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Junko Enoshima was upset.
Her missing twin sister, Mukuro Ikusaba, returned home after, well, going missing for years without trying to contact her or their parents. Junko was pretty bugged that Mukuro came back as if nothing had happened, as if she had only just gone to the grocery store and not ran away whilst they were on vacation. Junko had reluctantly allowed Mukuro back into the mansion they had grown up in, one very much overlooked and forgotten by their parents, though she didn't even try to speak.
“...You're going to run off for… how long has it been now, 5 years, and not even say a word when you come back..?” Junko knew her voice was shaky, she felt sick, all the long buried emotions bubbling up, about to erupt. “Come on! Just say something already, you bitch-!!”
Mukuro stayed silent, not speaking. She had dyed her hair black from the last time Junko saw her, and she was much quieter. But the most unsettling thing, the one that Junko had stupidly decided to dare not question were her eyes. Mukuro's eyes were glassy, blank, almost… despairful, if Junko had to put a word to it. Something was up with her sister. It scared her.
“W-well,” Junko swallowed. “Ugh, whatever. I don't care about you. Just… Just stay out of my business and don’t come near me, you… you freak.”
Mukuro still didn't say anything, merely narrowing her eyes. A moment of silence passed, before Mukuro nodded, before beginning to walk towards her old room, and Junko was once again, as always, alone, sighing, before beginning to tear up, letting out a sob.
Junko and Mukuro had been going to Hope's Peak for a few months. Mukuro always sat at the corner of the room, brooding or whatever, whilst whenever Junko wasn't busy with some sort of photoshoot and the like, she was always the centre of attention, practically begging for everybody's eyes to be on her. She always acted as everyone would assume someone like her should act - a little dumb, a little cruel, but also shockingly nice when it called for it - exactly what the ‘Junko Enoshima’ name meant to everyday people, a mask that was practically always glued to Junko's face, one that she also, somewhat, took pride in.
It was one night where Junko came back onto campus late, much later than curfew and snuck her way back in, making sure to be quiet. She was about halfway to the main building, halfway to her dorm when she heard a muffled scream from a dark corner nearby. Junko began to think - she could go check it out and help if it seemed possible, but at the same time, she could risk being injured or killed herself, and if not that, she could risk getting caught, which wasn't exactly the end all, be all. At the same time… something i Junko was urging her to look, to see what was going on.
After a moment of deep consideration, Junko decided to follow her instincts and look, rushing over. What met her, however, was something she didn't expect - Mukuro was standing over the corpse of one of the Steering Committee members, grasping a bloodied combat knife, softly giggling to herself. Junko let out a gasp, before quickly covering her mouth. Mukuro hadn't seemed to notice. Slowly, Junko began to back away. As she was about to turn and walk away, Mukuro suddenly turned to face Junko.
“And where do you think you're going, Junko?” Mukuro's voice was ice-cold, dark, a stark contrast from her once soft and gentle voice. Before she could recognise it, Mukuro had gotten closer to Junko, pushing her against the wall, hands beginning to close around her neck.
“W-What are you-?!” Junko began wriggling, trying to kick her way out, Mukuro's empty eyes boring into her very soul.
“You're a pathetic brat who's just gotten in my way. You know nothing of the world out there, and yet you act as if nothing bad could possibly happen.” Mukuro scowled as Junko frowned. “I should kill you.”
As if to make a point, Mukuro wrapped her hands even more tightly against Junko's thin throat. Junko was barely able to breathe at this point, trying to pry Mukuro's hands off her own weakly.
“But I see promise in you, little sister. You've suffered. You've endured pain. Nothing near what the world can and will truly deal you, but enough that you can prove useful to my goals.”
“I-” Junko was struggling to get her words out. “I'm never gonna… have a hand in whatever sort of… bullshit you're trying to do… you dumbass…!”
Mukuro frowned, clearly irritated by her response. “Hm. Let me make this easier for you,” Mukuro pulled Junko down until she was towering over the fashionista. “If you don't fall in line and assist me with whatever it is I ask of you, your career, the life of your loved ones and your own life will be forfeit, and trust me, it will not be done quickly. Well?”
“I-I… I ca-” Junko tried to speak in-between ragged breaths, but Mukuro tightened her hands yet again, any tighter and she'd probably be as good as dead. She didn't have a choice if she wanted to live, did she?
“You what?”
“I… F-fine.” At that, Mukuro let go of Junko, who took a deep breath in, looking up to see Mukuro turning to leave, holding any sort of evidence that could've pointed to her.
“Im going to go get rid of all of this. I'll find you when I need you. You've made a good choice.”
And then Junko was left alone once again.
It had been almost a year since Junko started going to Hope's Peak Academy. Not like it mattered - from the little Mukuro told her, it sounded like something bad was going to happen soon.
Junko felt sick to her stomach about everything Mukuro had her do. She didn't kill or harm anyone, sure, but being involved in whatever it was Mukuro was doing… disgusted her.
