Haunted

By Dixxy Mouri

Prologue: Toy Soldiers

Two flickering monitors were displaying the live feed from the classrooms on the first floor where the last remnants of Class 78 were being held. The screens were small and blurry and didn't display color, but the picture was clear enough to see who was who and not an inch of either room was out of their line of sight. Supposedly, this was going to be one of the greatest victories secured by the organization known as Super High School Level Despair – so much of Japan's hope rested on the shoulders of these fourteen students, but Junko Enoshima was going to crush that hope into beautiful, terrifying despair.

Mukuro Ikusaba was watching them, trying to drum up an emotion about what she was witnessing. Her classmates had been temporarily detained in classrooms, the doors locked shut while Junko made the final preparations to begin the School Life of Mutual Killing. They'd given up trying to break the doors down for the moment, both groups taking relatively similar actions by gathering in circles in the middle of their respective rooms as they awaited their fates.

I'm sorry, everyone, she thought.

Junko yawned, running the last tests on the first of dozens of Monokuma robots. Of course they needed to make sure they were all in good working order, Mukuro supposed, seeing as they would be the primary avatar through with Junko would be interacting with their friends. A third screen flicked on – it depicted Headmaster Jin Kirigiri, tied up and blindfolded inside of a rocket with the bear's head sitting on top of the nose. Junko laughed merrily. "T-minus five minutes until rocket launch," she cheered in a sing-song voice.

"Rocket launch?" asked Mukuro. I didn't know anything about a rocket launch.

"Yeah. We're launching Headmaster Kirigiri into the sky!" Junko cheered giddily. She grinned. "We have to get rid of him if we're going to be able to get to our classmates – as long as he's around there's hope for them to escape, even if it's into our world of despair, and we can't have that, now can we?"

"But what about-"

Junko turned on her with wild eyes as she began to yell. "SHUT UP! I TOLD YOU TO SHUT UP ABOUT THAT!" Mukuro swallowed – normally Junko loved being miserable, but this wasn't despair, this was anger, and they were very, very different. Her little sister took a deep breath, composed herself, and continued on as if nothing had incited an incident between the twins at all. "And this is what I've decided on. He's going to go for a little trip into outer space, but the rocket's re-entry will incinerate him." She pressed a button. "And of course we get to watch our dear classmates watch the whole thing. See? They're seeing what's on Screen #3."

Mukuro looked back at the monitor and saw the others crowding around the monitors she'd set up in the classrooms for this purpose. There was no audio, but she could see shock and horror on all of their faces. A few of them were yelling or pointing at the screen. Strangely, or perhaps not strangely, Kyouko Kirigiri seemed to be reacting the least of all.

She's in shock or doesn't know what's happening, Mukuro thought. Then again, none of them probably did – all they were looking at was the image on that third monitor. Sure, they all knew something was up by now, and enough of her sister's precious despair had set in that they probably expected the worst, but they still didn't know what.

Mukuro continued to watch. A countdown appeared on the third monitor.

She watched them begin to react. The two couples (Sayaka Maizano and Leon Kuwata, and Aoi Asahina and Sakura Oogami) held hands and exchanged worried looks. Touko Fukawa passed out – Byakuya Togami caught her and made some sort of order, probably for water or for someone to help him with her. Taeko Yasuhiro had covered her eyes, and Yasuhiro Hagakure was frantically yelling at his crystal ball. Hifumi Yamada was frozen in fear. Mondo Oowada was getting visibly angry and possibly on the verge of hitting something, while Chihiro Fujisaki was trying to calm him down, but to no avail. Kiyotaka Ishimaru was trying to establish order in his room. Makoto Naegi had his hands over his mouth.

Kirigiri was still a blank slate.

"And five . . . four . . . three . . . two . . . one . . ."

The third monitor showed Monokuma press a button, and the rocket sealed itself. It blasted off, lifting higher and higher into the sky, were it was gone for several minutes. The students were starting to panic even more than they had before – where had their headmaster gone? What was that rocket, anyways?

Kirigiri was still unflinching.

Junko grabbed the Monokuma mike. "Check it out, you bastards! The rocket's on its way back!"

The rocket crashed back down, and the doors opened.

