by crystal tiara
Disclaimer: I do not own "Battle Royale". It is property of Koushun Takami, Masayuki Taguchi and Kinji Fukusaku.
When Mitsuko Souma was young, and things were better, Mother would read to her before she went to bed.
Mitsuko always loved it when Mom would read her a story, because as Mom read, she felt like she was also in a fantasy world herself. Most of the time, she'd read fairy tales to her- about castles, dwarves, wicked witches, Prince Charming, and of course, about princesses.
Princesses always captivated Mitsuko's interest. They almost always started out with miserable lives, but then they were always exceptionally beautiful and kind. They never seemed to complain about their troubles, and in the end, they'd always be the ones to get the handsome prince and live happily ever after. Mitsuko thought it would be a fine thing to live as a princess, and sometimes, she'd pretend to be one. She'd twirl around in one of Mom's fancy dresses, pretending to be the beautiful Snow White or the charming Cinderella. She thought that when she grew up, she'd have her own Prince Charming to protect her and keep her out of harm's way, and that one day, she'd get to live with him... happily ever after.
But then Mom remarried and Dad came along. Dad was tall and lanky, and even if he didn't look like royalty, he seemed so nice to her. Mitsuko instantly liked him, even if he wasn't initially a part of the family. He'd always call her his little princess. But Dad wasn't as nice as she thought he was. If anything, he was much like Cinderella's evil stepmother. Or maybe even Snow White's witch stepmother.
Dad liked to drink a lot. It had become a habit for him, and Mitsuko wasn't surprised when she'd come home from school to see him slumped over a table, drunk. And when he was drunk... he was frightening. He'd beat her, and do other unspeakable things to her. He'd touch her here and there, in places that made her uncomfortable. But there was nothing she could do about it. Mom didn't seem to care either, and Mitsuko was sure that she was just as afraid of Dad as Mitsuko was.
Things changed ever since Dad became part of the family. Mom stopped reading to her, or even spending what little time she had with her, for the matter. And Dad... he was horrible. But he always seemed to enjoy what he was doing to her, as if he was expecting her to enjoy it, too. He'd still call her his princess, but Mitsuko didn't feel like one. She didn't feel like such a little girl anymore, either. It was as if she'd grown up all of a sudden, and her eyes were opened to reality.
It was then that she started offering her body to others. The first time it happened was when Dad and Mom were low on money. On Mom's suggestion (but it was more like Mom's orders), she slept with her first customer. After that, she didn't feel the revulsion any longer, and sold her body of her own accord. She didn't care any longer--if she had already been violated before then what was the point of hanging on to her innocence?
At school, Mitsuko met all sorts of people. There were the "delinquents", Yoshimi Yahagi and Hirono Shimizu, who eventually became her friends. And then there was Noriko Nakagawa- a real princess if there ever was one. She was such a goody-goody; it annoyed Mitsuko so. Mitsuko just didn't believe there was such a girl as innocent and demure as Noriko. It wasn't fair. While Mitsuko had her childhood taken away to her, Noriko grew up with the perfect, normal family and had perfect, normal friends. Perfection. How sickening it was. Everything about her seemed to be perfect---perfectly normal. She didn't seem to have any problems, and went about life the way princesses did- with constant optimism and a good, sincere heart. And Mitsuko just couldn't stand girls like that. It was just too unrealistic.
Mitsuko hated school; there was nothing about it that she found interesting. She hardly learned anything from her teachers, and if there was any, she found them to be nothing but rubbish. Especially when they'd talk about values and morals, like faith, hope and love, which she thought were all big lies. And besides, it didn't make any sense going to school when there was nothing to learn and no one to befriend. Aside from her gang of girls, she was feared. Hated. In a way, she was a social outcast. The beautiful girl whom no one dared to approach. She could hear their whispers as she passed the despicable hallways of Shiroiwa. And she could almost feel the way they would stare at her, eyeing her from head to toe, as if she were an extraterrestrial being. She hated every moment she spent in school. No one understood her; no one cared. The feeling was mutual; she didn't care about her classmates either.
Princesses never had it easy in those fairy tales she read. But surely even they didn't have to experience the same things Mitsuko went through. She didn't have any home to return to; everything was cold and empty. She didn't have any real friends, either. And obviously, life was no piece of cake. Perhaps fairy tales were just too good to be true. They were just elaborate tales spun by bored folks as an escape from the world.
But Mitsuko didn't believe in fairy tales anymore. Every child would grow out of those childish stories, and Mitsuko was one of them. She learned that in life, fairy tale princesses just weren't real. There were no castles in the sky, either. No fairy godmothers. No Prince Charming. No happy endings---just one twisted game called reality.
Author's Notes: This is my first "Battle Royale" fic. While Mitsuko really was sexually abused and all, some of the details here in this fic about her sexual experiences were made up by me. So not everything I've written here is accepted as canon---I just took some canonical facts, and spun my own tale out of them. Asfor which version of "Battle Royale" I based this fic on, I'm not quite sure. I've read the novel, the manga, and seen the film. But still I think that this fic is closer to movie canon.You be the judge.Please review; it would be much appreciated.