn’t know how. Hell, she didn’t even know if she could, but she wanted to see. She wanted to see those stars with her real eyes. She wanted to stare into the night sky holding Hajime’s hand. …She had to.

Chiaki’s eyes went wide, focused on the constellations embedded into the ground. She whipped her head up. Another explosion rang through the room, that time much closer. Through strips of blocks, she could peek through and see the contraption that wheeled her demise. A large truck was going back and forth, acting as a paddle for a massive metal ball that rolled between the truck and blocks. When the ball smashed against a block, it shattered, the recoil knocking the ball into the truck, only to bounce back again. Chiaki felt her body jump when the next explosion rang, only meters away from her. The shards, now sharp shrapnel instead of pixelated chunks, were flying closer. Chiaki watched a shard bounce in front of her eyes, settling beside her knee. She stared solemnly at the shard. Surely Monokuma was planning to make it painful for her. …But, she couldn’t feel pain. She was code. …Chiaki ignored Monokuma’s degradation to her digital self.

Another bang rattled in front of Chiaki, only a meter away. She jolted back hard, shrapnel scattering everywhere. Usami whimpered, turning to cries as she mumbled something about not being able to see. Chiaki felt several stings sprinkle across her arm, some dotted on her face. She blinked away the scare.

She froze. Chiaki trailed her eyes down to her arm, which was now sizzling with pain. Small dots showed shrapnel that had wedged themselves into her arm. It stung. Her arm hurt. Chiaki hitched her breath.

Before her, blocks were reduced to rubble. When shifting her eyes over, she saw a wall. A door. A neon sign flickered right above it that read “EXIT”. Her eyes widened.

And, without thinking, she ran.

Chiaki gripped Usami’s paw and jumped up, tripping to keep up with her sudden escape. She ran fast, trying to avoid the shrapnel of the next blast. She didn’t care how fast she had to run, or the wounds she had to endure. She had to get out of there. She had to see the stars.

Chiaki nearly dragged her bunny friend behind her as she sprinted, closing in on the door. Loud detonations hugged her sides; she felt a handful of shards embedded in her body, but she kept running. Usami squealed. Chiaki slammed her body against the escape door, flinging it open with a slam. She nearly tripped into a long dark corridor, stuttering to her feet in dim lighting. Chiaki huffed, gripping Usami’s paw tight.

The small bunny mumbled behind her, “C-Chiaki! Stop, I c-can’t see!”

Chiaki looked back down to her small companion and immediately tensed. Despite the dark lighting, Chiaki could see large glass daggers lodged into Usami’s eyes, cracked lenses spilling broken circuits and down her cheeks. She whimpered, pawing at her broken sight. Chiaki gripped tighter.

“Wait a bit longer, we’re going to see Hajime again. Now, just hold on.”

Chiaki whipped her head back to the hallway, moving to keep running through her execution. But, her escape was cut short by a vigorous whip past her face. She jumped, stumbling backward in her dim route. An object- No, a vehicle, had just sped past her face, barely taking off the skin on her face. Loud engines of distant trucks hummed kilometers away, whizzing past with roaring horns.

Oh… Monokuma knew her too well. She had just run into a game of Frogger.

The objective of the game Frogger was simple- the player, a frog, was to hop from one side of a street to another, successfully clearing a stage. But, those streets had cars. Cars that drove fast.

Chiaki gulped. Because of the initial surprise, she hadn’t noticed the first car, but when looking around, it became obvious that she was in the middle of a busy night road. Lights were approaching from both sides, however, it was hard to determine how far each car was.

In front of Chiaki, the road was clear. The lights of cars lit up the road well enough, which terrified yet exhilarated her. Her path was set clearly for her; if she ran fast enough, she would be safe. Well, she was still a program, so she couldn’t necessarily die.

…But her arm was still tingling with pain.

Glancing around for the blinding headlights, Chiaki bolted once more. She was now dragging Usami, pulling her weight while dashing through bright flashes. She felt wind snap by her as cars snapped past, just grazing her jacket. She kept pausing and slowing down, weaving through the highway in a careful balance of patience and restlessness. The cars were deafening; the wind that cars pulled behind them tore through her eardrums while many cars slammed on their horns. She grimaced, using a free hand to try and cup one ear. Unfortunately, that meant she couldn’t hear anything else but the cars.

A paw pushed against her hand. Chiaki whipped her head around, seeing Usami practically scratching at her. Usami’s eyebrows tilted up as she screamed a whimper, “C-Chiaki! Wait!”

Before Chiaki could open her mouth to respond, a car slammed into Usami. Instantly, the bunny disappeared into the darkness, ripped from Chiaki’s grip. She was still trying to process the hit, staring at the empty space where her friend used to be. Chiaki stumbled backward, dizzy with a void of sudden loss.

A loud horn blared through the highway. She shot her head to a car only meters away from her, driving full speed. She jerked her body forward to dodge, just barely missing the vehicle. Her feet landed wrong and she tripped, slamming her forehead against the pavement. She dodged the car…somewhat.

The tire had driven right over one of her legs.

Chiaki paused for a moment. She scraped for a breath, the horrendous pain shocking her legs as she felt her body shiver with agony. Once air graced her lungs, she shrieked, curling her body in to endure the horrific pain. She heaved, trembling as her leg throbbed. Another horn rattled the air. She saw a car drive straight towards her head. Adrenaline started to run through her veins as she pushed her head up from the pavement, dodging the car in full. Her back was arched as her head burned with pain, realizing she had pulled her head up too fast. She spun with a light-headed trance, grimacing to suppress the pain. She looked over her shoulder to her now a twisted leg, as headlights brightened the area around her.

She stared at a thick puddle of pink blood.

Her eyes dilated. Blood.

She stared at the puddle for just a moment longer. She knew she was a program… Hopefully. She knew she couldn’t bleed, but she never tested it. Yet, Chiaki was crippled with agony. She whipped her head up, ignoring her throbbing brain. Another open door shined with a glowing arc, glimmering against a dark wall. Her fingernails curled, feeling her heart skip. Maybe… Maybe she was real. Maybe she was lied to the whole time, the digital world trying to convince her she was fake.

In fact, she never remembered being shown her digital self. She was just told that her existence was fake. Any memory banks could have been deceptions, trying to believe that she was an A.I..

A smile crept to her face. She could escape. She could see the stars with Hajime.

