SAVE WHAT HAS BEEN LOST, BRING BACK WHAT ONCE WAS MINE... [CHAPTER 7: START!]
After a week of Mugman’s body being untouched, and the building of Small World being in shambles - it appears as though nothing had ever happened. The shards of Mugman’s body were swept up and cleaned, and the building looks as though nothing ever happened up there. You have grown used to the scene of the crime showing as if nothing’s ever happened there to begin with, yet…
IT’S A WORLD OF HOPES, AND A WORLD OF FEARS... [EXECUTION: JUNPEI TENMYOUJI]
“You’re all fucking idiots.”
“You see a few tears, and believe that I’m heartbroken?”
“You want the truth? You’ve got it.”
“I’m your horrible, disgusting traitor.”
Exposed by Peter’s shiny new metal detector to have a bullet lodged in his shoulder, Junpei immediately admitted to not only the murder of Mugman, but also to being the traitor of this killing game. Rejecting his camaraderie with his classmates and his love for Mugman, he told everyone that he was in the depths of despair, that his emotions he’d shown before were nothing but an act.
injury tw (mentioning the ones from the execution), death tw, dismemberment tw (brief mention)
So. It was all over.
For him, anyways. He’d been executed. It had been.... rough, Junpei would admit, although he hadn’t really surprised. He had figured that the mastermind would be quite angry at him for the betrayal- but then again, wasn’t that what traitors did? He’d rather successfully managed to stab everyone in the back to at least some degree, so a brutal execution was to be expected.
When he’d first opened his eyes after dying, he’d assumed he’d jumped. After all- he could never remember being a ghost. Whenever he’d died, it was simply as if his existence.... faded. He just stopped 'being’, as the darkness crept up and pulled him into a comforting nothingness. So, it’d been natural to assume the same had happened there, right?
Except he’d looked, he’d seen his own blood, and he’d seen all of them.
He’d thrown his hood up as soon as he realized that he was dead- if the others were anything to go by, that would likely mean his own body still reflected what it’d looked like when he’d died. While it’d been quick, he still figured that the back of his skull would not be pleasant to look at.... not that the rest of him looked too pretty, either.
Naturally, he’d wanted to get away. After all- they should’ve all hated him, right? He was as culpable as the mastermind, regardless of the fact that he’d wanted to stop the game- he was the reason all of them were here, like this.
And yet before he could leave, Mugman had thrown his arms around him and kissed him, and every wall Junpei could’ve possibly tried to throw up crumbled in an instant.
Everything seemed to move quickly after that, Junpei unsure of what really to say or do once everyone had filed out of the trial room. He’d followed the others, staying near Mugman for a while... but eventually, he needed space. He needed to have at least a little time to be alone.
He wasn’t thinking when he walked, simply wandering aimlessly through the park until he realized that his feet had brought him to the ride- the ride where Mugman had died. Where everything had gone so wrong, so fast.
Of course he wouldn’t show it, but his shoulder was screaming in pain. Not just from the bullet, probably still in there- but the axe had further fucked his shoulder up quite seriously. The only reason he hadn’t been showing a ton of pain for that entire week had been the painkillers, and the fact that he’d died before. It was easy to tolerate things when he could compare it to being literally stabbed, or having his arm cut off. Easy to pretend like every little movement hadn’t been hurting, especially as time went on and the poorly-done patch-job started to show wear.
After a few moments, his legs gave out and he slid to the ground, body weak. His left arm slumped to the side, bloodied and mostly useless at the moment, his back screamed in pain, and he had the worst headache of his life. Or.... un-life, perhaps. After all, he had died.
He didn’t really know how to feel right now.
On the one hand- he felt like he’d failed, completely and utterly. He’d known that the trial wouldn’t be able to end things so simply, but he’d still hoped that perhaps, he could figure something out. But he hadn’t. And yet.... despite that, he couldn’t say it had been completely in vain. Every single plan he’d come up with had broken down completely, he couldn’t say a single thing had really gone how he’d wanted it to, but.. he was glad they’d dragged the truth out of him. He was glad they hadn’t let things rest.
