The first thing Mukuro noticed was the light shining through her closed eyelids. Then she felt the cold metal clamping down on her wrists and ankles.
Slowly, she opened her eyes, and took in her surroundings. It looked like some kind of hospital room. The walls were a blank, functional white, as were the sheets on her bed and the hospital gown she was wearing. She looked to her left to see a figure with spiky white hair and a black leather jacket inspecting an IV, which she suddenly realised had been inserted into her arm. 'What... are... you... doing?' Saying those four words had taken a lot more effort than she'd expected. The figure turned around, revealing a woman's face half-covered by a face mask. But the contempt in her eyes was completely visible. 'It's the drug that's inhibiting your muscles.' Mukuro tried to move as much as she could, but the woman was right - her muscles were too weak for her to do anything other than look around and talk, and even that was difficult. 'Where... am... I?' She had to force the question out of her throat. 'You're in the custody of the Future Foundation', the woman replied tersely. Mukuro felt her stomach sink. 'Why... am I... still... alive?' The woman ignored her and walked out of the room, but Mukuro could guess. 'They're going to interrogate me first. Then they'll kill me.' As long as the drug was in her system, there was no way she'd be able to fight her way out. And after everything she'd done, they wouldn't show her mercy. '... I'm going to die.' It seemed unreal, but she couldn't imagine any other outcome. 'I don't know what to do now. Am I meant to make a will? How do I do that? Am I even going to be allowed to?' She stared up at the ceiling. There was nothing at all interesting about it. 'How are they going to do it? Quickly? Slowly? Publicly? Junko was going to kill me on live TV before Makoto -'
Her eyes widened, and her heart began pounding in her chest. 'Makoto! Where is he?!' The last she could remember of him was his pallid face as he lay bleeding in the forest. 'If he's... if he's dead, then what am I going to do!?' She began to feel lightheaded and hot. 'He's all I have left now, after Junko abandoned me... Junko... this is all her fault! I should have killed her! After everything I did for her, this is how... everything I did for her. I betrayed Makoto for her. This is all my fault.' Despair flooded her mind. 'He was always there for me... always so kind and gentle. He made me happy, and I stabbed him in the back to make Junko happy. I want to die.' She gasped air out and gulped it back in again as fast as she could, and felt like she was about to throw up as things got hotter and hotter and it became harder and harder to think, and she couldn't move no matter how much she needed to find Makoto and know for certain what had happened to him and try to find a way to fix things before it was too late.
The woman suddenly burst back into the room, followed by a tall, bulky man with dark hair. 'Where... Makoto?' If the two had heard her question, they ignored it. 'It's a panic attack, not the muscle inhibitor. There's nothing in it that would cause this reaction', the woman irritatedly said as she picked up a needle and filled it with a clear liquid. 'And it'll stop her from getting out of those restraints no matter how worked up she gets.' 'And if you're wrong, a mass-murderer will be on the loose', the man replied with a sneer. 'Which is why I'm about to sedate her as well.' The woman quickly stepped over to Mukuro and injected her with the liquid. 'Makoto... please... Makoto... where...?' She felt her stomach tighten, but she no longer had the strength to speak, and darkness swiftly enveloped her as the two figures looked coldly down at her.
She opened her eyes to find herself shackled to the same bed in the same room, but the two Future Foundation members were gone. 'I need to get out of here. I need to find Makoto!' But she was paralysed, unable to move at all. She couldn't even move her eyes or close her eyelids.
'I'm here', a voice announced. 'Makoto?! Is that you?' Her mouth couldn't even open to speak, but her question was answered when Makoto stepped into sight. 'You're alive! You're alive!' Every muscle in her face tried desperately in vain to produce a smile. 'No thanks to you.' Her heart stopped as she heard Makoto's words. 'You really still think that I might love you back some day? After what you did to me?' Blood began to fall onto her face from his mouth. 'After you kidnapped my sister? After you murdered all those children?' The blood was flooding out of his mouth now, and she could feel it starting to fill her lungs. 'You're going to die alone and unloved, and you deserve it.' The blood was overflowing out of her mouth now, and she tried desperately to do anything to save herself, gasping for air as she sat up, her weakened muscles aching with the effort, tears running down her face, and she suddenly realised that she was awake.
She continued gulping down air, sobbing as she did so. 'I need... I need to find him... I need to make things right. I need to do that before I die.' Junko rolled her eyes. 'Ugh, seriously? Like, even if you do, like, get to see him, do you really think you'll be able to, like, make up for the attempted murder and the actual murder and the memory-wiping and the sisternapping? And, like, you haven't even told him about that time you, like, killed a bunch of kids.' 'Shut up,' Mukuro mumbled. 'I should have stopped you.' 'Huh? Big sis? You... you don't love me? But... but you said you'd always look out for me! You said you'd be a good big sister! You promised!' Fresh guilt suddenly twisted Mukuro's innards. 'I... I tried to be a good big sister like you deserved... I tried so hard...' 'Okay, so let me do what I want to Makoto. Because if you choose him over me, then you're not even trying.' Mukuro numbly shook her head. 'No... I need to protect Makoto. I... I'm sorry. I'm so sorry.' 'Choosing to have a creepy one-sided relationship with someone out of your league over being supportive of your little sis? Yeah, you're a shitty big sister.' Mukuro could only repeat herself. 'But... I tried...'
