Even Monsters Look Up at The Stars Wondering About the Future (Or the Lack Thereof)

"I'm baaaaack~!" Junko cheerily announced.

Of course, no one replied. The echo of her own voice was the only response she got.

There used to be a time when that wasn't the case. A time when Muku sis would have come and greeted her, with Junko throwing some non-committal murder attempt here and there. It didn't matter if it was a thrown knife, a poisonous dart, a bullet aimed at her head, or whatever the fuck else. Her big dumbass of a sister always dodged or blocked it, resulting in Junko rightfully pointing out how much of a disappointment her sister was for doing that. An activity both of them would enjoy regardless of it turning into a routine, the type of thing she would hate in any other circumstances.

But those good times were nothing but a fleeting memory, weren't they? Mukuro, one of her two biggest confidants, was gone forever, with not only the barrier of life and death separating the despair sisters, but a whole alternate reality altogether breaking their bond apart, making one thing certain.

She will never see her sister ever again.

…

…God, the fact that it was I who killed Muku and her final moments were full of despair only makes my own despair taste ten times better as it could have been!

Mentally shaking her head to put aside the reminiscing of those fond memories, she put tonight's purchase on a near table. It was important junk, yeah, but she won't work on that until later, next week maybe. Not out of procrastination, mind you. It's just that she will be busy with…let's leave it at other stuff.

Freeing herself from her boots, she made her way through the living room, towards the kitchen more specifically. There, she went and picked up some bottled water along with a toothpick and a box of Takoyaki balls, poured half of its contents on a plate, and inserted it into the microwave just beside the fridge, humming along the rhythm of the now-started-up device as it heated her…well, she would call it her favorite food, but that would imply she liked its taste in the first place. Rather, she got a kick of the despair this devious snack caused her.

How many calories would she have to burn up in exchange for each one of these round and far from nutritional fuckers? The effort she had to sacrifice so otherwise they don't ruin her stunning figure and turn her into a damn whale. All those hours wasted in what might as well could have been used for more despairful plans…

Truly, whoever came up with this was one hundred percent Remnant of Despair material.

Once the beeping informed her dinner was ready, she brought everything back to the living room, and after slumping onto the only sofa within the room, she grabbed the remote control and began to browse through the channels.

"Are you the laughing stock at parties? Do guys not pay you the attention you obviously deserve? Fear no more! Uwabami recommends this brand-new―"

"Lame!" Besides, it wasn't as if a bitch with snakes for hair could have any idea about beauty and fashion.

"Ten Villains apprehended this morning by―"

"Boring!"

"Pro-Hero Wash announces charity event for orphans in which―"

"Super boring!"

"The Nigata and Gunma prefectures report a decrease in crime rates of thirteen and fifteen percent respectively, making it their lowest records in the past five―"

"Omega boring!"

"All Might―"

"Blegh! Isn't there any good shit on the TV!?"

"Multiple deceased at Esuha city!"

Oh?

Perking up at what she was hearing, she chewed a spicy ball while turning the volume up "…At least a dozen civilians lost their lives when heroes confronted a powerful Villain whose details other than his acid-related quirk were restricted for public safety. We recommend putting minors away from the TV, as the graphic pictures we are about to display aren't fit for the general public"

Fiiiinaaaaally.

Those were the news worth looking for!

Seriously, for a world full of all kinds of weird and dangerous shit at the disposal of bastards, psychopaths, serial killers, and all other examples of stellar citizens, the amount of depressing and tragic news was disappointing bordering on straight-up sad.

And now that it was brought up…

She would have liked to say that the past two weeks in this foreign land were one full of struggle and unknowns that made her adapt to her new life a living hell…but there would be at least three lies in that sentence. Suffice it to say that by the morning of the second day in this place she already got the gist of things.

Even without her being the flawlessly awesome self she already was, it wouldn't have taken her that long to figure out the basics. After all, even though this place was a different reality, there were signs of certain parallelisms here and there. For example, while the Novoselic Kingdom didn't exist here 'Well, there wasn't any Kingdom left back in my world either, but…eh, semantics', the Otheon Kingdom was a thing.

