Chapter 1 - Introduction to Despair Wonderland
The prison is isolated from the city, a lonesome miniature island off the main coast and secured heavily by one hundred feet stone walls. She smiles through glossed lips, shark-like teeth gleaming. Her driver cringed, and turned to the windshield. The drive is long and silent, but she has the chance to check her nails in the least. When the truck stops at the gate, the driver is punching in a code on the access box outside the heavy iron gates leading into the brilliant flickering lights of the prison-amusement park, Deadman Wonderland.
She bites her own finger, cheeks flushing as she hears a long-suffering scream of pain carry along the night breeze. Oh yes, she's going to love it here, and so are here pupils. The driver is sweating, swallowing down his unease of her immodest behavior, and she doesn't care if he's uncomfortable. She's the guest here, not him. If anything, he should have freshened out the stench of decaying body with pineapple or Fir Tree. Not that she's holding him in animosity for killing anyone in the first place; hey, kill whoever you want, it's a free world, and one day, she'll grant that ideology into jurisdiction.
When she gets off the car, she's starry-eyed and her mouth is agape. Carnage, carnage everywhere! Pink remains and ribbons suspending off of the spinning swing set, the other half of the owner lying down on the ground to spread the pool of blood on the ground. The rotting smell intensifies, but she doesn't bother covering her nose. In fact, she breathes it in happily, because it mixes nicely with the outdoor air, compared to the enclosed, heated environment of a truck.
"Enoshima-san, you're here."
"Tamaki." She grins toothily. "You little fox, you. Don't you know you shouldn't keep a lady waiting?"
"I would apologize, but I would offend you for how much I didn't mean it." He giggles, adjusting his glasses.
She pouts, but the two of them are walking inside the prison, and she's more than enthralled about this. As she's walking at his side and they're passing different levels of the prison, the occasional whistling or screaming of prisoners' attentions on them on their way to Tamaki's office is slightly annoying, but they'll pay for it later, the two of them silently think. Once inside his well-kempt office, they sit opposite of each other.
He opens a drawer, pulling out paperwork and offering her a pen. She takes it, scanning through soundlessly. The whole exchange is quiet, but foreboding somehow. It's in the way he grins slyly, hands folded underneath his pointed chin. It's in the way she's smiling, the corner of her lips barely reaching high enough. Behind him, the moonlight is streaming into his office and his mechanical sunflower is swaying side-to-side in its potting.
"By the way," Tamaki begins. "how soon can we begin?"
"Now," Junko, for the first time that night, laughs. "if I told you when, we wouldn't be as excited. Think of it as Christmas Shopping." Her eyes glow and her lips curl up, the promising of something sinister. "You don't know until it happens."
And the two laugh into the dark night.
The Great Tokyo Earthquake and the Biggest, Most Awful, Most Tragic Event in Human History impacted all of Japan as a country. Mercifully, these events were separated by an interval of five years. After the Great Tokyo Earthquake, it was debated for awhile among government officials, but it was finally decided upon that Tokyo was reconstructed not as a city, but as a bridge into a miniature island. That miniature island would be constructed into the very grounds of Deadman Wonderland. At first, it was a simple prison, and then, when the owner became bedridden and ill, his son, as heir, took ownership and had the grounds remodeled to appeal to broader masses. Tsunenaga Tamaki didn't only want to cater to those aroused by punishment to the worst of the worst prisoners, he also wanted to cater to families seeking innocent, harmless fun, too. Oh yes, the operations of Deadman Wonderland were all just innocent, harmless fun for the family!
However, five years from Wonderland's inception, the Biggest, Most Awful, Most Tragic Event in Human History occurred opposite of where the earthquake had happened. This event took place in a prestigious high school named Hope's Peak's Academy. There was a mass-suicide of at least two thousand students, all in the newly introduced Reserve Department, and following that incident came the riots, the ambushes, the mass-murders, all initiated by a group that called themselves the Ultimate Despair. No matter how hard the Japanese government handled stifling them, they were unbeatable and they were contagious, not to mention that there were the thousands and counting Monokuma to defend the Ultimate Despair. Their numbers outdid the government and their forces, resulting in national anarchy, until she took the reigns.
She controlled Ultimate Despair, even when she was busy with the Tragic Event. The Tragic Event was the Mutual Killings that occurred for Hope's Peak's Academy, Class 78 of the Main Course. All but five had survived the Mutual Killings, and now, she manipulated them into staying put within the grounds of Deadman Wonderland. It was part of her signed contract with Tsunenaga. Though, even with that contract signed by her hands and him presenting it to her, the two of them knew as business partners, which one was the true boss here (as much as Tsunenaga would vehemently hate to admit).