She stood her body up from the pavement and peeled her leg from the road. Pain rippled through her body, nearly making it impossible to walk, but she stood. She kept her head up and ran forward. She hopped painfully, trying to balance herself while dangling her broken leg. She could escape… She could escape. SHE COULD ESCAPE!!!

Chiaki painfully reached the door, nearly getting hit a couple more times by speeding cars. As she neared the adjacent door, she saw… faces. She saw their faces. She saw Hajime. She saw Kazuichi and Sonia, Akane and Fuyuhiko. She saw the faces of those she loved. They ran towards her. Chiaki felt a smile surface on her face.

And, as she breached the bright white door, she smashed her face against a glass panel.

Sonia gasped once she saw Chiaki on the dark highway, bringing Hajime’s eyes to the glass in front of them. The road she was running through was so dark, only flashes of light illuminating the scene around her. But, slowly, they could make out the shapes of Chiaki limping towards them. Once her body was in full view, her vicious wounds from the Frogger game were much more apparent. She was practically pulling a crushed leg behind her. Hajime had expected the leg to be flattened, but it was still intact. However, there was a noticeable indent around her shin area, completely covered in a thick, glimmering layer of deep violet. It dripped a trail of blood, thick enough to leave a river. Her ankle was twisted harshly, the skin twisting to follow its disgusting angle. Hajime was surprised Chiaki hadn’t passed out from the pain, but she was swaying in her limp. She started to huff, blood soaking her already pink hair as it trailed down her cheeks.

As much as Hajime was happy to see Chiaki running from her execution… Hajime could see a large Tetris game playing in front of him. Behind a glass wall were towers of steel blocks, all colored bright, vibrant colors. A crane high above them was pulling blocks from around a corner, dropping them with a powerful thud. However, the most disgusting horror of the execution was the body. Monokuma had pinned Nagito’s still horrified corpse to the wall, placing it close to the door Chiaki was running towards. Blood had stopped running from his body but the small screws that held his neck against the wall had tinted pink. The blocks had started to pile, building walls that framed the door.

As Chiaki was getting close, the horror of what she was bolting into finally settled in. Hajime felt his heart tighten. His legs started to move, pulling into a walk which quickly escalated to a sprint.

Hajime belted, “CHIAKI!!! STOP!!! STOP RUNNING!!!”

Chiaki’s face came closer into view, the light from the audience’s room illuminating her face. She bore a smile. Hajime felt his eyebrows curl. He ran up to the glass, slamming his hands against the transparent wall between them.

“CHIAKI!!! DON’T COME IN!!! IT’S A TRAP!!!”

Chiaki probably hadn’t heard him. She ran straight into the glass, smashing her face hard. Hajime winced as Chiaki slowly slipped down the glass, a trail of blood following her face. She limped back up to stand, cradling her nose. Hajime watched as she sneezed out a clump of blood.

The brunette belted, “Chiaki?!? Can you hear me?!?”

Chiaki rubbed her nose gently, then glanced up. She caught eye contact with Hajime and held for only a second, and then she looked to her surroundings. To be inside the glass cage must have been terrifying. She stared at the uncomfortably close wall of blocks beside her, the crane above her dropping blocks, the now locked door that sealed her inside, and finally trailing her eyes over to… Nagito. She froze up, staring down at a slumped corpse of a former classmate. Hajime watched her eyes dilate, hopping backward to hit half of the wall behind her. She cupped her mouth, tears starting to form in her eyes.

Kazuichi, which was suddenly behind Hajime, gasped slightly, “Oh shit.”

Hajime turned over to meet Kazuichi’s horrified eyes. He quickly followed his eye line, looking up to a cane bringing a massive upside-down “L” block. It was dragged above the stage, hovering right over Nagito.

Hajime whipped his attention back to Chiaki. A fierce hand slammed against the glass and screamed, “CHIAKI!!! GET BACK!!!”

Chiaki’s eyes flicked over to him, hand still over her mouth. Then, the block dropped. A shudder wracked through the ground with a loud smash. But, instead of a thud, what the audience was used to, it was muffled. Hajime could not hear what was happening behind the glass, but he could feel a series of cracks reverberate from the glass. It was probably Nagito’s bones cracking into thousands of pieces.

Following his eyesight down to the block, Hajime’s eyes dilated. The glass wall was coated in pink. It was barely possible to see what was behind it, but outlines were still visible. From what he could tell, the block had not fully hit the ground, as it was stopped by a thick layer of… something. Despite the blood, he could still see it. …It was too grotesque to even put into words. Bones and flesh spat out from the sides, curled and torn apart into horrific piles of meat. Nagito’s arm had been lying to the side, but from the force, was cut clean off and flown across the small enclosure. It laid pitifully behind Chiaki as the dead fingers rested idly to the sky.

…Chiaki’s eyes were frozen. She stared at the block that Nagito was laying at a moment before. If she wasn’t already coated with blood, now she was smothered. Blood was splattered on every inch of her skin, turning her entire complexion pink. Another arm slowly raised to her neck, shaking as her body convulsed to breathe. Another whir started to rev behind the wall again. The crane reached back to get another block. Adrenaline shocked Hajime’s heart.

He gave the glass another powerful slam, “CHIAKI!!!”

Chiaki stopped shaking for a moment. Hajime kept hitting the glass, smashing his fist harder and harder. Chiaki’s gaze slowly crawled from the bloodied block over to its corner. Hajime kept hitting.

Fuyuhiko grumbled, “H-Hajime, cut it out, you’re gonna hurt yourself.”

The only response he got was more desperate screams. He could hear the crane move.

Akane walked up behind him, “Hajime, stop it.”

Rattled with emotions, he whipped around and punched her square in the face. He didn’t give a second thought to processing it as he whipped right back, pressing his face to the glass to grab his friend’s attention. Chiaki looked a bit closer to him.

Arms pulled Hajime back, ripping him from the glass wall. He writhed, managing to rip one arm from his restraints. He furiously looked around, seeing a ledge. Behind Chiaki, there was a two by two space, a perfect ledge for her to crawl on top of. Then, above that ledge, there was another, leading up to a flat plane. It led straight to an opening, a place where she could jump down and finally reunite with them. Hajime felt his eyes widen, a small smile trying to surface on his face.

He outstretched his arm, pointing over to the wall she laid against, “CHIAKI!!! OVER THERE!!! RUN!!!”