A small European nation bordered by other small nations, whose government system was still a monarchy and their culture was a cut apart from the norm. A.K.A they were a bunch of weirdos. Perhaps not to the degree of the whore princess and her innuendo-filled home, but a bunch of outcasts nonetheless.

Those and other similarities were easily found with some quick navigation through the web. Heck, there was even an artificial island where the latest technological developments were made. It wasn't governed by a single family, and neither it was secretly controlled by a cute and moldable eleven-year-old with several daddy and brother issues, but…

Upupupu, I definitely will have to keep an eye on that place.

Although, leaving aside that for later…

Quirks.

The capacity to make even the most plain of losers into a god if they were lucky enough.

While her assumption about its origins coming from a group bathing in nuclear waste ended up being a bust based on some official sources 'Meh, I will hold on the belief that that woman took a quick peck during her pregnancy', they were admittedly a change in the paradigm she was used to if only because unlike talents, everyone and their mother had one. Sure, she knew of a few freaks of nature before coming here, but all of them would easily pass for someone with an enhancement quirk at best or merely quirkless with some minor hereditary mutations at worst.

Just further proof of how much of a game changer they presented as…even if the magic about them didn't lasted her past a single week. Nevertheless, they still were the selling point of this world.

It certainly wasn't that it was the year 2148.

For real. Just a few days ago, back when she had to forcefully make her way through the servers of the birth registries to input her data, she gave them the honor of taking things slightly more seriously than what she would usually do to make up for whatever futuristic bullshit they would have as cybersecurity…just to end up accessing their databases without a hitch in less than ten seconds. More or less the same amount of time it would have taken her to do it in the first world with just as much effort.

Even if she gave them the benefit of the doubt 'Which I didn't' of that not being an organization that would take such stuff as a priority, like the freaking Military, the HPSC, or that place, you would believe that an alternate reality which takes place in the far future would have better security measurements against traditional hacking even for the most standard locations. But nope. Instead, and from what she observed on that brief cybernetic adventure, they took priority on protocols against quirks who do that.

It was pretty much the same for everything, be it Programming, Medicine, Engineering, or 'Support Industry' as these buzos call it 'Laaaame!'. There were some things that would drop some jaws back 'home', like holograms and hovering boots, but save for those and other few exceptions, this humanity was so despairfully codependent on their genetic lottery, centering everything around them, that one hundred years later, and they were still stuck on the early 21st century, with a far from the small chance of regressing further if they kept the status quo.

All in all, it made them look so pitiful that Junko almost considered sparing them.

…

…

…

…

…

…

…Pffft! As if! Did anyone believe that bullshit for a second!? If her former world could see the despair she had planned for this one, they would enter into a fit of despairfully jealousy!

After all, what she found out about the 'Dark Age of Quirks' and its consequences was an eye-opener for her.

Entire decades of death, suffering, and misery. Sufficient despair to be a major accountant in holding back entire generations of development that could have been used for the benefit of humanity…Whoever was responsible for that 'Because you can bet your ass that there was a mind behind it…', she was a personal fan of it!

I will have to step up my game, don't I? More so because putting the quirks into the equation…I wonder if the bogeyman is just a child's horror story, or if they are still lurking under the bed~?

"While we all would like the grim news ending at just that, another major incident was reported in Shibuya!"

…Oho? Shibuya? That could only mean one thing.