Through all of those courses of events, Tsunenaga understood one thing about his business partner, Junko Enoshima. He understood that she's volatile, in every sense of the word. She can't be constant, because that troubled her, and he didn't mind—how could he? Again, as much as he would hate to admit it as the proud, conceited man he is on the inside, it's easier to admit he's only co-leader to her dictation when she had a billion clones of Monokuma at her disposal, and if necessary, his own end. He did mind it when she changed in a way he didn't like, but again, it wasn't his place to say anything. Hell, he learned his lesson that one time he lashed out on her for adding her Monokuma Factory and attractions to his theme-park-prison.
In the first month of their partnership, the two of them reevaluated their location, and deciding… Well, alright, it was Junko who decided that the island was too small for what she wanted to add in. They agreed to move it onto the mainland. Junko was ambitious and she was full of crazy good ideas, Tsunenaga hated to admit, but she was. She had the idea of building Deadman Wonderland where the suburban neighborhoods once were (which were debris and wreckage now), and elongating as a theme-park-prison past the Japanese government headquarters and eventually ending at where Hope's Peak Academy stood (where it still stood that is). And though the process of construction was faster with Junko's Monokuma, Tsunenaga had realized his position as just another one of Junko's toys.
Junko is exactly like a child. She has a box full of many toys she can play with, but she never plays too often with one of them, unless something is more intriguing about one than the other. And once you take away one of her other toys, she'll childishly reprimand you or punish you in some awful way. Tsunenaga had seen the Mutual Killings Broadcast. He knew what she was capable of. The two of them were sitting in his office now, at the new location. His office that was once well-kempt and sparse with the occasional toy box or two, but was now crowded with a lot of Monokuma merchandise. He used to scowl, but now, he placidly smiles like he had no other face to make, and he probably doesn't. Junko's head was tilted back, eyes up on the ceiling and lips a tight line.
"Can you believe it, Enoshima-dono?"He sighed softly. "We've already come so far at such a low amount of time!" He looked up from the newspaper, reading about children enslaving adults from a few weeks back, glancing over. "Is there something wrong, Enoshima-dono?"
"No," She sat upright, crossing her legs. "I've just been thinking about something…"
"Hmm?"
"Tell me all about your Deadmen, Tsunenaga."
And he did. He told her all about their abilities, their stories, and their strengths. The Red Man was the strongest deadman in the Prison, and out of safety precautions, Tsunenaga had to keep the Red Man asleep, playing its favorite lullaby. However, if he ceased to replay it in its twenty-four hour run the next coming day, the Red Man would unlatch from its restraints and roam free to wreak havoc as it pleased.
"Sounds like an interesting new toy…" Junko mused, eyes lighting up. "Now I have an idea."
"What's that, Enoshima-dono?"
"Oh, you'll see soon enough, Tsunenaga. Tomorrow, I want you to take me where you are keeping your deadmen." Junko stood up from her chair then, moving away from him. She went behind his desk and stared out his window. The sunlight outside was very mild, obscured by a reddish-gray clouds of pollution and it streamed in only slightly, but it doesn't sear her at all. She moves her gaze from the red sky to the grounds of the building below, and lips playing a smirk, something sweet and tempting than any dessert in the world begged her to make this idea happen. Something to do with bright green eyes shining so vibrantly, only to dim in the stinging of tears; something to do with a lively flush on an evenly rounded face, only to pale in color in shock; and something to do with confidence, optimism wavering into a fit of sobs at failure. Lips quivering and eyes gleaming, Junko wanted her dessert before the main course was even served, and Tamaki picked up on it too easily.
-1-
Togami stared out the window, arms crossed. He's been imprisoned in this cell with Naegi. They're on D-Block, they've been imprisoned since they reached climax on the purpose behind Mutual Killings. Togami's cheeks were sunken, his eyes tired and red behind his black-rimmed glasses, and his blond hair that was once soft and brilliant was now stringy and coarse with the stubble on his chin. Despite his regression, Naegi never gave up.
Naegi was somehow vibrant and stellar with the aid of that optimism of his, and though it can be infectious Togami cannot deny, in the situation they were in right now, what was left for them to hope off of? He glanced at Naegi. Naegi was sitting on his cot, staring hard at the floor as if it had the answer to everything in this life. His balled fist was underneath his chin as he thought.
"What are you thinking of?" asked Togami.
"I'm thinking about Kirigiri-san!" He beamed. "I'm wondering if she'll try communicating me soon."
"Given these circumstances, I'd find it impossible for her to." Togami rolled his eyes at Naegi's naivety.
"Ah, Byakuya-san," Naegi looked up at him with those doe eyes. "it is Kirigiri-san. There's always something, right? And she'll be sure to reach me somehow, I just know it!"
Togami cracked a weary smile, but didn't argue any further. He didn't say that he thought—no, that he knew. That he knew Naegi's optimism was wearing down, and he was trying too hard to believe he's at the peak of his own hopeful thinking, when he's so far down, he's staring up at the height he climbed up effortlessly so many times before, and now, it's too high up for him to tame. They sat in silence, wondering of their fate, and unknowing of the despair that will await them.