haunted

toy soldiers

haunted

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.