It was selfish, really. Selfish to want to be able to tell the truth, after so much time of lying. Selfish for him to want his final act to be so cleanly struck down. But still, he was glad. Glad that they knew the truth, glad that he’d been able to reassure them the best he could... and praying that they’d be able to overcome what remained.
He knew he couldn’t tell anyone who the mastermind was, still. It didn’t matter if he wasn’t around them anymore- he couldn’t. There was still too much at stake. He had no promise that Oswald wouldn’t be listening, and he would fully believe that the mastermind would still be willing to kill them all purely from spite- it was too dangerous. He couldn’t let the rest of them die, too.
Hero complex, or just a coward? He didn’t really know- but at this point, it didn’t really matter anymore. He was dead, and his role in this game was over. There were people who he wouldn’t be able to apologize to, people who he regretted not talking to before he’d gone to help the mastermind... people who he wouldn’t ever be able to talk to now. Hopefully, someone who survived would know, and be able to tell them the truth about him- if it hadn’t already been made horribly clear.
For just right now, he’d allow himself a little self-pity. He hurt too much to really do much else, after all.
Everything was coming to an end now, one way or another.
He could only hope that, at the very least... his friends truly would survive this.
a “outfit change” for junpei! Post trial, he’s always got his hood up. Something closer to how he actually looks is under the cut for blood/mild gore (shoulder injury)
(please pretend like its not mirrored i messed up and drew his injury on the wrong shoulder originally rip me)
and, just for fun: a despair sprite edit. This man is not okay someone help him please--
Tws: major self-loathing/self-deprication tw, bullying mention, mild mention of post-mortem bodies/staring at corpses (no heavy description though), depression, anxiety, blood
minor/implied 999 spoilers
Falling asleep that night had not been easy.
When Junpei had first closed his eyes, it’d been a dreamless sleep, but it hadn’t stayed that way for very long. Perhaps it had been from seeing Mugman’s corpse, or perhaps it had been for the same reason everyone else had been remembering things- but Junpei was remembering too.
The first time he’d jolted awake from the nightmare, he’d told himself it was just a dream. That it was only a dream, that this was all because of what had happened today… but the thoughts wouldn’t leave his mind. They were too real, too fresh, too painful- they were too much to brush away as simple dreams, and he knew that.
He knew that, and it terrified him.
In his memories, the most striking thing was always the blood. Or rather- not the blood itself, but the amount of it. Overwhelming, sickening- almost choking, the scent forcing its way into his nostrils and making him want to gag. He hated the scent of blood, it was always too powerful... and too familiar.
There was a dull sense of awe, a sickening feeling of curiosity when he saw the body. There was horror too, of course- but it was as if he’d thought ‘oh, so that’s what happens’. Wasn’t it natural to be curious? Wasn’t that human too, in a way? To understand what happened when you died, how you died, how a body could deform...
But really, wasn’t that the only way someone could cope with something like that? Or had it only been that same horrid numbness that crept up on him at times, threatening to block everything out? He didn’t know- he couldn’t know, and he didn’t want to know. How could anyone cope with those memories, after all? It would’ve been better if he’d never remembered anything at all, he would’ve preferred that.
He hadn’t been the one to kill them- not directly, at least. But bad luck was a merciless thing…
Thinking back, his mind drifted to thoughts of long before he’d ever arrived at Hope’s Peak. They were memories that he’d never lost, ones that had nothing to do with any of this- but, was that really true? After all, that summer had been the one where he’d learned that humanity… really wasn’t that beautiful. People were cruel. Sadistic. Merciless. They would hurt and they would take and they would feel nothing from it.
He’d only been twelve. Only twelve, and he’d had to learn that lesson. Still a child, when the veil had been so cruelly ripped away. Only twelve, when he’d learned that being an unlucky person was an unforgivable sin. His mere existence was enough to harm, destroy- he’d deserved what he’d gotten in school. He’d deserved to be bullied. He’d deserved to be hated. He’d deserved all of it.
He never should have been born.
It was unspeakably selfish of him to have ever thought that he could’ve had a happy school life. He’d been happy- god, he’d been happy, but he’d never deserved it. He was cursed, he was a freak, he was bad luck- he never should’ve accepted his position at that school. Suffering silently at his old school would’ve been better, for himself and the world.