No response came. 'She's not here,' Mukuro murmured to herself. 'Why do I keep seeing her?' But she couldn't think. Her mind was too full of fears and hopes and anxieties. She had to distract herself, but the only thing she could distract herself with was the room she was in. 'No, not a room. A cell.'
It was all white, starkly lit, and spartan, with the simple bed she was sitting on being one of the few furnishings. Cameras in protective blisters were mounted in each corner of the ceiling, with large vents between them. The floor and three of the walls were padded, while the far wall was made of thick glass. The transparent door mounted in it only had one handle, on the outside. Microphones and speakers provided the only means of communication with the outside world, the only visible part of which was a long corridor - also brightly lit and all-white - with two guards armed with assault rifles visible at the end, their faces concealed by balaclavas and goggles.
'Those vents are probably the only source of oxygen I have... and maybe a delivery system for knockout gas too', she thought. 'And they can see everything I do in here, and stop me immediately if they don't like it.' Even if she hadn't been weakened by the masked woman's drug, there would still be no way out. She lay back on the bed and curled up into a fetal position. 'I wonder how long they'll take to start interrogating me', she thought. 'They'll probably want as much intel as quickly as possible.' She'd been on the other side of this situation before. She was a fighter, not an interrogator. Apparently the best interrogators befriended the people they were questioning, and made them want to reveal their secrets, but she'd done well enough with threats and violence. 'I wonder how they'll do it?'
A buzzing sound came from the door's speaker, and she looked up to see her interrogator, only to find a familiar figure waiting for her instead. 'Hey, Mukuro.' She got to her feet as quickly as she could and stumbled over to the door. 'Hina? What are you doing here?' Aoi Asahina scratched the back of her head awkwardly. 'Well, the Future Foundation rescued me and bought me here, as well as... most of the others. Makoto asked me to check up on you, make sure you're alright.' Mukuro stared at her. 'Makoto? He's alive?' 'Did you think he was -' Hina looked surprised. 'No, he's okay, he's just in hospital for now with that wound!' Mukuro felt her legs give out, and she slid down against the door as tears filled her eyes and a smile spread across her face. 'Hey, are you okay?!' 'Yeah, I am,' she grinned. 'He's alive... and he wants to know if I'm okay...' She let out a sigh of relief. Hina cocked her head. 'Are you...? Actually, never mind.'
Mukuro felt her cheeks grow hot. 'Uh, yeah, never mind,' she said hurriedly, trying to move on from her embarassment. 'Great. And I wasn't even talking in my sleep this time like when Chihiro found out - Chihiro!' 'What about Chihiro? Is h- is she alright?' She cringed at herself for slipping up, but Hina seemingly hadn't noticed. 'She's not hurt', Hina answered, crouching down to be level with Mukuro. 'But she's pretty shaken up. She must've had a really hard time out there.' 'She did', Mukuro said. 'I don't think she'd ever seen anyone die before.' Hina was silent for a moment. 'It was that bad?' Mukuro stated at the padded floor and thought back to the panic attacks she'd had in the Novoselic wilderness, to all the times she'd felt powerless. 'It was', she answered.
She remembered the feeling of her hand in Chihiro's.
'But Chihiro helped me', she smiled. 'She's... kind.' 'I should have been protecting him at the end as well,' she realised with a stab of guilt. She looked back at Hina. 'Tell her I'm sorry... and grateful. Please.' Hina nodded. 'Of course'. 'Thank you.' She suddenly felt tired, and leaned her head against the glass. 'Is Kyoko okay too? And what about everyone else?' 'Everyone's fine, except...' Hina cast her eyes downwards. '... Leon and Sayaka are still missing.'
Before Mukuro could think of what to say, one of the guards appeared behind Hina and placed a hand on her shoulder. 'Time's up.' She nodded. 'I'll... see you later, Mukuro', she said hesitantly. All she got in reply was a single nod.
After a few moments, a thought suddenly struck Mukuro, and she called out. 'Your brother's in Tōwa City!' Hina turned back, her eyes wide, but the guard gently but firmly pushed her forwards, and she disappeared from sight.
Mukuro rested her head against the glass door, her muscles too sore and her mind too busy for her to return to the bed. 'Leon and Sayaka...' The memory of Makoto's closeness to the idol flashed in her mind. 'I'm glad she's missing', she suddenly thought, only for a stab of guilt to suddenly course through her. 'No! She was kind too... before... everything.' Junko nodded. 'Yeah. Really, they were all nice to you. Well, except for Byakuya. But at least he offered to hire you. And that made Toko and Genocide Jack jealous of you. Anyway, most of them were nice to you before you wiped their memories and tried to make them kill each other. Kinda seems like being nice to you is a really bad idea.' 'Leave me alone', Mukuro groaned. But she knew it was no use. 'I get that you're a murderous psychopath, sis, but I'm going to be that there's at least a small part of you that's sane enough to realise that, yes, you really do deserve this.'