Hidden Meanings

Who Can Love A Mastermind? [Danganronpa Madimo]

Everything was a lie. 

Maddox breathed out, a simple and even breath, concealing the world of whirring thoughts in his head. 

She herself was a lie. 

Shikimo cocked her head, staring at him with that sickly sweet smile on her face. That same sickly sweet smile he had fallen in love with. 

She... was the mastermind?

Casper stared up at her, face confronted into one of anger and hate, even for someone as sweet-hearted as he was. 

But Casper didn't understand. The person he loved wasn't in this killing game, and his twin wasn't the mastermind.

It was Shikimo.

"Maddy!" The Russian girl threw up her hands, a smile lighting her face. As he stared her down, that smile dampened into one of cold, icy disgust. "You were... like, so oblivious! Kehehe!" 

He opened his mouth in attempts to respond, but when Maddox came up with little to nothing, he closed his mouth again. 

"What, did you think my little act was true?" 

Shikimo held up her wrist, revealing the black and white bangle encircling it, just like everyone else in this room. 

Beside him, Cobalt tensed, her eyes becoming more narrow in a mix of anger and fear. 

With a click, her bangle came off. But everyone else's bracelets stayed off. 

"Look at or talk to Maddox Faithlin," Shikimo chirped as she picked the two pieces of  the bracelet up, it split into the white half and the black half. "That's what mine was!" 

"Why are you telling us this?" Casper asked. 

"Well, you could tell me yours! After all, once we do that, I'll let you go!"

She was holding the little rabbit plushie she loved carrying around, but rather than the simple, yellow one she always had, it was white with blood stains all over it. The little buttons that used to be it's eyes were now ripped out, coils of cotton springing out of it. 

"What's of it?" Miles asked, cocking his head. "Who says you won't twist us in your game once more?" 

"Oh, well..." Shikimo twirled a curl of hair around her finger. "It's no fun if despair always wins... after all, if hope wins, I get to experience all the despair of my dying breath~!"

"Oh, shut up!" Aoi snarled out.

The two exchanged gazes- Aoi's bright with resentment, Shikimo's surrounded by complexity. 

"Well, well, do you all hate me now? Do you?" The brunette asked, spinning to face the rest of them. 

"You killed everyone!" Cobalt said, her voice on the verge of growling. 

The mastermind waggled a finger in a 'no, no' gesture. "That was their fault. They fell prey to the human instinct to get out." 

It was then when Maddox summoned the courage to speak.

"Shikimo... why?" 

"Why...? Why, why, why? Maybe it's because I wanted to see the look on your face when you found out? Maybe because I did it for revenge on some of the deceased? Maybe because I secretly hated you? Maybe-"

"All right, stop it!" 

Shikimo gave him a tight-lipped grin. "You heard enough? Oh, that look on your face... absolutely fascinating~" 

"I think I know why," Maddox said. 

"Oh?" 

A moment of silence. Everyone seemed to focus on the two of them.

"You still love me." 

"Careful," Shikimo warned. 

Maddox knew what she was warning him about. Not the fact that he was overstepping the boundaries. As if in warning...

His bracelet vibrated. 

"And I love you, no matter what you do. Forever." 

A single jingle played throughout the room.

The jingle of a forbidden action being triggered. 

Maddox Faithlin: Saying 'I love you' to Valvara Shikimo Alexandro.