Headmaster Kirigiri's skeleton fell out in pieces.

This was what finally broke the younger Kirigiri. She began to scream and cry, rushing towards the monitor in her room. The six students in the room with her (Naegi, Kuwata, Maizono, Oowada, Fujisaki, and Ishimaru) surrounded her, embracing their frantic friend. Those in the other classroom (except for Fukawa, who was still passed out, and Togami, who was still trying to care for her) rushed to the wall separating them and began banging on it.

Junko cackled and clapped, spinning around in her chair, and Mukuro turned to her. This was, perhaps, the most satisfied she'd seen her sister, but it still didn't feel . . . right. It was a little horrifying. "What was that for?" Mukuro asked. "They're not going to remember any of this anyways – why did you need to do that?"

"Why, my dear sister, has seeing our friends distress given you a taste of despair?"

While she was probably right, Mukuro still didn't think this was necessary. "Again – why?"

"Because they aren't going to remember and this was our last chance to watch them give a shit about the headmaster," said Junko. "Besides, if we're going to instill false hope in them by destroying their memories, they need to hit rock bottom first." Junko stopped spinning and crossed her legs as she grabbed the Monokuma microphone. "And we do that by killing the one person they think is going to protect them."

"You think they're in despair?" Mukuro asked.

"No, this isn't despair. Not true despair. Oh sure they're upset, especially our little detective girl, but we can do soooo much better," she said. "But first, let's fuck with them a little bit, shall we? We're not going to get a chance to mess with them like this after their brains get scrambled, so we need to do this while we can." She flipped a switch on the console, and audio from the two rooms spilled into the control room.

"Papa . . . PAPA!"

"Oh God, Kyouko, Headmaster . . ."

"What the fuck?! WHAT THE FUCK DID WE JUST WATCH!?"

Junko grinned. "Hey bastards, did you enjoy the show?"

"Who is that!? Who are you?"

"Two of our friends are missing – what did you do with Junko and Mukuro?"

Junko's face lit up and she looked at her sister with a deranged grin. Mukuro tried to smile back.

"Oh, I'll tell you all right!" Junko flipped a switch on the microphone. Her gaze darkened, and for a moment Mukuro was a little frightened of her. "We've been watching you all the whole time from the super duper top secret Super High School Level Despair Monokuma Control Room!" She cackled in the microphone, spinning in her chair.

"JUNKO!?"

Junko snorted. "You idiots couldn't figure out Super High School Level Despair had infested your precious little academy? Morons!" Mukuro winced as a selection of very choice words were lobbied at her sister, primarily from Mondo and Leon, but a few of their classmates surprised her (seriously, where did Chihiro pick up that language?). "Now, now, the fun is just beginning!"

"Fun? We just watched you kill Master Kyouko Kirigiri's father! That's not fun!"

"Oh, ho, ho, but aren't you guys excited to be on television?" Junko said.

"Television? What the hell are you talking about?"

"You're all television stars now! It's a new reality television show!"

"Mukuro hasn't said anything yet – maybe she's there with her sister."

"MUKURO! MUKURO, CAN YOU HEAR ME!? ARE YOU OKAY?"

"You dumbasses, she helped me set this all up," said Junko. She snorted. "And don't interrupt me, I'm not done talking about your television show. You don't even know the title yet. You should probably know the title." She threw her head back, leaned back in her chair, and grinned wickedly. "I'm calling 'School Like of Mutual Killing'! Isn't that a great title?"

"What the . . . what the fuck does that mean?!"

"It's a game show. See, the prize is leaving the school."

"We don't want to leave the school – that was the point of the last year!"

"I don't know, this place isn't that great right now. . ."

Junko shook her head. "No, no, no, the prize is pretty sweet, and the game is pretty simple! Check this out. See, you all get to spend the rest of your lives in here, trapped in the school . . . unless you kill one of your fellow classmates. Then if you get away with it, everyone else dies and you get to graduate!"

"I stand corrected – staying in here is an AWESOME idea."

"You're never going to get us to do that! We're not going to kill our friends!"