"Just ten minutes before reaching six in the evening, a major incident took place around its commercial district where a group of individuals began to shoot at its passersby. While this unfortunate event resulted in the death of two civilians, both caused by stray bullets, the evildoers didn't go unpunished! Not so long after they attempted to escape the combined force of police and nearby Pro-Heroes, All Might of all people came to our aid! Giving them chase and eventually capturing them in a brief but heart-bumping pursuit, ending this tragic series of events by this evening! Regarding the Villains, the only thing we can comment on is about the wave of rumors about one of them perishing somewhere in between the happenings of this incident, with some anonymous testimonies that claimed it was their only female member, though its cause of death is an enigma so far. Besides that, each one of the Villains are shrouded in mystery too, with their behavior accounted as bizarre at best, as there isn't any confirmation of a purpose behind their crime. The police refused to free any details after their detention, and before we could obtain an interview from All Might to give his version of the events, he left the scene once he defeated the Villains, no doubt to keep working in favor of our society!"

As the news went on, Junko did nothing more other than watch them with a mask of absolute neutrality. Not giving even the tiniest speck of a hint about what was running through her head. It was only after the reporter moved on to other news that she allowed a reaction.

With it being a lip-shattering ear-to-ear grin.

Past afternoon you say? Not before?

"Upupupupu~, took ya quite a bit, don't ya think, big guy? And to leave so suddenly…Tsk, tsk, tsk, borrowing time once again, are we?"

Tuning out the TV as best as someone who acquires a flawless understanding of everything just by being around it could, which was close to nada, Junko lazily put the half-eaten food aside and opened the drawer beside the sofa and reached out for its only content.

A laptop.

The thing was, contrary to what most would believe if they were to see her right now. The past two weeks weren't only used on getting a basic understanding of this place and lazing around eating cheap food while having her eyes glued to a monitor.

What was she? Yamada 'May his soul rest in―Alright, enough of it. That joke is already more burned than Celeste's corpse' on a productive day?

First, there was the obvious, like acquiring a living space. A permanent one, if only because a proper place of residence was a requirement for her plans. It wasn't that hard―scratch that, it was soooo fucking easy to find the correct person, that would sell her what she was looking for, make it a quick process, and do all of that at the cheapest price possible without asking questions.

The benefits of being so damn hot and always knowing what to say, huh?

Save for some extra decorations she picked up; the place was pretty standard in most aspects, with a living room, a kitchen, and a bedroom with a bathroom included. It wasn't like any of that was worth giving two shits about it anyways, with their only purpose being selling an image and other lesser issues, like her basic survival. The only actual pickings she had for this apartment were the drawer for her mountain of clothes, and that every single one of the walls was soundproof.

That made it extra costly even with the discount, yeah, but with her generous donors spread thorough Musutafu and other nearby cities, it was no problem.

Besides, even if right now I have no use for that…it is just a matter of time before I have~.

There were some other things she occupied herself with, like the birth registry ordeal, building up a cover story, and other varying stuff.

Like the registration of her Quirk.

For that one, she didn't even need to work her techno-magic! All she had to do was go to a quirk registry center, telling to the staff some sob story about how she received a wrong assessment at a young age and how she wanted that mistake rectified, do some tests with her Quirk to verify everything coincided, and Ta-Tah!

Junko Enoshima was quirkless no more!

…Heh, what a bunch of dumbasses.

In summary, it was just her filling some checkboxes here and there to ensure her existence didn't raise some eyebrows…so long as they didn't do enough homework, of course.

After all, where's the fun in having a perfect cover~?

But leaving aside that. Once her laptop was turned on, she quickly went to see the notes of what had consumed most of her stay so far in this world.

It was a variety of tables packed with all kinds of info. From names, Quirks, and other useless data dump about the individuals in it. Each was neatly organized based on the roles these people had and their status.

Speaking of which.

It appears to require some updating.

[ Distraction Squad No. 0001

Yashamaru Nidai / Oni / Captured.

Naito Yoshiro / Silent Walk / Captured.

Sayaka Nakamura / Snake Fangs / Dead.

Yamazaki Kunio / Knife Arms / Captured.

Minamoto Kazumi / Eagle Sight / Captured.

Tahara Osamu / Sluggish Wave / Captured.]

Welp, there goes the first batch, as pitifully disposed of as they were meant to be. Besides how disappointing it was to see how few causalities there were, things went despairfully exactly as she expected. Yeah, even the death of that woman was within her assessment.

