Celeste is exceedingly proud of her Ultimate talent and all of the perks it entails - her quick thinking skills and foresight chief among them - but every once in a while, she is especially glad for her poker face.
The thought flits across her mind as she stares into the mirror at her unadorned visage. If there were any unbarred windows at this institution, she's certain that the sun would come streaming into her room as it began to emerge over the Oyama mountain range. A halo of light for the darker and edgier sort of Disney princess.
It's 6:30 AM, and she's been up for about two hours. Celeste is a habitually early riser, but 4:30 is still on the early side for her. She's awake because she can't shake the unique feeling that courses down her spine. It's a familiar sensation, one that resembles the tingling that stretches to the ends of her fingertips and toes after a particularly good hand or lucky draw. It brings the prickling of intrigue, and often, the taste of victory.
She gazes into cool red eyes, so close to the mirror that her breath begins to fog up the glass. She tilts her head back and forth, testing the different masks she plans to don in the upcoming day. People will follow a commanding visage, she reasons, and to be commanding comes with a deliberate hand on the dial of her emotions. At present, Celeste is almost shivering with anticipation, something she'd do well to hide before making her rounds for the day. She massages her cheeks and widens and narrows her eyes, arriving at a chilling poker face, an adorably unsettling smile, and a laugh like the tinkle of a wind chime. Three discrete settings to rule them all; three indispensable cards to win this absurd game. And who better to do it?
Sometimes, she gets a little carried away, staring at the face of Celestia Ludenberg.
Anyhow, this face doesn't carry its weight without a little TLC, so she turns back to the mirror and unscrews the cap on her toner. Today, she decides, is going to be a wonderful day.
Celeste wanders into the dining hall seventeen minutes and thirty three seconds late, the same as every other day. She enters on the tail of the Ultimate Unknown, who doesn't hold the door for the Ultimate Gambler - a minor annoyance, but perhaps to be expected. Resentment is often the price of control. Or perhaps, Kirigiri sees little point in making nice with Celeste, a possibility that manages to tick off the latter a little bit more. She shrugs it off and pushes her way through the doors.
The same cast of characters is there to greet her: an overweight slob, a posh fashionista, a ear-shatteringly loud prefect, and an Ultimate Lucky Student, among others. The same cast of characters is not yet present, though it's of little import to her, save for one conspicuous absence. The class stands without the annoying chipperness of a certain bluenette.
Her other strengths aside, Celestia Ludenberg also excels at reading a room. A tense uneasiness hangs over present company, shown particularly on the face of a certain diminutive boy. He fiddles nervously with his hands, as he is often wont to do; his eyes flit back to the door and he springs to his feet as the beastly-looking one with spectacles shuffles through the entrance. His face falls, and he returns to his sitting position. A new thought irritates her to no end, that the boy had likely sprung to his feet as Celestia Ludenberg herself had strode through the door, only to recoil in disappointment at the sight of anyone but the pop sensation. She can feel that fire scald the back of her throat as she pushes down a maleficent scream, forcing indifference onto her twitching visage.
Her thoughts are interrupted by the entrance of the Ultimate Affluent Progeny, Togami Byakuya. To his credit, Togami is also perceptive, if not terribly tactful; he announces his presence with the question that hangs in the air for any with an iota of sense to see.
"...What's going on? Did something happen?"
"Hey man, have you seen Sayaka?"
Diffuse muttering fills the room, musings about the pop sensation and her whereabouts. Celeste feels no need to theorize - her instincts have told her just about everything she needs to know - but she uses the opportunity to look around the room and to confirm her suspicions about her classmates. The fat slob chews at his fingernails without a clue, while the feral girl with glasses grumbles to herself; the burly idiot with the pompadour paces uselessly about, and the self-proclaimed clairvoyant turns to his crystal ball with his query about the pop sensation. On the other side of the room, Togami frowns - an unexpectedly vulnerable expression for the young mogul that makes Celeste feel like she's violating his privacy. Kirigiri fingers her chin with a gloved hand, seemingly deep in thought, and Ogami's rippling muscles look tense in her sitting position. She turns to the final group - the busty swimmer, the punk-rock baseballer, the ditzy fashionista, the obnoxious prefect, and Fujisaki - but her survey is interrupted when the boy explodes from his sitting position.