"Oh, oh you haven't heard the best part. See, I'm going to arrange for your precious memories of the last two years to be erased," said Junko. "You're going to forget you were ever friends or lovers, and you're going to forget that you're locked in this school for your own protection. You're going to forget about everything that's going on outside."

". . . wait, what?"

Junko chuckled. "The last thing I've arranged for all – well, most of you to remember, is the first step you took on campus as a student here. Back when the world was all rainbows and sunshine or whatever the hell you bastards miss so much. So you're going to wake up in a school with complete strangers, locked up tight with no way to get out."

"If we don't remember we're friends . . . and we don't know the world's ended . . ."

Mukuro watched as despair spread throughout her classmates. She felt a pit in her stomach.

"GET ME OUT OF HERE!"

"I STAND CORRECTED AGAIN! THIS PLACE IS DEFINITELY NOT AWESOME!"

"MUKURO! DO SOMETHING!"

Mukuro was surprised to see, one by one, her classmates turn to the cameras in their room. "Mukuro, come on! You can't let Junko do this! Help us!" That was Naegi, looking up at the camera in desperation. Of course he was going to be the one to lead their last ditch effort to get out of this. While it was true he probably didn't have anything reminiscent of the Super High School Level Good Luck that brought him into the school, he had something else that was perhaps even more valuable.

"Remember the good times we had! Please, Mukuro! You can't let Junko get away with this! We're your friends! Don't do this!" She stared in horror at the screens. Why did they all have faith in her? What did they expect her to do, especially against Junko? They all knew she couldn't say no to Junko, no matter how miserable it made her! Why were they all asking for her help? What could she do?

Junko wheeled her chair over to her. "Mukuro, you don't want to disappoint me, do you?"

Mukuro hung her head. No, she didn't.

"MUKURO!"

Two hours later, her classmates were receiving the procedure. There was a lot of kicking and fighting and yelling and screaming as they were dragged off one by one. Special measures were taken for some of them that they expected would be trouble (namely Oowada and Oogami, though they were very careful with Fukawa), though there some unpleasant surprises. Ishimaru put up a hell of a fight ("Oh yeah . . . didn't Captain Eyebrows do kendo or some stupid shit?" Junko has asked while watching the fight play out), and Fujisaki showed no fear in using teeth. Asahina and Kuwata both managed to get away and led the other members of Super High School Level Despair on a little chase around the building for a bit, but they were eventually detained. The worst was Yasuhiro, who'd actually managed to gouge someone's eye out with that finger armor of hers.

Junko looked over at her recording equipment. "Hmm. I didn't think she had it in her."

"They're all fighting for their lives," said Mukuro. "This is self-preservation."

"And they're going to need that in spades once the game begins."

"Excuse me?"

"Self-preservation is the name of the game. How much are you willing to sacrifice to save your own hide? How much blood are you willing to get on your hands for a breath of fresh air?" Junko smirked. "Kill or be killed, but not without a risk of its own. We should take some bets on who we think is going to cave first . . . provided they don't get killed before they get the chance. I wasn't going to say her, but now I'm not so sure. She's feistier than I thought."

"Well who were you thinking?"

"Well Corndog Head's got some anger issues but the two people who are best able to keep in check aren't going to remember how. If anything I'm hoping he kills one or both of them," said Junko. Mukuro swallowed. "Oh come on now – we're going to be outlining everyone's actual relationships to the audience! If we're lucky we'll have one or both of the lovebird pairs off each other, yeah?"

"That's awful," said Mukuro.

"That's the point, idiot," said Junko.

Mukuro grimaced and returned her gaze to the screen displaying her friends as their memories were erased. All she could do was watch now. Watch as the only friends she'd ever had were taken away from her. She swallowed, gripping her chair as she watched. It was halfway done for most of them by now – Kirigiri was going to be undergoing additional erasure, as Junko was concerned was a Super High School Detective might be capable of if allowed to keep those memories as well.

That's it, huh? The last two years are gone. Just like that.

Mukuro was interrupted by Junko dropping the wig into her lap. Oh. Right. My part of the plan. Her sister had explained that she wanted someone to be watching their classmates more closely, but having a soldier in the mix might not be the best option. "I'd start getting ready – it takes a long time for me to do my makeup and you've got to get changed as well."