Chiaki’s gaze had finally reached Hajime’s face. She looked to his arm, following his pointing finger over to her side. She trailed her eyes up, seeing the ledge and the escape she could crawl towards. There must have been a sparkle in her eye, as her hands had fallen from her face. Looking up, she saw the crane had brought another block, a long “I” piece, hovering over her body. Quicky, she scrambled, grabbing onto the ledge and pulling herself up. She winced, as her broken leg had probably throbbed with agony once she tried to move. Her head dipped to the ledge, only halfway up the step, grimacing.

Hajime’s jaw shook. That wasn’t enough. She wasn’t going to get up in time. By that point, Akane behind him had pulled his arm back, pulling him back further. He was ashamed that he started to tear up, but he didn’t give a shit.

He yelled, “CHIAKI, GET UP!!!”

His friend finally pulled her head up and pulled herself forwards.

The block slammed down. There was a healthy silence as everyone stared.

Fuyuhiko put a hand to his mouth, “Oh… fuck…”

Chiaki stared at the wall in front of her in shock as she trembled. She hadn’t gotten up the ledge in time.

More blood splattered across the glass, coating just about every open space on it. Chiaki was still visible, but it was difficult to see where the seams of her body broke. Hajime could only assume it was similar to Nagito’s crushed body, a disgusting pile of grape-colored flesh and bones.

Akane must have been in shock because her grip on Hajime loosened. Hajime didn’t immediately writhe from his constraints, but he did find himself slipping from Akane’s arms, briskly walking over to where… the rest of Chiaki’s body was.

Chiaki suddenly shivered and vomited, hurling up a pile of clumpy, brown slush, with pink blood splattered on top of it. Blood dripped from her nose slowly. Her eyes were lidded as she swayed from dizziness. Hajime found it hard to talk. His throat closed in on itself, only leaving his mouth agape in attempts to call out to her. His hands were against the glass, lazily pressed from a lean. Tears stung Hajime’s strained eyes.

Chiaki blinked a couple of times and slowly cranked her head to the side. Hajime’s gut lept up to his throat. He watched as Chiaki’s eye line met his. They stared for a moment. Chiaki was fully crying now, eyes and face red as tears smeared her cheeks. Hajime breathed roughly, sniffling as his tears broke and started to travel down his face.

Slowly, Chiaki’s hand raised up. It shook violently, slowly crawling up to the same height as her head. She pressed it against the glass, smearing blood with shivering fingers.

Hajime stared at Chiaki’s hand. His vision was blurring up, making it difficult to see the intricacies of her bruised and torn fingers. Gasping in a teared breath, he raised his hand. He pressed it against Chiaki’s own, making small adjustments to fully match their silhouettes.

His eyes shifted back to Chiaki’s. She was in tears.

Hajime could hear the crane move again.

She opened her mouth. Hajime could not hear anything past the glass wall. He only could read her trembling, chapped lips.

Her body shook as she mouthed the word “escape”.

“Escape… for me”.

Hajime watched Chiaki’s eyes all the way up to the point where her body exploded into a mess of pink and short strands of hair against the glass.

Hajime was feeble as Akane pulled him away from the glass. The blocks, all aligned into one wall, started to shine with brilliant blindness making everyone shield their eyes. He just kept staring in an agape shock, having Akane nearly drag him. He was whipped around when the wall exploded, Akane shielding him as the execution scattered its glass stars everywhere. He hit the ground hard, splitting skin across his scalp in the impact. Despite his protection, glass littered his body, but he couldn’t stop crying to worry about his wounds. He only curled in when blood painted the walls, splattering across their bodies and into their mouths. He sobbed while iron stung his tongue and tears trailed into his nose.

A door opened for the audience to leave and return to their hotel. But Hajime didn’t want to leave. He couldn’t move from his spot. That was the first time he had cried in months.

His hand was right on top of hers. If he pushed hard enough, he could have grabbed her hand and saved her.

Yet, now he was on the ground, covered in his friend’s blood.

His remaining friends solemnly watched Hajime as he whimpered his cries of despair.

Chapter Text

GAME OVER!

Angie has been found guilty! Time for punishment!

Angie did not feel remorse, nor did she feel guilt or shame as she sat at the center of her execution. Himiko had betrayed the student council. Such an act would not stand with Angie and she was certain the same went for Kami-sama. She had no time to consult Him as she smashed her chisel into Himiko’s throat, but she knew He would have wanted that. However, Angie disposed of Himiko’s body by sculpting around her and making her one of her gorgeous wax effigies. She thought it was skillfully disguised and with enough evidence to suspect another student, it seemed foolproof. But alas, she was sitting on her paint-stained death bed.

As for Angie’s punishment for her crimes, she was to be executed. She saw Monokuma kill the guilty a couple of times before; a vigorous escape from Kirumi, the symphony of Kaede’s demise, and the chorus of sorrow for Kiibo’s betrayal. Each of them was gorgeous; filled with colors, song, and dance. Angie felt her heart soar with each execution, seeing how beautiful their last breaths were. Her classmates found her awe in art disturbing, but with Kami-sama on her side, her world was coated in a beautiful veil. He had blessed her with a gift of melted senses, where she could hear the colors of the culprits’ screams.

With Kami-sama, the world was delightful. And… After a long and perilous fight against Monokuma and the loyalty of her friends, it was finally time to greet Kami-sama with open arms.

Angie delicately sat legs crossed on top of a white-clothed table, in the center of a messy, college art classroom. White strings of the same cloth draped themselves across her, reaching over her shoulder and her hips. Paint and wax sprinkled the floor and walls, some covering propped up canvases and statues. It was certainly a mess but it was a controlled mess. Angie loved using chaos as her main medium. But, Angie quickly discovered who was orchestrating her demise.

From around a corner, she heard the gentle rumbling of a cart. Once it dawned from behind a messy shelf, Angie’s eyes widened to the sight of a large, metal barrel, billowing steam from the top. Pushed by the two remaining Monokubs, the towering barrel brought a soft, white wax smell before her. When melted, the once smooth and almost plastic smell had curled into a smoky air of smooth paste, almost as soft as a dandelion. Her nose melted to the gift Kami-sama blessed her.

Monotaro, after helping bring the barrel a couple of meters away from her, suddenly slammed his body against it. Angie’s eyes followed the barrel as it slowly teetered and crashed down. A furious splash of hot, white wax splattered across the room, a wave slushing onto the ground. Wax flew, sprinkling her body with freckled burns with skin crinkling pain. The wax on the ground was still bubbling from heat, which meant her skin was boiling with blistering dots of art. Angie did not let tears surface, however. She was not going to cry while meeting Kami-sama. She was to greet her God with joy. Though, it was becoming increasingly difficult to keep her eyebrows from furrowing.