I mean, with that name and quirk, it was BEGGING me to make a scenario in which she was the first one on the chopping block as a tribute of sorts.

Once done with that segment, Junko scrolled down until reaching the very bottom, where she had the only set of notes worth a damn.

[ Findings On the Symbol of Hope.

Hero Name: All Might.

Real Name: Unknown (Anything I came up with was either a red herring or just bait to satiate the curiosity of those who dig deep enough)

Quirk: Transferable Body-Enhancement (There's more to it, but the data is insufficient to figure out things further)

Notes on his Quirk: It is getting weaker both in potency and duration. The cause is injury related. By who? Unlikely to be a lucky strike, and had to be caused by someone just as powerful at the bare minimum. Based on the massive decrease in crime rates half a decade ago in correlation with All Might's decline in his public appearances…did he and the bogeyman fight? The current limit is four hours and five minutes (A.N: Now it is around three hours and fifty-four minutes). Besides the vapor and the incapacity to use his powers, what happens when the quirk runs out of time? Its user is looking for a successor (Which he will get, just…not yet~)

Family: Non-existent. No info on parents, possibly orphan. Neither has children, and the closest thing to a living relative is a mentor figure of sorts going by the Pro-Hero name of Gran Torino, which quickly led to making the correlation with the civilian name Sorahiko Torino, (Duh!) (A.N: The name Nana Shimura came a few times on what I found about the old fart. Possible relation with All Might too?)

General Notes: Fifty-six years old. Self-sacrificing traits. Personality speaking, the image he shows to the world isn't precisely a mask (At the very least he is as naïve as he presents himself as). He is 84% responsible for Japan not being a crime hellscape (Under the right circumstances, his death will create a massive influx of despair). Watch out for his former sidekick.]

Much to her slight delight, he had his bases well hidden, and figuring everything about the big guy wasn't as easy as one might expect from such a musclehead. Although she knows that the honeymoon period won't last her for much.

After all, I already possess the medium from which I will get everything I'm missing and more. Much, much more~.

Apart from info on him and those expendable groups, her notes contained intel on other branches, like her 'donors', those in charge of the 'souvenirs', a stray dog here and there whose purpose was keeping an ear on the underworld, among other lower levels of mobs that they weren't even worth a mention. All of this was shit she had already memorized of course, but having everything appointed and catalogized gives a, shall we say, professional vibe to it.

Although…Arere? How's it that she had so many minions already, you wonder? Well, it was just simply that one of the first things she worked on as soon as she had the chance to was the magnum opus of a certain feeble, anime-obsessed animator.

That's right people! I, Junko Enoshima, have the brainwashing video in all its despairful glory!

…Or so she would've said if that was the case.

Instead, rather than being either an upgrade or the same as the original, it was more akin to an alpha version.

Yeeeah…the thing was, for this stuff to reach its full potential, it required a despairful catalysator of sorts. The massacre of Hope's Peak student council, where each one of them was considered a walking god by the general population, or the death of…of…what was her name? Nakimi? Chinami? Eh, who the hell cares? The point was, that recorded events with intensive levels of despair while also being meaningful for the individual were necessary for the proper development of a fully functional brainwashing device.

As it was now, if she were to try it, for example, on that always burning head of the most relevant yet secretly dysfunctional family in Japan 'Oh yeah, I know~', some other high shot, or practically anyone whose psyche had been tempered enough, the results would vary between developing the sensation of just having a shitty day at best and feeling slightly sad at worst, following by Junko getting beat the shit out of her the moment they realize what the hell was happening on either scenario.

Plus, although she hadn't tested it yet, she highly suspects that people with brainwashing-related quirks were going to be straight-up immune to it, regardless of how hypothetically completed the video was to be.

