She was already dead when Mukuro had arrived in the bathroom.
The door to her room had been left ajar, and Mukuro's curiosity had gotten the better of her. Unfortunately, she'd arrived to a wreck of destruction. The walls and floors were carved up, furniture had been knocked over and jostled, and Sayaka was nowhere in sight.
Mukuro hadn't meant to look in the bathroom, but she would have had to find out sooner or later.
The handle to the bathroom was about to fall off the door, and the door itself had deep gouges in it. But it was nothing compared to what she would find inside.
Blood splatter covered the walls and floor. It was still wet on the tile, and the salty smell made Mukuro's noise hairs twitch. Still, the worst part of the whole scene was Sayaka herself.
Her knees were bent in an awkward fashion, while her arms lay uselessly at her sides. She leant against the wall, so close to slipping and landing in the pool of blood. Her eyes were closed, and a trickle of blood came out from her mouth.
Mukuro wished that she could have been sleeping.
The icing on the cake of death was the knife in Sayaka's stomach. It must have slipped in as easy as butter, from the way it hung out of her body.
And Mukuro stood and stared at her, unable to say anything.
Sayaka Maizono used to be beautiful.
She used to smile, laugh, and sing. Mukuro liked to watch her do all of those things. Sayaka was always ready for anything, and was the kind of person who lived in the moment. She used to grab Mukuro's hand, and pull her into an inane escapade.
She used to be alive.
Too many times, she and Mukuro would stay up all night, watching bad movies, or stargazing, or simply just laughing at a stupid joke. Too many times, Mukuro would wake up next to her, and wish that they could stay like that forever.
But nothing perfect ever lasts, does it? Does it?!
Mukuro loved her, once. Sayaka had loved her back. They were perfect together, they were never apart. Some of the others students had been jealous, but it had been perfect, and Mukuro had cherished every second of it.
Sayaka didn't love her anymore. But it didn't really matter, she was dead anyways.
Mukuro still loved her.
It wasn't something that she could just brush off. Something about Sayaka's presence in her life had made Mukuro better, her constant cheerfulness had made them both joyful.
And now it didn't matter. What good was love when one of them couldn't remember it? What good was love when one of them was dead?
Even now, Mukuro hardly felt a thing. That was the problem with the wig and costume, it made her into someone else entirely. She wasn't Mukuro, not Junko, not even a bizarre fusion of them.
It was a fabricated personality, implanted in the body of a walking disaster.
Were those tears running down her face, or was it just the dust particles in the air? Mukuro couldn't even tell, but it was all she could do not to throw up. Suddenly, she couldn't look at Sayaka's decaying corpse anymore.
She fled the room, kicking various objects on the floor out of her way, as she returned to her own bedroom. As soon as she slammed the door shut, Mukuro ripped the wig off her head, and tossed it haphazardly onto the dresser.
Her mouth was filled with salty tears, but she couldn't remember crying in the first place.
Sayaka was dead.
And that was final.
Mukuro stomped on the bear.
In that moment, she remembered when Sayaka grabbed her hand during the shark chase scene in Finding Nemo, and the first time that Sayaka said she loved her, and the feeling of her face when she discovered that the idol had a crush on her, and the sensation of making out with her in a broom closet in-between classes, and when they had fallen asleep in each others arms on a sofa in a furniture store.
And seventeen spears pierced her body, but despite the pain, all Mukuro could think of was Sayaka's winning smile.
And Mukuro Ikusaba was dead, but she didn't care, not in the slightest.
After all, Sayaka would be waiting for her.