"Okay, but . . ." Mukuro studied the wig for another moment before looking up at her sister. "I have a question. My instructions are a little vague beyond that scene with Monokuma after the first murder . . . why is that?" she asked. Junko looked at her with a serious expression, and Mukuro wondered what was going to follow. Certainly she'd been given her script – she knew what to say, she knew a trap door was going to open up beneath her and drop her into an underground chamber . . . but aside from that she was lost. All it saw was "take away their hope and spread despair". How was she supposed to do that?

"We won't know until the first murder happens. I can't make further plans until I know exactly who's left and who's not," she said flatly. "I mean, we really don't know. At all. We can guess who might be the first to crack and who won't last long but in the end . . . we don't know. Especially once they get access to poison – it could allow one of the little ones to take out someone much, much bigger than they are, you know?"

That seemed like an acceptable answer. "Oh. Okay," said Mukuro.

For the first several days, things were . . . as calm as could be expected. No one suspected they were surrounded by their dearest friends. No one suspected that Junko Enoshima was actually someone else, although someone asked why she looked different from her modeling pictures, and Mukuro had to quickly come up with an excuse involving photoshop.

No one remembered Mukuro Ikusaba existed.

Which, Mukuro supposed, was all according to plan. She felt pretty miserable about the whole thing – this was the despair that Junko loved so much, but all it made Mukuro feel was sick to her stomach. She didn't like people calling her "Enoshima-san" or "Junko-chan" or whatever else they thought they should be calling her. She missed the sound of her own name.

Which was strange, really. Soldiers didn't have much of an identity in Fenrir – they weren't supposed to. You followed orders unless you gained rank, at which point you were the one giving the orders. You didn't wear anything that stood out. You didn't wear makeup or jewelry (though some jewelry, Mukuro reasoned, would be very dangerous on the battlefield). Your hair was kept short, your nails neatly trimmed. There was no identity.

Mukuro didn't have one until Hope's Peak Academy came calling for her and her sister. She wasn't just a soldier anymore – she was Mukuro Ikusaba, Super High School Level Soldier. Her classmates recognized her as a soldier, but they didn't treat her like one – they treated her as a friend, as a person, as someone unique and different and not just another gear in the clockwork of her unit.

After they'd been given the "motivational DVDs" Junko had prepared for them, Mukuro returned to her room. They were cruel device. Just enough information had been pieced together to let them know "something bad" had happened to their loved ones, and that much was the truth. What Junko had left out, of course, was that they were all dead from a worldwide crisis and everyone was better off staying inside and away from the chaos. They didn't have any loved ones to return to – everyone else's loved ones had been dead for close a year and the Oogami family dojo had finally been overtaken after a year of fending off the despair. The only possible survivor was Naegi's little sister, but a girl out there all by herself for this long? She was most likely long dead by now.

Maizono seemed to have the strongest reaction to the DVD, which showed her the aftermath of the tragedy that killed the other members of her pop idol group. That had been . . . interesting. Certainly everyone had been horrified, but her having the biggest freakout? Mukuro didn't think someone so cheerful and bubbly would be the first to fall into despair.

Not that it mattered. There was no guarantee it was going to drive the little pop idol to kill.

Mukuro collapsed into the chair at her desk and ripped off her wig, tossing it towards the bed and leaned forward, studying her reflection. Even now, with her real hair, she still didn't look quite like herself. All the makeup wasn't her – the fake eyelashes, the lipstick, the blush and eyeshadow and foundation and fake nails . . . none of it was really her, but it was all Junko. It was exactly what they wanted for the plan, but left Mukuro feeling like an empty shell.

This wasn't what she had pictured despair would feel like.

Maizono's body was discovered the following morning when she didn't show up for breakfast. After someone realized there were only fifteen of them in the cafeteria, Naegi panicked and ran from the room to check on her. Minutes later, his blood curdling scream could be heard and everyone headed in the direction of the scream to see what had happened.

There she was, lifeless in the shower room with a knife protruding from her stomach.

No one reacted well, and maybe only half of them heard Monokuma cheerfully announce that there would be a class trial. Kuwata spoke up, asking what a class trial was, and it was all Mukuro needed to piece together was had happened. She'd seen those eyes before, the eyes of someone who'd taken a life. It was mixed with fear and uncertainty, but she was convinced.