He wanted to have hope. He wanted to cling to it, to grasp desperately at some reason, any reason to have hope, but it was difficult. The only thing he had left at this point was Mugman’s trial- if they could find the traitor, could they end this? If the traitor was the one behind this, the one working with Oswald, then all of this could come to and end. They would be able to end all of this.
Not that an ‘end’ would mean much after Mugman had died, but he’d find a different reason to live at a later point. Once the trial was over, then he could figure something out.
No matter how hard he tried to shut out the memories of what’d happened before all of this had started, he found it impossible. Vague impressions on his senses burned at the back of his mind, making his head spin. All of it was too much, far too much… but he’d be fine. He’d be perfectly fine. He couldn’t ask any of them for help- he’d allowed himself to fall in love with Mugman, and he had been murdered.
It wasn’t fair, none of it was fair- but that was life. Sometimes, no matter how hard you tried, life was simply unfair.
Turning onto his back, Junpei found himself staring at the ceiling of his room. It really hadn’t changed much at all over the course of the vacation- with the exception of those glow in the dark stars. They felt a little childish to him in some ways, and were honestly more than he was used to in terms of decorating... yet, he hadn’t taken them down. He’d found that he couldn’t.
He didn’t know when exactly he’d started crying again, but he had. Tears rolled down his cheeks as he stared up at the little stars, everything that’d happened that day hitting him like he force of a train.
“An.... eclipse...... this is just... just another eclipse......”
He’d always thought his last name was weird, he’d never liked it much as a kid... until his friend back then had mentioned liking it. They’d told him they thought it was a little fitting, considering his luck- the bad luck was the ‘eclipses’, but after each one the moon came back, a little brighter than before.
It felt stupid, and he didn’t really think that it was true at all, and yet they were still words to cling to. He didn’t think there was any sort of ‘positive’ to his luck, not when so many horrible things would happen- but the bad luck would pass. The recoil always hurt, but it would pass, and things would settle down.
Another eclipse. Another period of bad luck, some of the worst he’d ever had in his life- but eclipses didn’t last forever, and they didn’t stop the stars from twinkling.
“I’m... I-I’m... I’m so sorry, Mugsy, I... I-I... I’m sorry, but I... I’ll figure something out. I promise I will, so... please, don’t... don’t worry about me....” The tears didn’t stop falling, and his voice was shaking, but he spoke anyways. “It’ll... it’ll pass, and then I’ll be smiling again. B-But I... I can’t smile yet tonight. It’s not... it’s not passed yet.”
He was talking to himself, not to any possible ghosts that might’ve been there- he had no idea if any of them were there, considering he had absolutely no ability to sense them. Mugman, or anyone else could’ve been there- or absolutely nobody. It wouldn’t make a difference to him.
He figured that this was mourning, something natural. He didn’t like that something ‘natural’ was so painful, but he supposed that was simply another part of life. He would mourn today... and then by tomorrow, he’d be better. He didn’t think he much wanted to leave his room, not when he felt so paranoid over his luck- but he’d at least talk if people decided they were going to show up at his door.
The sky continued to grow darker, the tears eventually stopped falling, but the stickers in his room never stopped their gentle glowing. Even if everything was uncertain, even if it felt like everything that all of them knew was standing on the precipice of being uprooted forever, the stars continued to glow.
They were still there, just like he was.
And as long as they were, even the longest nights would have an end.
It was a memory- he knew that much. That’s what it had to be, but that... it was....it made no sense, right? All of them in a school’s uniform, talking together, no Oswald and no killing game. It was.... happy?
And yet, it filled him with complete dread.
There was no reason for it to make him feel so worried, right? And yet, even simple things like talking to Saturday or hanging with Mugman or watching Rocky get up to whatever recent nonsense was going on felt.... hollow.
Saturday’s theory about the memory loss had to be right, then. It explained a lot of things, and this only further confirmed it- he wondered if everyone else had remembered something to, and assumed that it was a probable yes. After all... this was probably planned. He could only imagine that it was something Oswald had done, to try to break them down further.
