Chapter Text
Sayaka was crushed. She woke up in what was supposed to be Hope's Peak High, an academy for the most elite, "ultimate" high schoolers in Japan. Maizono was the Ultimate Pop star. She had a famous idol group, singing songs about cheesy love and blossoming friendships. But when she learned that they had to *kill*, she looked around at what was supposed to be her class of friends, if they were in a normal school. At first, she didn't wanna kill. She was sure that they'd be able to disassemble this maniac teddy bear and escape out. But when the bear exploded, nearly killed Owada, and then came back in perfectly good shape, her hope began to slowly flush out of her body. She prayed that her idol-friends would find her. That they would save her and her classmates. But then the motive came. A popular photo of her and her idol group singing their hit song in sparkly and frilly outfits. And then, the photo changed. It was the same set, but the lights were replaced with dark red lights and a despair-inducing still of Monokuma on the board behind them--the same girls who were singing and dancing in the previous video, now laid on the ground, seemingly passed out. The girl in the middle-herself-was no where to be found.
And Monokuma was going to kill them if a killing amongst the students didn't happen soon. So, she made a plan. Makoto Naegi, who went to the same middle school as Sayaka, was obviously taking a liking to her. And she was taking a liking to him, too. But, her plan relied on their friendship. A night of switching rooms. A note. A knife. And another classmate of hers- Leon Kuwata. But the plan quickly went to hell. When she came at him with the knife, she started doubting herself. Doubting her ability to take a life. Doubting her ability against Leon Kuwata. He was four inches taller than her. While Sayaka still had the balance and quite the arm strength, her arm strength was no match for the Ultimate Baseball star. But she tried to savor hope, that she'd be able to successfully eliminate Leon and get out of here alive, reunite with her friends and parents. But the very sword that her and Makoto had picked out themselves, the glittery sword that could probably barely hurt a fly, successfully broke her wrist. She screamed in pain, dropping her knife with a clatter. She looked around at her options. The only available thing was to lock herself in the bathroom. She remembered something from earlier...
Makoto was explaining to her one of the kinks in his dormitory. He explained that his bathroom seemed to be locked, but in reality, the doorframe just didn't fit. "You have to lift it up to go in," he explained.
She rushed inside of the bathroom, praying that Leon wouldn't be able to get in and she'd be ale to find something in the bathroom to act as self defense. But with a broken wrist, and practically no sharp or blunt objects, she just sat there. She could hear Leon exiting the room, but she didn't dare to leave the bathrooms and try to flee. She needed to finish the job. She held her breath as she heard footsteps. Closer and closer. And then, she could hear rattling. Maybe he was trying again? But then...the door swung open. Sayaka couldn't help but scream. Leon was standing menacingly with a knife in his hand. The rest was a blur. She saw a knife plunge into her stomach. Behind her, she used her good arm to write Leon's name. Muffled crying. "I'm sorry..." Leon trailed off as Sayaka closed her eyes. They weren't opened again.
When Sayaka thought about death, she viewed it as eternal peace. A few years of paradise, until she decided to be reborn. She always dreamed of becoming a monarch butterfly, soaring the skies and migrating in clusters. She pictured herself dying in a nursing home in her early nineties. Sayaka never feared death. That was until the killing games began. She feared death. And if she made it out, she feared her afterlife even more. Ending a life would sign her contract to burning for eternity. But that wasn't what mattered in the moment when she lunged at Leon. And when she realized that instead she'd be killed, she thought about her afterlife in paradise and her rebirth as a butterfly. But she didn't expect to soon wake in the same bathroom. She sat up from her leaning position and stretched out her legs. But when she looked below, her legs were still in the same bent position that she died in. But a second, more translucent pair of legs was stretched. Sayaka screamed for the umpteenth time that day. She stood up and looked down at her body. She was in a pool of blood, with Leon on the right side of her. She realized that it didn't say Leon from her point of view, instead it said 11037. She hoped that someone would be able to realize what she was really trying to spell.