Leon Kuwata had murdered Sayaka Maizono.

This was EXACTLY how Junko had wanted things to play out. She didn't just want the students to kill each other, oh no – she wanted them to kill the ones they were the closest to. She wanted to see Fujisaki slip poison into the water of an unsuspecting Oowada and Ishimaru. She wanted to see Oogami strangle a helpless, pleading Asahina. She wanted to see Genocider Syo finally give in to her desire to drain the blood of Togami.

Kuwata stabbing Maizono was precisely the kind of murder Junko had salivated over.

Now they just needed to see if he was going to get away with it.

For the first time in her life, Mukuro didn't see it coming.

For the last time in her life, Mukuro didn't see it coming.

It happened so quickly, she didn't even have time to process the pain. All she could see was the blood and the spears protruding from her body. She lifted her hand, covered in her own blood . . . so much blood. "Why . . ."

Several of the spears disappeared, and Mukuro's body dropped to the floor.

But Mukuro . . . didn't. She remained standing in place as the spear disappeared back to where they'd come from, the other students screaming around her, screaming for the like of Junko Enoshima. Mukuro, still shaking, looking down to see her impaled body lying in an ever-expanding pool of blood. "But . . . but . . ."

She lifted her hands, horrified to see they were transparent. She turned them over and examined herself – her whole body was like that, partially see through like a reflection in a window. She stepped back – she felt "off", like she was too light, and something was missing from her being. The sensation of air in her lungs. The taste of saliva in her mouth. The rush of blood through her veins.

The beating of her heart.

Mukuro Ikusaba was dead, nothing but a ghost haunting the halls of Hope's Peak Academy.

Ding dang ding dong! Author's announcements!

EDIT: Added in a couple of new scenes and expanded on some of the existing scenes.

Hello Dangan Ronpa fandom! Even after all these years as a fanfic author (I'm Tumblr old, okay?) I still feel the need to introduce myself when I start writing for a new fandom. My name is Dixxy Mouri and as I've already stated, I'm not new to the fanfiction game – check my profile if you want more details

So a few things I wanted to get out of the way:

Thing One: Yeah, I'm using song titles as a chapter naming scheme. You'll see a mix of stuff because my interests get pretty eclectic. I'll have some sort of write up for each song in the Author's Announcements section, especially since one song title could reference multiple songs. Most chapters are going to have several working titles as I try to figure out what song will work best, a.k.a. I really don't want to have to use "In the End" by Linkin Park but right now it's the most fitting song I've found for one chapter and that bugs the shit out of me since NOTHING says "crappy mid-2005 AMV" like that song.

Thing Two: Chihiro's gender. I have seen some of the arguments erupt over this and it can get ugly. So I talked it over with a friend of mind and the consensus we came to was female pronouns since that was what she preferred in the game, so I'll be treating Chihiro as a transwoman (meaning male at birth but prefers to identify as female). If you don't agree with this interpretation I ask you to respectfully refrain from flaming the comments, reviews, or any of my online inboxes.

Thing Three: Naming consistency. This is PROBABLY the thing that will be the most inconsistent as I don't have everyone's name usage down yet so please bear with me if it's a little shaky at first, but note that certain events may cause a character to begin referring to others differently on purpose.

Song Choice: Originally it was going to be "High Hopes" by Pink Floud, but I wasn't quite sure it fit and came across "Toy Soldiers" by Martika in my iTunes playlist, though "High Hopes" may very well show up later if I find a use for it. Anyways, the prologue has a little bit of Mukuro questioning Junko and whether or not she really wants to hurt her classmates.

Mukuro's interesting to me because I think her character is still shrouded in a kind of mystery. While she certainly isn't an UNWILLING participant in everything that happened, I'm not sold that she did it all out of lust for despair like Junko did, but more out of a desire to please her sister as well as having spent years being put down, bullied, and abused.

This prologue is subject to change – I currently don't have a beta reader for this story so I'm sort of putting this out there to test the waters a little. Hope you all enjoyed it and please let me know what you thought :D

Dixxy