Anyhow, long story short, it does work exactly like the original one…but only for the lowest-level doofus whose will was so fucking pathetic that it was not even worth her time. Which was fine for her, the way it works now was in all but name a skip button for trash mobs and boring dialogue, and sure as hell the handicap 'Because calling it a challenge is not even worth a laugh' this leaves for her was welcomed.

Besides…

Every single one of them was nothing more than cannon fodder. Eventually, she will require actual competent minions capable of 'independent' thinking, and with the brainwashing video as defective as it was, the idea of recreating the Remnants of Despair could be thrown outta the window. Which again, worked perfectly for her. After all, what was the point of having a whole new world full of despairful opportunities, only to go for the old same path your went through in your former boring home?

When it came to the bigger fishes, she already had the potential candidates in mind, she even knew the order in which each of them would submit to her. Oh, they will~, whether aware of it or not, they will all do so in the name of―

Ding.

"Hm?" Picking up her phone 'The one that actually worked as a phone…' with a quirked eyebrow, Junko's face contorted into a deadpan as she looked at its contents.

[21:48] [ M.S.R?: H-Hey, Ju―I-I-I mean, E-Enoshima! H-How…how's it g-going?]

[21:48] [ M.S.R?: Um, f-first I wanted to thank you for fulfilling your promise about contacting me as soon as you got a phone back. I'm truly glad you didn't forget about me…Eep! I-It's not like I doubted you for a moment! N-N-Not at all! It's just…]

[22:02] [ M.S.R?: A-Anyways! Uh…I understand it might be past bedtime for you. But…erm, I wanted to confirm that what you texted me this morning about the plans for tomorrow after school were still on the table]

[22:17] [ M.S.R?: A-Ah! And don't worry! I-I know this isn't a date or anything of the sort! And I-I promise to be on my best behavior! Haha…]

[23:36] [ M.S.R?: Um…l-like I said, I know it's kinda late, so I don't expect a response. J-Just hope you saw all of this…]

…

Was this guy seriously stuttering on the damn phone!? Just how further your patheticness can reach?

I know I compared ya to that slut of a nurse, but it was meant as an insult, not a damn challenge! That's it, I'm not even bothering to give ya a response! Let's see if you grow a backbone when you spent the entire night despairing about whether I'm pulling ya a leg or not.

Leaving that wimp aside, and after all this inner pondering of heroes and villains, it was time to address the elephant in the room.

U.A.

The closest thing this world had as an equivalent for Hope's Peak.

Making that comparison was a little unfair…unfair for U.A. that is. During her time on Hope's Peak, she could do whatever the fuck she wanted without facing consequences, so long as she wasn't that obvious about it. On the most prestigious Hero School, however…

Regardless of her view on it, it was a fact that getting into U.A. was a high-risk, low-reward endeavor. She was sure that, unlike Hope's Peak, the educators and staff in general, did give the slightest bit of a shit about their students. Sure, she didn't doubt that if a quirk was good enough they would look the other way for certain things like the School of 'Hope' used to because of her talent. But for the worsts stunts she pulled back then? That was a whole different story. On top of that…if what she found out about a certain someone was at least half as true as it implies, then one of the only three individuals who represent a genuine threat to her plans was going to be there.

Basically, every logical assumption pointed towards Junko benefitting more from acting under the shadows than exposing herself in such a place, where her actions would be exponentially limited and monitored.

…

…

…

…Although…

…

…The Despair.

The despair of the population from learning that the U.A., the school that gave birth to their shiniest of hopes, was also the place that nurtured the darkest of despairs. The despair on the school staff from learning too late that someone like her went under their nose. The despair each one of her potential classmates would feel the moment she puts them into a―Alright; she was sold! Onto U.A it is!

Now pumped up, Junko's gaze inadvertently went towards her phone, where the messages of Mop Hair were exposed in all their deplorable glory. It wasn't like she had a change of heart and was about to give him a response, but as she looked at them, a new train of thought came to her.

There are ten months left before the entrance exams begin, aren't they? I wonder…

"…How much can I do with him in that time frame~?"