The other Monokub, Monophanie, walked over to the now draining barrel. When her brother had finally regained his balance and scurried to the other side, the bears briefly made eye contact. Then, they turned to Angie. Silently, they both simultaneously dug their hands into the boiling wax.

Angie’s eyes dilated. The bears scurried to her sides, and with a synchronized act, they both pushed their wax into the silk fabric against Angie’s shoulder blades.

Angie arched her back sharply and shrieked.

The harsh sear that suddenly burned her back tore at her skin. Despite there being veils of marble white garments to protect her shoulder blades, the wax melted straight through the fabric, and its fibers melded directly to her supple skin. Angie’s eyes watered in agony as she kept her sights straight. She was not going to succumb to the torture Monokuma bestowed upon her. It would take longer for her to break, especially since she was meeting Him soon.

The two Monokubs pranced from behind her, running to scoop another handful and come back, pushing it straight back into the same spot. Even though it was not directly on her skin that time, the heat still built and scorched her flesh. Her eyes watered slightly, but she bit back the pain. Yet, the longer that Angie sat there, the more it burned. Angie had felt burns before; from torches, coals, pots, and even food, but that pain had been nothing but gentle hums. The wax that was being lathered against her body was so much more than any pain she could have understood. She bit back her tears as seconds felt like minutes of relentless torture.

The Monokubs only continued. Her back grew heavier and heavier; the dripping, slippery medium pulling down on her skin. It was not a significant amount of wax, nor was it painful, but Angie’s eyebrows furrowed in fear for what was being sculpted behind her. Nerves had started to singe off, allowing her to feel a new sensation; her skin failing to mend with her muscles. Her eyelids felt heavy with nausea. She felt her body slowly lean backward, the weight pulling her from her cross-legged sit. She awkwardly laid her body backward, pressing against a now apparent support pole. Finally, after her back was given rest, a glistening tear broke and trailed down her cheek. Angie stared at the bright ceiling above her as her cry blurred sight.

As she laid, the wax kept piling. The Monokubs sculpted behind her, arching a creation to the corners of her eyes. After pounds and pounds of wax were crafted onto her, she started to take shape. Angie’s eyes widened as she noticed its silhouette, even through teary pupils.

The Monokubs were giving her wings.

A smile slowly surfaced on Angie’s face. A pair of wings to fly. Wings to reach to the sun and greet Kami-sama. Cries of sorrow turned into sobs of joy.

Giggles curled from her lips as her wings grew. They became heavier and heavier, pulling her skin taught. The Monokubs had started to splash paint across her new limbs; the thick, white acrylic paint cascading down her slippery feathers. Goosebumps waved her skin as some spots of paint dotted her tongue, singing her mouth with its rubber taste.

But, soon enough, the Monokubs backed away from their masterpiece. Angie bore her ivory teeth in a joyous smile. She closed her delicate eyelashes and felt her wings flex. She could not explain why her body suddenly accepted those wings as her own, but she would not disgrace Kami-sama’s gift to her soul. With a grand stretch, her wings widened. Angie’s limbs felt weightless. She felt as if every small nerve in her skin had relaxed and was ready to ascend. With grace, she rose. Her back arched up, pulled by an invisible force, and her wings flexed to flutter. As she was pulled up enough, her wings pushed a powerful flap, lifting her body into weightlessness. Despite moments before, when the last coat of wax was slathered onto her body, her wings were ready to escort their host.

Angie kept flapping her wings, the concrete floor growing distant below her. A light soaked the room as she felt a cold breeze flood from the ceiling. When raising her head, she saw the blinding crystal blue skies that awaited her. Her smile only shone brighter. Wings beat harder, rising Angie further towards the sun.

It did not take long until she approached a massive collage of clouds nestled in the sky. They all blocked the sun, creating a soft, yellow glow through the cotton clouds. With tentative eyes, she witnessed the clouds part and spill golden rays of sunlight. Angie quickly blinked her eyes to adjust, waxing her pupils to finally look upon…

Him. Kami-sama.

She could not describe what Kami-sama looked like. He was everything simultaneously, a beautifully tangled clutter of perfection, yet, He had no form. His face was a harsh, searing light, but Angie could pick out every small intricacy in His skin. However, His presence singed her tongue, failing her to express His divine stature. Angie found herself mystified. She had never imagined that Kami-sama would be that gorgeous. She had never imagined her God would shine with a grandiose shimmer.

Angie felt her eyes water. Her delicate hands stretched out with a childish desire, longing to be embraced for a long-awaited reunion. Her smile burned into ecstasy with vicious passion, yet it still couldn’t rival the radiant euphoria Kami-sama gifted to her.

In fact, she felt her whole body burning with happiness. Her face was flushed red with sheer joy, her skin waved with goosebumps. Angie’s eyes streamed tears down her cheeks, her mouth parted as her tongue burned. Her back speckled with joy, almost as if her wings were weeping as well. Beads of sweat trickled down her chest as she kept reaching with needy desires.

She was getting closer. By that distance, Angie could barely graze His cheek. No matter how close her wings fluttered, her fingers did not receive the soft touch of His face. Just barely out of her reach. Her fingers strained to the point of ache, trying to feel her divine God.

However… Her reach was growing farther. Centimeters turned into meters, robbing Angie of blessing her fingertips with Kami-sama’s grace. It took Angie a furious sting to her ankle to realize why she was descending. A splash of wax singed her foot, and a trail was snaking down her leg. She hissed, trying to glance behind her without adverting her face. She could only see her white-painted wings, still fluttering vigorously to reach the clouds. But.. Wax was dripping from her feathers. Large clumps melted from her wings, flinging off with every beat.

Her heart stopped. She was falling. Her wings were melting. And soon, Icarus was going to fall from grace.

Tears melted into those of horror. She frantically pumped her wings, almost clawing at the air to keep herself afloat. She was not going to fall, not when she was that close to Him. Her claws kept trying to paw to the clouds, despite her wings starting to rapidly disassemble.

Then, her gut rose into her chest. She fell. The white cloth strung around her, as well as her wings, framed Kami-sama’s face in her descent. His pristine face was still glimmering. Yet… Kami-sama was not expressing gratitude. Angie could not form His emotions into words, however, she could read the fervent disgust on His face. A rage so profound it seemed to scorch the sky with poisoned smoke. A disappointment that exceeded the bounds of human hearts.