Then, Maizono reached out a hand to lift and then pull on the doorknob, but her pale fingers went right through. There was no grip, nothing to lift. When she tried to push the door, she completely phased through the door and fell onto the ground. She got up, but she wasn't hurt. " Oh my god..." The first thing that came to her mind was Makoto. As she headed towards his dorm, she realized things about what she had become. She could phase through things, didn't feel pain, and, as she was walking, she was seemingly floating, feeling very light and her feet weren't touching the ground. Was she... a ghost? She stared at her own pixelated body. There was no need to knock. She walked right through. There was a faint bedside lamp, and she could see Makoto soundly snoring. Sayaka bent down to touch his shoulder, but her hand went right through. His shoulder flinched.
She retracted her hand and instead leaned in close to his hear, whispering, "I'm sorry." Her killer had murmured the same words moments before her life ended. For the rest of the night, she haunted the dark hallways. She saw Leon, chucking his bloodied clothes into the trash room. She couldn't even be angry at him. She killed him first. And then, Leon would get away with it, her classmates would be killed, and he'd escape, scratch free. She eventually stopped tracking him.
She hated the quiet of the night, how she couldn't think about anything else than guilt and regret. She tried to kill someone. And she was gonna frame who's supposed to be her friend for the murder, dooming all of her classmates and letting herself rise to the top and win. All she could think about was guilt and regret, regret and guilt. So when the morning announcements came, she was dreading when her body would be discovered. Of course, Makoto was the first to discover it. As soon as he woke up, he went to his room. "Sayaka?" He called her name. A tear rolled down her face. She saw him walking towards the bathroom. It was like it was in slow motion. She heard the bloodcurdling screams of her friend. More tears streamed down her face. "Makoto!" She yelled.
After more and more people discovered her body, a new, unheard announcement came on. "A body has been discovered! After a certain amount of time, which you may use however you like, the class trial will begin!" She covered her mouth, though she knew no one would be able to hear her. The way that the time was used was the same for most people. Most of us looked around the death scene, taking note of anything and everything. But obviously, suspicion fell on Makoto. I mean, Sayaka was killed in his room. Her guilt was practically spiraling. She sat on the ground, with her knees pulled up to her chest, sobbing. Many people walked through her.
Sayaka had taken note of something else. Kyoko Kirigiri, who had a mysterious ultimate, was helping out Makoto. She was almost his guide, his assistant. Sayaka was jealous, but for entirely different reasons. She felt jealous that Kirigiri was using her relationship with Makoto for good, and that it wasn't all just a facade to frame him, to end his life and to escape the school. After Monokuma decided that investigation time was over, the class trial began. The class trial was held behind the large, ominous red doors that sent a shiver up her spine everytime she saw it.
The class trial was a rollercoaster of plot twists and emotions. It seemed like Kyoko and Byakuya were guiding Makoto, though Byakuya was mainly just demanding him. There were obviously some flaws in the plan. For one, Hina and Sakura saw her take a knife from the kitchen. And the second reason would be that her idea to frame Makoto was found out. The guilt all came back. She saw the flicker of despair in his eyes once he realized what her plan was all along. But the guilt was even worse when Leon was found rightfully guilty and they were all reminded of the consequences of ending a life and being found as the blackened.
Execution.
You could see the hope drain out of his eyes as he pleaded. "It was self-defense!" he cried. And he wasn't wrong. But at the end of the day, Sayaka was still dead, and Leon killed her.
The "punishment" was brutal. Leon was forcefully taken into his execution grounds. Monokuma forced the students to watch. Sayaka decided to watch as well. She regretted that a lot.
A machine gun was loaded with tons and tons of baseballs...which then began being shot at Leon. He was strapped to a pole, his arms and legs restricted. It took five minutes for him to be killed. She flinched as she saw Leon get pummeled. One baseball smashed his eye. Another hit him right in the groin. She could see his bruised and purple knuckles and fingers, and the beads of sweat dripping down his face. Then, it was over. The baseballs must've hit one too many times in his vital spots: his heart, lungs, or throat. It looked like a combination of all three. As the remaining students left, Sayaka went closer and closer to his dead body.
For a moment, she wondered if Leon would come back as a ghost and live alongside Sayaka. She feared this idea. The thought of having to live with your murderer, who's probably fuming at you for trying to kill him sounded like hell on Earth.
And of course, she jinxed it. Because Leon's eye's shot open.