Mukuro had gotten Junko to make connections with certain people, organise any sort of gatherings that Mukuro asked her to set up and find out any information about any specific person that could give Mukuro leverage over them, but not once did Mukuro actually tell her what was going on.
One day, she was about to check up on Ryota, as Mukuro asked her, but stopped before she made herself visible, instead peeping around a corner, noticing him opening a video file on his computer, waiting for it to load for a moment.
When it had, Junko couldn't help but widen her eyes in horror.
What had played was a video of the Student Council, who had oddly gone missing after Mukuro got Junko to send a mass-text to all of the members, lying about an emergency meeting due to some made-up issue. What the video showed, however, made Junko want to throw up.
The video showed the Student Council brutally going at each other's throats, a horrible, gory display of pain, agony - of despair.
Junko was struggling to look away, until she glanced away from the screen, to see Mikan crawling onto Ryota. Sighing, Junko went over and kicked Mikan. She didn't intend to hurt her, and she would've used her hands, but she was fairly far away from her and it was for the best to get her off as soon as possible, accidentally kicking her so aggressively that Mikan flew into the wall across from the computer.
Junko didn't speak, she just looked at Ryota, and at the computer, and at her hands. Ryota was trying to talk to her, Mikan was scowling at her, but Junko couldn't focus on any of that.
What had she helped cause?
Junko was wandering around campus. Mukuro told her that she had a suspicion that somebody was going to stop her, and that she was too busy with other things to stop it herself. She hadn't even a single clue of what happened under the founder's statue.
Junko was too scared to say no, but she didn't want to just let Mukuro do all this or get away with it, at the very least she wanted to help Ryota get out of there, and try to get Mikan back to normal, even if it cost her her career, her loved ones and her life.
Not having looked where she was going, Junko bumped into Chiaki and Nagito - two of her upperclassmen, Mukuro had gotten Junko to get information on them as well as their own class - who happened to be looking for Mikan and Ryota.
This was her chance to stop whatever it was that Mukuro was doing, her chance to right her wrongs, and so…
“I know where they are. Everything's too long to explain, but I'll tell you both once we get them both out.”
Eventually, they had gotten there. Junko had gone a bit ahead to make sure the coast was clear, looking around. But when she did, the only person there was Ryota. Junko frowned, beckoning Nagito and Chiaki to follow her.
“Well… Ryota is still here but… Mikan should still be here, she wouldn't have been told to leave, and it’s so quiet,” Junko began to think of what could've happened, why Ryota was the only one left in the room, when the realization dawned on her. “Something's wro-”
Smack.
Junko woke up, head throbbing as she opened her eyes, before realising that she couldn't move.
Junko looked down, only to notice she had been strapped into a chair. If she looked back up, directly across from her was a TV screen, turned off. Suddenly, Mukuro's voice came from behind her.
“I should've known you'd have found out one way or another. I should've known you'd try to betray me like that, even if I didn't tell you what exactly it was I was doing.”
Junko scoffed. “Well, we're even! I would've always found out eventually, it's your fault for thinking you could keep ordering me around for that long-!”
Mukuro, although her voice was almost always neutral, sounded angrier at that. “It was an oversight on my part. But it'll be fixed soon.”
“So what?! You're going to kill me? Do it, I'm not scared of that anymore!” Mukuro began laughing, it started as a chuckle before turning into full-blown cackling. Junko was scared, trying to keep a confident face up - she didn't understand why that made Mukuro laugh.
“Oh, little sister… I'm afraid there's been a change of plans.” Mukuro had said that as if she was… amused or excited. The way Mukuro was acting was so odd, so wrong, it made chills go down Junko's spine. “I'm going to show you a little video I made displaying the truth. I hope it'll make you understand everything much, much better.”
Junko opened her mouth to argue, but Mukuro slapped her hand over Junko's mouth, as she heard a ‘click’, the TV turning on, Mukuro moving her hands to force Junko's head to stay up.
Soon, a folk song familiar to Junko - Please Give Me Wings - started playing, whilst on screen, a video displaying the same thing Junko had seen Ryota watch - The Student Council killing each other played, however, something about viewing it from up close was different - it felt even worse.
As the Mukuro in the recording began singing, Junko felt as though her mind was slowly getting cut into with a chainsaw, the buzzing reverberating in her mind. Junko couldn't help but begin screaming, not realising Mukuro had moved her hands to cover her mouth. Tears dripped down Junko's face. She wanted to look away, she wanted to stop watching and yet she couldn't.
As more and more of the Student Council members were killed in the recording, Junko's mind felt more and more cloudy, more and more painful. Her brain was burning - no, boiling - and she couldn't focus on anything but the video. It was horrible and disgusting and yet it was so wonderful and amazing and just agonisingly fantasti-
Junko could feel nausea crawling up her throat as she began to struggle and writhe against the chair, unable to escape, unable to even close her eyes or space out and ignore what was being shown in front of her.
The video soon came to an end.
Junko Enoshima couldn't stop grinning.