Angie’s heart wrenched. …Disgust? Rage? Disappointment? Was He displeased at her choice to drown Himiko in wax? She hadn’t consulted Him when she performed her murder. Should she have waited? Should she have been more merciful? …Why was Kami-sama displeased?

Her body went weightless as tumbled through stormy clouds. He had vanished from her eyesight, wind snapping past hard enough to blind her altogether. Her arms were still outstretched, pitifully trying to reach a savior who wouldn’t help her. Her eyes rolled to the back of her head, starting to go sick with dizziness. She could feel her tears sink into the sky. She sobbed to the clouds as Kami-sama became nothing but a small sun amongst displeased clouds.

Suddenly, her plummet stopped. Her back and neck snapped backward as she blew her eyes wide. The wind was knocked out of her, her mouth agape to grasp for air. What had remained of her wings splattered across her sides, scorching her sun-kissed skin. Despite her sudden stop, she was still suspended in the air. She did hit the rigid floor of the Earth.

However… Something had stabbed her body.

She trailed her eyes down to her stomach. A long, grand arm had pierced straight through her chest, nestled between her ribs. It oozed pink blood, with the dagger that the arm held glistening a thick magenta. …A dagger made of marble. She shivered. Angie was skewered with a marble statue, one that had re-envisioned a painting she knew very well. Even from just an arm, she knew the masterpiece that tore through her body.

The Assassination of Julius Caeser.

Angie felt her eyelids flutter. As she laid there, sinking slowly, the agony of her demise started to surface. The tear to her chest, splitting her skin into shreds, was boiling with horrific pain that nearly singed all of her nerves. Not only was her chest torn but her legs and arms were pierced by swords and daggers, blood now pouring against all of the statue’s smooth surfaces.

Her lips shamefully curled into a true, gut-wrenched sob. She had not truly cried in a long time. Kami-sama had always frowned upon her tears when they were shed from her misdeeds. Yet, she could not stop her sinful sorrows. She was stabbed with sickening betrayal, and even though a growing storm was washing her skin of blood, the statue was shamefully shielded. Her ichor turned sour, staining the masterpiece she was shredded by. Angie sobbed. And sobbed. And sobbed.

Angie supposed that her punishment was poetic. A woman who flew too close to the sun, relying on her pride to guide her to salvation, only to be pierced with betrayal. …A death worthy of a poem. As she drew one of her final breaths, she thought one thought. A final poem to whisk her soul into despair.

Tenko gripped the grates.

She cheered for Angie’s descent.

Himiko smiled.

Chapter Text

GAME OVER! 

Gonta has been found guilty! Time for punishment!

When Gonta Gokuhara woke up from unsettling memories, he found himself lying in a bed. The room was silent, save only for the hum of an air conditioner and his own breathing filling the room. A fan above him twisted in circles, spinning as each blade brushed air against walls.

Gonta crinkled his eyebrows, darting his eyes around the room. Only moments before, he was clutching onto the metal railing of a courtroom, crying in horror of his numerous betrayals. The glares of his friends were digging into his back, disdaining him for his vicious murder of a friend. Despite the fact that Kokichi had pulled the strings in his demise, Gonta was fully to blame for the punishment that awaited him.

However, on a bed? If he were to be killed by the hands of a ferocious bear, he figured it would be more gruesome or horrific than simply waking up in a twin bed. …Gonta was going to accept his punishment. He found no use in trying to escape something he deserved. He figured his friends were hurting more than what was going to be dealt to him.

It had been years since he had slept in a bed. Carpets while wrapped in blankets had been his bed for several years, refusing to use up precious mattresses meant for others. The encasing of bedsheets and the fluffiness of pillows felt foreign against his rough skin. Gonta found himself sitting up, granting a small shiver to the cold breeze that greeted him. When he fully examined his surroundings, he found himself in an ordinary room, a little on the small side. The carpet was pristine and a pile of books on a nearby desk was neat. …He had never seen anything like it when roaming the school previously.

Gonta figured that he needed to examine his surroundings, so with a tug, he pulled the comforter away, revealing a sight that made Gonta’s pupils blow wide.

Underneath the blanket was a sheen of hundreds, maybe thousands of small bugs. He dropped the comforter, a gasp escaping his lips. Bugs..! Bugs!! He hadn’t seen a single bug since he joined the academy!! And there were too many to even count!!! Gonta leaned over with open hands, a giddy smile plastered over his face. He scooped up a healthy handful, then gave a hushed giggle to the feeling of all the small legs skitter across his palms. His critter friends… The only things in the world that made him at peace. And they were lacing themselves through his fingers and sleeves.

But… some part of Gonta knew it was too good to be true. After all, it was his punishment.

Gonta jumped to a harsh sting to his arm. When looking, he couldn’t see anything but his long, suit sleeve. With full hands, Gonta couldn’t put down his friends just to look, but after another sting, more painful than the last, Gonta used two open fingers to roll up his sleeve. …It was a small red bump. Around two or three small bug bites were dotted across his arm, only growing in quanitity from the bugs trailing up his limbs. Gonta’s eyebrows furrowed. He hadn’t had a bug bite in years. The only time he had gotten a bug bite, he was an ignorant kid, fearing critters in a foolish scamper. …But, he wasn’t running away this time. He was staying to accept his execution. The bugs had nothing to fear.

Yet, they still bit. A shiver shot up his arm, branching out through his neck and scalp. The entomologist hissed to the sudden pain as they kept trickling through his body, bugs of all sizes knawing into the crevices of Gonta’s skin. As they bit and bit and bit away at Gonta’s thick callouses, now starting to bite across all of his skin, he felt his back tense. It was sudden, as a jarring pain stiffened his back in a snap. It garnered another gasp from Gonta, biting his tongue to keep any more yelps at bay. The pain from his bug bites was pulsing in his veins, pounding against his skin with each heartbeat. It was a sensation Gonta had never felt before in his life. He had once felt the venomous bite of a black widow before it turned fatal, which gave him the same sensation of pulsating skin, yet his heart never threatened to pulse out of his chest like that. Actually… when thinking about it, the sensation was very similar to what these bites were like. Each prick made his heart thump faster, causing his hands to shake with a weakness washing over his body. Then, it fully connected as his face curled in shock.

Gonta was being poisoned.