Even with knowing that, it didn’t stop him from breaking down into tears once more inside his room. Thought of happy school days weighed heavy on his mind, thinking about how much a school life where he’d simply be able to be had been something he’d dreamed of when he was younger. So even with all that, even with people who’d accepted him- even still, it’d all been for nothing.
Something horrible had happened to the world. Something awful, something he didn’t want to remember but did regardless.
And beyond that... there was something a little bit deeper.
He knew better than to bring up pointless thoughts by now, so it wasn’t like he’d talk about any of this. He’d talk if someone else mentioned it, for sure- but he wouldn’t bring it up.
“If ████’s dead.... I’m going to be next.”
“Wh-what are you talking about?”
“Alright, let’s get going.”
“Hey ████, what’s up with you? Can’t you sound... more happy? Get a little excited?”
“....no.”
“Wait. Before we go, there’s.. one thing I wanna ask you.”
“What’s that...?”
“What do you think when you hear the word... ‘experiment’?”
Vague echoes of words he’d heard once before haunted him, even when he closed his eyes. Conversations held privately, of things that did and didn’t make sense- but it was a little late for making sense, by now. Nothing really made sense anymore. Nothing had for quite some time, really.
He wished he could talk to people, talk about those memories and what things could mean for him and them and everyone, but he couldn’t. He couldn’t risk making anyone worry over him, not when so many people were hurting so much more than him.
So even if it was confusing and overwhelming and far too much for one person to handle on his own, he’d deal with his memories alone.
TELL ME A SECRET AND UNLOCK MY HEART... [CHAPTER 6: START!]
Though the killer of arguably the most beloved person in the park had been caught and punished for their crime, it was hard to feel good about it. After all, they hadn’t even known they’d done it.
But still, rules were rules, even if you weren’t in control of your own body at the time of the murder. Of course, watching Yogi get brutally impaled wasn’t any easier than watching Michael purposely attack Oswald to get a penalty death, sacrificing himself either for the good of the class or so he could be with Yogi forever. Maybe both.
He’d cried a lot this time, he realized after- for the victims, the killer, for everyone still alive. It was hard not to cry, not after everything that’d happened. It was a tragedy- all of this was. A series of horrible misfortunes borne of the most horrible of circumstances.
People would keep killing, unless they could get out. Getting out on Oswald’s terms was not acceptable- Junpei wanted all of them to make it, not just one person getting out free because they got away with a murder.
He knew that, he truly did, and yet that didn’t stop the way that his heart felt like it was breaking. Saturday was blaming herself, everyone else had seemed like they probably were too- and Junpei wasn’t an exception to that. He felt no different, not really... except, he had his luck.
If the dead were going to blame anyone, they could blame him.
Despite his attempts to seem confident at the trial, the facade was broken the moment he shut his door to his room. He wasn’t confident, he wasn’t brave, he wasn’t strong- he was hurting, and praying that none of them would see how deep it went.
He could be brave tomorrow. He could pretend to be strong tomorrow. But for tonight, he’d let himself fall into yet another restless sleep, making yet more pointless prayers that nobody else would have to die.
After a horrifying and painfully emotional trial of brotherly love and betrayal, with Mugman and Cuphead being shattered in different ways, those remaining slowly filed their way out of the trial room and back to the castle above. Unlike the last trial, this one ended before the clock even struck noon; though the day stretched before them all with near-limitless opportunity, the overwhelming weight of what they had just witnessed ensured that none of them would enjoy it.
tws: mentions of bullying, blood, injury, self-loathing/depression
In the back of his mind, Junpei didn’t know if he’d made the right choice.
Telling everyone about his talent- he didn’t regret that, strangely enough. It was better than having to hide it, better than being constantly paranoid that someone would find out, and use it against him. Sure, it may mean people would stay away from him... but was that truly a bad thing?
He knew what people had said to him. That they didn’t blame him, that it wasn’t his fault... and while he appreciated the sentiments, it simply wasn’t true. He knew his luck. He knew what happened. People got hurt.
There was a reason he’d voted for himself.
It wasn’t like he’d wanted to get himself hurt, and he’d known that the class would vote correctly... but in the end, he couldn’t accept Cuphead as the killer. He couldn’t accept that horrible execution. He couldn’t accept Cuphead up and dying like that, leaving Mugman behind.