"I have to check on her!" He springs to his feet and bursts through the doors of the dining hall. Mob mentality seizes the weaker minds of the group, and the biker, baseballer, swimmer, and clairvoyant chase after his fleeing form. Most of the group wanders slowly after the overeager, nervously filing out of the room until just two remain: the Ultimate Gambler, and the Ultimate Contrived Mystery. Celeste turns to the silver-haired girl and speaks first.
"I am sure your best guess is the same as mine."
"...I can't say for sure."
"Perhaps not, but I certainly can. You see, Miss Kirigiri, I have an eye and a gut instinct for this sort of thing. One might say it stems from-"
"From years of gambling, yes? You've said it a number of times."
Celeste isn't sure how she feels about being interrupted, but she'll let it slide for the time being. After all, something about Kyoko intrigues her, and the Ultimate Gambler has a feeling that hedging her bets on the mysterious girl might be the difference between life and death someday.
"You are quite perceptive, Miss Kirigiri. I wonder what you are."
Before Kirigiri can reply, they are interrupted. Just as the question should have been obvious for those with any sense, so, too, should have been the answer. When the boy's scream pierces through the halls of the school, it confirms for Celeste what she already knows. A glance at her compatriot's stony face tells her that they'd been in agreement from the start.
Frankly, Celeste would be lying if she said she was surprised, or for that matter particularly disappointed. She'd never liked the Ultimate Pop Sensation, if that hadn't been clear enough. Still, she's glad for her impenetrable poker face when she follows Kirigiri into the bathroom, stepping around the dark-skinned swimmer and Fujisaki, who are tending to the passed-out Ultimate Lucky Student. There's blood everywhere, and it's still flowing from Sayaka's stomach wound and onto the linoleum tiling of the boy's bathroom. The knife, a wickedly sharp blade she recognizes from the kitchen, is still embedded in her torso. The smell of blood hangs in the air, and the nervous chatter of her peers fades into a background humming that makes the whole situation feel even more fantastical than it already does.
It's thrilling. Almost arousing.
Celeste is suddenly hyperconscious of the blood rushing in her ears, and it's everything she can do not to crack a genuine smile. She's not happy - she isn't a psychopath - but it's also not lost on her, what this murder means: the games have begun.
She's nearly giddy with excitement, and she isn't sure where to start. Does she want to play detective? Does she want to hang back and observe for just a moment more, to watch and see how these caged animals react to this horrible, inevitable, cold-blooded murder? It's easy, almost too easy, to suspect the Ultimate Lucky Student. After all, Sayaka has been murdered in his own bathroom, no doubt after the hour of nighttime had passed. The thoughts race through her head, almost faster than she can keep track of them. The fire burns hotter than ever before, and she needs to take a deep, chesty breath to calm her nerves.
As the monitor in the bedroom sparks to life - an announcement from Monokuma, telling the students to gather in the gym - she struggles to suppress her aberrant, unbridled hunger. This is how it starts: a game with the highest stakes of all, and Celestia Ludenberg's decisive victory. She takes a last look at the corpse of Maizono Sayaka, steels her poker face, and turns towards the door.
She is met with the sight of the boy being slung onto the broad back of Ogami Sakura. His face twists with agony in his unconscious state, and tears stream down his cheeks as his lips tremble and whisper her name in pathetic lament. It's a truly pitiful scene, watching the quivering mouth that had just yesterday so confidently declared a promise to keep.
And yet, a sudden, confusing urge fills the heart of Celestia Ludenberg, replacing the indelible hunger that had been there just a moment before. It's an overwhelming desire to catch up to the unconscious boy, to place her hand upon his and to tell him that everything will be okay. She digs the sharp edge of her gunmetal ring into her palm, and as the blood wells up, the feeling is gone, as quickly as it came.