Before he could move his hands to hurriedly stop the onslaught of injected poison into his veins, his right arm stiffened sharply. Gonta failed to suppress a yelp, squeezing his eyes shut into a teary-eyed grimace. It had felt like a metal rod shot straight through his bone, causing it to forcefully stay outstretched. Gonta swore he must have been bleeding, from how horrid it hurt, but his skin remained a pale white.

He panicked to use his remaining arm, but, it too, locked up. Through gritted teeth, Gonta watched bugs scurry around his body. He had to stop it somehow. He knew that he told himself to accept any death Monokuma made for him, but it felt so, SO painful. He could use his mobile limbs to try and reach for some sort of release for his agony, however, his search was in vain as his hands locked up. With trembling muscles, Gonta shifted his body to lay face down, the light above him making his eyes dizzy with pain. He dug his head into the pillow below him, dampening some tears that formed in his eyes. He craned his shaking jaw open to bite down on the pillowcase to muffle any screams. It hurt. It hurt beyond words. His body was snapping into a rigid lock of horrific aching, utterly helpless against the uncanny sensation. He felt as if his bones were widening, engulfing his freedom of mobility. Skin had thickened to decrease his movement and his muscles tightened into a stone stillness. The feeling was so vivid.

After his body went immutable, his body started to contort. His bones shifted. His spine was flattening. Legs were starting to thicken into ivory. Two ribs on either side started to part away from their homes, pressing against his skin. Gonta gave one last gasp of realization before he found the air stolen from his lips.

He was transforming. And only when he felt two ribs break skin and start to waddle, did he realize he was transforming. Transforming into a stag beetle.

The most wretched scream he could muster tore through his throat. In that moment, his spine broke skin. His bone had outstretched into a wide armor, growing to encapsulate his whole back. The bones in his muscles enlarged more and more, pushing the meat of his body outwards and tearing at the seams. Blood soaked the sheets. Within minutes, pints of blood had bled into the mattress, leaving Gonta lightheaded. His bones split, acting as claws to grasp around his remaining flesh to encapsulate it into a cage. Beetles bore exoskeletons, which meant that all their bones were on the outside, unlike humans with internal skeletons. Which meant that his body had to accommodate for his hidden bones.

Horror had fully latched onto his body as he felt his jaw move. His gut dropped as he felt a stretch pull his skin taught, threatening to pull apart his chin. It shredded his nerves, the feeling of his mouth disassembling under his muscles. A crack suddenly reverberated through his skull as his chin split down the middle. Gonta’s eyes screwed shut when his bones pressed skin, only holding for a couple of moments longer until grotesquely splitting. Tears poured as the cold air stinged his bare muscles, blood completely soaking the pillow below him and shrouding his eyesight in a red haze.

He found his eyes rolling to the back of his head. A sea of dizziness had finally overcome him, pulling his heavy skull to the pillow. However, he did not pass out. His brain stayed conscious for every single shift in his body. Gonta’s jaws fully split apart and started to grow, cracking into pincers. His exposed, waddling ribs continued to elongate, snapping joints into their ivory bases. Muscles in Gonta’s limbs were enveloped by bones, awkwardly carving themselves into new legs to skitter with. He had to close his eyes once he felt his skull shift, pushing his eyes higher up his face and to the sides. If he could throw up, he would, but shifted organs blocked his throat.

New skeletal fingers tingled. His absent ears burned as they had receded into his head. His chest condensed in the slush of reorganized muscles. Tears trailed down his new angled eyes.

He attempted to scream through his throat to beg for death.

Yet, his monstrous vermin body only quivered with velvet purple blood.

Shuichi flinched upon hearing the first spit of Gonta’s screams. The detective and his… friends were hiding behind a mesh fence, watching through a window that was barely the size of a small painting. It was difficult to see Gonta, as he was far from their view, with only a corner of his head visible. Even then, his back was turned, so a bush of tangled, green hair shielded anything they could gather. However, the jarring, heart-twisting shrieks still curled from behind the glass frame. Prior to that, they could see some skin from an up-turned face, but it was dotted with red marks from the bites from dozens of small bugs. Only the size of ants, they skittered across Gonta’s delicate skin, granting him more freckles than he already bore. A shiver trickled down Shuichi’s spine at the thought of bed bugs chewing at his skin, shocking him with so much pain that even men as strong as Gonta needed to shriek.

Gonta pushed his head against the pillow, grimacing in a fit of writhing. Blood was already starting to trickle, smearing across the pillow and into the bed frame. Screams continued to melt through the walls, struggling against sobs that trailed down the entomologist’s bug-infested cheeks. With one snapping arch, blood suddenly flung everywhere, decorating the walls and window with magenta splatters. Shuichi felt his body curl in a feeble attempt to shield himself from the execution, watching blood pool around the wooden supports of the glass. The amount of blood started to sicken the detective as Gonta gave the room a new coat of paint.

A cracking sound made Shuichi jolt. He focused on Gonta’s figure, and even though his hair shielded the entomologist’s face, it was still apparent what had just happened. Two long pieces of shimmering bone spread across the pillow, twitching in shock. Ivory cracked more, splitting into pincers with brand new, snapped joints. Shuichi cupped his mouth, eyes watering in his unmoving stare at the gore blossoming within the room.

However, it was not long until a click rang through the execution floor. With a loud creak, the doors of the room, situated in front of them, opened. It took Shuichi a deep, shivering breath to pull his gaze into the horrid walls of Gonta’s cage.

Shuichi couldn’t distinguish Gonta at first. There was only a shimmering shell of ivory, a layer of bright pink glistening against the overhead lights. Only when the mass of bones moved did Shuichi identify a face. Then, Shuichi’s stomach lurched. Gonta was horrifically disfigured, as bones had protruded from every corner it could. The human figure was stretched beyond the limits of possibility, not even resembling a human being. His trembling body only became more viscerally horrific once he turned around, crooking his head to the audience behind him. Upon seeing his full face, Shuichi heard Himiko whimper into a vomit.

Gonta’s jaw was curled out of his face. Harsh pincers twitched to each movement, clinking against each other’s new sharp edges. His eyes were positioned to each side of his head, frantically scanning independently of each other. Despite his horrific transformation, most of his face remained the same, which almost made his appearance that much worse. Gonta’s unruly hair still rested on his head, framing his soft, tanned skin that was dusted with sunkissed freckles. Trails of torn flesh lined his face, disrupting the natural innocence of his persona. It was hard to even distinguish those features, as blood coated his entire face, leaving no inch untainted.