The world was cruel. It could be cold. He knew that- he’d learned that lesson far too well when he’d been twelve, an image of red stained into his mind and the pain of being beaten black and blue by some idiot sadist bullies still echoing at the back of his memory. But still, he wanted to believe in something good.... it was just that, those good things didn’t happen to him. There was a reason he’d moved to Hope’s Peak, despite being scouted on account of bad luck- it’d still been better than the other school. He’d wanted to lie, to pretend that he wasn’t unlucky... but then this game had happened. It must’ve been punishment from god, for thinking he could actually escape his luck... instead of a new school and a new start, he’d been thrown into a game of death.
And still, even still, Something as simple as Mugman hugging him and crying was enough to pull him back from the edge of despair, to give him a reason to want to hope.
He was unlucky, and he knew that. And yet, even accepting that, he was going to refuse to let that bad luck interfere now. If there was recoil, he’d deal with that later- he’d accept whatever was thrown back at him, even if that did mean death, so long as he could keep his promise. It didn’t matter who’d given him this luck; be it god, the devil, or something else entirely- he wouldn’t just lie down and accept this.
Mugman, Saturday, others too- they hadn’t hated him, even knowing his talent. They hadn’t blamed him, they’d accepted him. Even Rei, despite the fact that he couldn’t’ve known about Junpei’s talent- even then, he’d still been nice to him. If he let himself freeze up, if he stumbled, he’d only be letting all of them down, wouldn’t he?
He’d take on all the bad luck in the world, if he had to- he’d just make sure to keep his promise. He had to.
WELCOME TO OUR BROTHERLY TIME... [EXECUTION: CUPHEAD]
“I can’t– I can’t keep it a secret anymore, I really can’t…”
“IT WAS ME!”
“They’re dead, an’ it’s my fault!”
Pushed to the breaking point and cornered by the ceramic shard discovered at the crime scene, Mugman confessed to the horrific triple murder in the water park.
In all honesty, Junpei couldn’t remember much of what’d happened this time.
He’d been so goddamn tired, his whole head had been fuzzed up- actually managing to communicate with other people properly had been hellish, and he’d barely been aware of what he was saying, let alone other people. He’d ended up mostly just parroting the others during the trial, hoping that something he was saying was making sense... because fuck if he knew if it was.
And yet, for all his trouble with communication, his eyes were working just fine- and seeing that gunshot had somehow been too much for him. He’d gone silent in the trial room, managing to mutter something soft about needing to leave- and then he’d gone immediately to his room, collapsing on a heap on his bed. He wanted to sleep, he was exhausted... and yet, his sleep wasn’t restful at all. It was plagued with nightmares, vague memories and echoes of the executions, the deaths, the murders- the blood and gore and violence playing on an endless loop in his mind, the stench of blood and something foul forcing its way into his nostrils and making him feel as though he was going to be sick.
They were dead. His friends had been murdered. He hadn’t been able to help them- he hadn’t been able to save them- they were dead, they were dead, they were dead-
Junpei awoke with something of a start, barely managing to stumble his way to the bathroom before he was sick, the burning feeling of acid in his mouth an unpleasant aftertaste.
He wasn’t as tired, and yet he didn’t feel rested at all... but he’d try to go back to sleep. Continuing on without any wasn’t going to be good for him at all...
Hopefully this time, he’d have a sleep without dreams.
I CAN GO THE DISTANCE... [EXECUTION: MANAMI SANGAKU]
Nineteen frayed and weary minds, most of them fresh from the scene of their beloved classmate Alyssa’s brutal murder, were locked in a room with each other. Try as they might, their own exhaustion and the sheer messiness of the scene made it nearly impossible to make any headway into flushing out the killer.
When Oswald drops a little hint as to some of the side effects they were dealing with, Rei and Saturday began a final gambit: the murderer was suffering from paranoia due to a lack of sleep, and by agitating everyone, reminding them that they were all being watched by countless people they could find out who the culprit was.
Though the group went around and around, focusing on Peter Pan for quite some time, the culprit ultimately revealed themselves.
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