However, the most horrifying part of Gonta’s transformation was those eyes. Scattered attention snapped his irises about, struggling to find purchase on something. Yet, with patience, Gonta finally looked to his friends. To Shuichi Saihara.

Once kind eyes were strained with a palpable horror that was beyond description. A fear that soaked the air, dragging guts down to the floor and burning with a grimacing terror. It was so strong that not even Gonta could open his split jaw to scream for help.

Shuichi felt his head go light. He tripped sideways and hit Maki, trying to readjust his stature. His head was a sea of nausea, all engrossed with the horrifying frame of Gonta’s demise. Through a vomit-induced haze, Shuichi failed to hear the large footsteps of a moving robot. Only until the screeching of metal against concrete stung his ears did he focus again. In front of the door stood a large Monokuma, facing the disfigured Gonta, clad in a yellow, single-piece suit of rubber. A large metal swatter rested in his paws, leaving a scraped trail behind it. A logo was plastered on his back, perfectly visible to the students. “Despair Exterminations.”

Shuichi bit on his tongue to hold back the bile in his throat. The disfigured man brought his fatigued attention from his friends up to Monokuma. His heightened horror (if it were even possible from his trembling state) was delayed from exhaustion for a couple of seconds, but once Monokuma hauled the swatter onto his shoulder, Gonta’s skeleton legs scrambled. He tripped against the bed, pushing his massive body away with a skittering fleet. He had managed to tip his body over, teetering onto his round back.

Moments before the swatter fell down onto his being, his throat had finally opened.

And, a horrendous shriek of agony ripped through the air, cut short by a harsh crack.

Shuichi’s skin shuddered, eyes still staring, unblinking. Under a metal swatter, Gonta’s chest bone snapped, leaving a long crack down the center. Gore spilled from the crevice, trickling down his beetle body. Gonta’s voice was stolen from him within an instant, leaving his unnatural mouth agape with no words to escape his lips. Monokuma lifted the now blood-splattered swatter and dropped it again with a slam. Gonta’s body compressed, more flesh tearing across his sides. With another hit, blood squirted once more, soaking the carpet below him.

Finally, Shuichi’s legs gave way. He fell to the ground, curling his head into his chest as the swats kept ringing through the air. Cracks and spits of blood repeated over and over again, while the sounds of Gonta’s struggle only dimmed.

After several more seconds, Monokuma eventually withdrew his weapon. Signified by steps away, Monokuma turned a corner and left the room with a bloody trail. Shuichi shakily peered through his eyes as the door closed, revealing a plastered sign across the center. “Clean Up In Progress.”

Blood poured from underneath the door and started to trickle past Shuichi’s feet.

His stomach gave up and regurgitated the remains of his lunch against the floor.

Chapter Text

Art by khairosclerosis!


GAME OVER!

Korekiyo has been found guilty! Time for punishment!

Billowing torches loom behind Korekiyo, their flames crackling through the silence that night brings. Sweat builds on his forehead, despite the cold and uncaring air. He is situated on top of a raised, wooden platform, overlooking an onyx void that envelops any possible scenery before him. He watches as his final words, inscribed with ink on an old scroll, skitter away in the paws of a metal bear. His judgment has already started. Red rope tightly binds his legs together, leaving red rashes on his fragile skin. Korekiyo’s hands shiver as warm blood flows from his stomach and soaks the white robe he dons. His stomach is already slit by his blade, hands splattered with a velvet pink. Despite the blistering pain that his body melts through, Korekiyo keeps his head high, unmoving.

After all, Monokuma is giving him the most euphoric death that one could ask for: death by the hands of seppuku.

In Ancient Japanese culture, samurai underwent a sacrificial ritual to restore honor to themselves and their family. He had already completed the first step: the samurai slits his own stomach with a tantō dagger after he writes his last words through a death poem. Slicing his stomach was releasing his soul, letting it fly once he was finally killed by a kaishakunin, who decapitates the wretched.

He does not fear his death. It is an honorable demise, one worthy of praise and remembrance. He can even hear a chorus of hushed cheers for his execution beyond the night veil. However… It still hurts. His eyes are going hazy, the blood loss making his head swim. The pillow below his knees is already drenched in pink, his thick ichor trailing through the wooden foundation that waves below him. Of course it hurts, it is a slit stomach after all— but he must not falter. Samurai who falter are to be shamed for eternity. He maintains his calm gaze. He mustn’t disgrace his family name.

A flash shimmers from the corner of his eye, bringing his attention to a long katana, hovering over his left shoulder. A jolt of excitement filters through his blood. The next stage of seppuku: after the stomach is sliced, revealing one’s soul and sins to the skies, a kaishakunin is to stand behind the samurai’s left shoulder. They raise a blade and slice their head, leaving nothing but a sliver of flesh. He figures it is finally time to feel his head drop into his cold, bandaged hands. He lets his dark eyelashes close, allowing the darkness of his consciousness to sweep his soul into the afterlife… to Her.

Clacks of high heels ring behind him. On reflex, Korekiyo’s eyes open to wide pupils. High heels… were common attire for the spirit he wishes to reunite with. An invisible shiver wracks his body, but he must not jump to conclusions. Women like Kirumi and Miu wear high heels in their secluded high school, and each click of their steps sauntering down the halls always made Korekiyo tingle with nostalgia. …However, Kirumi is dead, and Miu was just barking at his foul tactics minutes ago in the trial room, now very possibly in an audience he cannot see. …He mustn’t let his body latch on to his desire. He mustn’t break tradition. He mustn’t show his emotions.

Korekiyo strains to close his eyes once again. Perhaps those clicks are just sandals. But… he knows the sound so well. He squeezes his eyes tighter. He cannot let these thoughts swim in his mind. He must keep his composure.

The clicks grow closer as they circle from his left. Despite the insistent voice to compose himself, Korekiyo finds his eyes open once more. His throat tightens in shock. Red high heels trail across the glistening wood floor, coming to a stop in front of his knees. With every last ounce of his strength, Korekiyo keeps his eyes still, refusing to twist them into a swirl of emotions. Whomever those heels belong to… Even if they are the same shade as his late lover’s, they’re breaking the rules. The kaishakunin must stay behind the disgraced, slicing from beyond the soon-to-be-departed’s vision. And yet, he watches as the katana drifts into view, just behind its red-heeled owner.

Korekiyo’s eyes latch on to the blade, following its clean, reflective surface. He sees his face in the sharp strip of silver; he is pale, sweat trickling down his forehead despite the freezing night hugging his sides. His eyes are strained to nervous pupils, making Korekiyo bite his tongue in repulsion. So many thoughts shrowd the full comprehension of the blade; fighting against fruitless bargaining, confusion of the ruined ritual, and the joyous reuniting of lost souls. He’s failing to keep these thoughts behind glass eyes. Fear finds itself overtaking all other logic within his irises.

The katana rises and Korekiyo follows its shape. The blade effortlessly lifts through the air and hovers over a woman’s right shoulder that towers above him. …Korekiyo cannot believe his sight. Those lips, the smile she bares. A lipstick so red he can’t imagine it anywhere else. And eyes… Eyes he hasn’t gazed upon in so, so long.

It is Her. His beloved Sister.

He cannot help his face. Pleasure rawer than any delight he has ever felt spreads across his expression. Sister… He can’t explain why She’s here. Perhaps his head has already dropped and he is gazing within the afterlife. Or, maybe he’s hallucinating; blood loss certainly has a propensity to cause delusions. Perhaps his eyes are playing tricks on him. …But, She looks so real. She smells of the same freshly blossomed akaibara and kindling suki She bore, a scent that would always dance into his unmasked nostrils when She held him. …No one knows Her scent except for him.

…Is he dead? Have Her eyes finally blessed his exposed soul, to lead them away from the mortal world?

Her waxed eyes gaze down into his. The corners of Her cherry wine lips crawl upwards, slimming Her eyelashes to a piercing stare. The smile is as bright as he remembers. The cold night subdues to a quiet warmth. …Does he care that She is breaking the tradition? Sister is finally soaking in his eyesight. Yet… She knows better. She shouldn’t break traditions She knows so well. This… couldn’t be Sister… could it?

Too fast to fully render, Sister rips Korekiyo’s mask off his pale face. Skin that hasn’t revealed itself to nature’s air in years is basking in the moonlight, prickling to cold breezes. A jolt jumps through Korekiyo’s skin and his eyes blow wide. Without time to process her forceful tear, she lifts her sword high. The glint of the fire behind the disgraced samurai twinkles as She looks down on him with a fatal sea blue glare. …A sea blue glare that Sister never had. Sister’s eyes had the shine of a yellow sun, reminiscent of Korekiyo’s own.

Korekiyo’s eyes accompany his heart into a tight squeeze as Sister suddenly swings.

He expects his head to slide off its podium. He expects his dragonfruit ichor to soak his pristine coat as vile hands catch his head in its descent.

However, he feels nothing. Not a twinge of pain. His head remains standing.

Korekiyo’s closed eyes wax back, realization sparking an internal outrage. Sister missed. She missed. The kaishakunin missed its target and Korekiyo’s whole ritual is ruined. His throat tightens as the sting of shame begins to burn in the back of his eyes, but before he can comprehend it all, a cacophony of forceful zipping slices through his thoughts.

Ignoring all rules, he whips his head back to see a rope rapidly spinning behind him, writhing out of control as a pulley rattles free. Two wooden panels underneath him give out, parting down the middle like a hanging’s trap door. Korekiyo’s bound soul fumbles before it is dropped.

It is only for the briefest of moments that his eyes whip back to meet Sister’s. He stares up helplessly, eyes full of the most uncontrollable betrayal his body could muster. She merely gives him a smile in return.

With the slightest nod of her head, he sees glasses fall from their perch in her hair, nestling atop her nose bridge.

Behind them was a deadly, sapphire stare.

The cerulean depths of Tsumugi Shirogane.

Shuichi watches in horror as Korekiyo splashes into a large, boiling pot of broth, the scorching liquid crashing down into the thin grass below with a crackling hiss. Only when Korekiyo’s body bobs to the surface does his scream of agony rip through the execution floor. It’s horrific. The piercing sound is filled with a heart-wrenching strain rivaling the one that tore from Shuichi’s own throat when Kaede’s hand slipped from his grasp.

Korekiyo snaps his body in an attempt to swim, but his mouth fills with broth and he spits it back out in a torn holler. It hurts to see him burning in his pot, colliding with the all-too-familiar yellow and teal corpses beside him, slowly stewing the pot’s flavor of bubbling guilt. Korekiyo’s broken wails dissipate as the woman on the raised platform turns to a sea of girls before her that accompanies the students in watching his death. She raises her clean katana high, her hair giving a small whip to the wind as she cheers. Deafening acclaim of twisted shouts bellows through the night air. Two-toned bear masks on the one hundred women before them bob in revolt, swaying their varying lengths of hair. They all move forward, shielding the audience’s view of Korekiyo’s simmering body.

The students watch in horror as one Monokuma girl raises a block of wood. Then, another woman raises a plank. Then another. Then, an entire crowd wields planks of kindle, singing a chant of retribution.

Shuichi presses a hand to his mouth as wood flies into the fire. Orange arms curl in the wind as they engulf Korekiyo’s silhouette, eating his sinful cries whole. Shrieks are outweighed by vengeful melodies, as the smell of smoked pork grows stronger.

Through the sea of high heels, small paws scurry. Shuichi almost doesn’t notice them, but the awkward shoving that trickles through the women like dominos brings his attention to the metallic clinking of joints. The red blur of Monotaro runs, clutching onto a rolled scroll, the same scroll that he stole from Korekiyo’s bloody hands. The paper crinkles each time he runs into a leg, flattening the contents within his grip.

Soon enough, Monotaro comes into full view, faux sweat trailing down his head as he runs as fast as his legs allow him. His freedom is nearly granted as he hops to the end of the crowd- but, with one wrong step, a paw catches onto a shoe, and Monotaro trips.

His paws fail to keep purchase of his scroll and it falls from his grip. Rolling down the dry grassed hill, the old paper slides to the feet of the surviving students. Shuichi struggles to focus on the scripture through tears, yet he still finds his legs bending to reach down. Feeble fingers grasp onto tattered corners and raise them to his blurry eyes. The inscribed ink tells the tale of Korekiyo’s last words.

Shuichi’s stomach catches in his throat. He drops the scripture in horror. He scrunches his eyes and keels over, a terrified sob rattling his whole body.

The day has arrived.

A death I greet with content.

She must be waiting.

I do not regret my crimes.

I regret not slaying more.