Work Text:
Tsumugi had spent countless hours gently teasing wigs into shape, satisfaction sluicing through her veins as each strand melded together into something less and less real. Without access to them, the familiar motion of a brush through her own less impressive locks elicited much less satisfaction. She sighed, setting down the brush and biting her thumbnail.
Before becoming the Mastermind of season fifty-three, Tsumugi had been required to take a number of workshops. The most informative hadn't been character design or the course on Flashback Lights, but instead the one on script deviations.
Since Danganronpa had switched to using real cast members the possibility of one or more of the characters going off-script remained a constant and reoccurring concern. But, it wasn't an entirely terrible thing. Audiences wanted consistency. They wanted character arcs and thrilling murders; they wanted the mastermind to be revealed— the themes of hope and despair to shine through brilliantly.
They wanted a script, like all television that flirted with reality. Letting the characters run rampant lead to stalled killing games or worse, killing games over in minutes.
Despite that, audiences also craved improvisation. A few well done unscripted moments always polled well. Controlled script deviations were added texture, like crimping a wig before styling.
Tsumugi swallowed, reaching towards her pen. Deviations also tended to happen towards the end of a game, not the beginning.
The ring of her doorbell startled her out of her thoughts, her head whipping towards the door. It buzzed in a soft pattern, just a one-two that read as almost shy. Tsumugi stood hesitantly then walked over.
Monokuma should warn her of any plots, but he hadn't always made it in time; as season twenty-four could attest. Generally, the death of the Mastermind early was accounted for when writing in the 'what-ifs' in the script's drafting. The final trial would be a bit of a bust, but Monokuma's AI and the provided motives would be enough for a game to run to at least the fifth trial without interference.
If she hadn't already lost the narrative threads she planned. She frowned, steadying herself. Stepping slowly to the door, Tsumugi opened it just a crack and peered out.
Akamatsu's face was the first thing Tsumugi saw; her eyes were swollen, with hastily wiped tear tracks still partially smeared across her face. Tsumugi watched as her lip trembled. She'd been such a mess after the trial, not even wanting to get off of the floor and leave with everyone.
"Sorry, I know it's late…" Her words came out shaky as her shoulders slumped. "Oh! I hope you weren't sleeping…" Akamatsu drooped even further, biting her lip uncharacteristically.
Tsumugi's shoulders fell from where they crept up to her neck. Her mask settled back into place as she gave a small shy grin. "Oh no, it's fine. Was there something you needed, Akamatsu-san?"
"Um, I just—" Hesitating again, Kaede's face collapsed into pure grief. It wasn't a look that fit with Akamatsu's face, because Akamatsu was supposed to be dead. If Tsumugi wasn't so controlled her lip might've twitched.
"Here, come in." Tsumugi widened the opening in the door. "It's better to have some privacy, right?"
"Right." Akamatsu meekly tiptoed in, giving a quick glance around the room. Tsumugi hadn't brought anything in yet, mainly because she'd been so busy making sure the game got off on the right foot.
Which, well—
There was no point in thinking of that now. She sat on the bed as Akamatsu settled into the chair, staring at her hands. They sat in silence before Tsumugi leaned forward.
"Um, not to be rude but…what did you want to talk about?"
Akamatsu startled, before chuckling wetly. "Sorry, sorry. I know this is weird. But…I think you might be my only friend here."
Tsumugi blinked. That couldn't be right.
Except it probably was. People liked Akamatsu fine, even barring her brief breakdown in the trial. But Akamatsu had spent most of her free time with either Saihara, Amami, or…Tsumugi.
Two of those people were now dead. Akamatsu wasn't wrong. Tsumugi was the closest person to the protagonist, now. How despairingly dreadful. She wasn't blending into the background at all.
But Akamatsu still sat before her, trembling. She would consider the ramifications later, when it was safer.
"I'm sure someone like yourself could find friends better than plain old me, but if you need to talk I'm here."
"You shouldn't doubt yourself! I like having you as a friend, you're not plain at all." The old Akamatsu burst through as she pouted at Tsumugi, before falling into herself again. "Thanks though, I'm still thinking about what happened earlier at the trial." She swallowed heavily, blinking wet droplets away.
"That was just plain awful…I can't believe that horrible bear would do such a thing. Poor Saihara-kun." Tsumugi let her face rest in her hand.
The execution had actually been mostly Saihara's design. Most of the planned unused executions were the participants' designs, actually. It saved money. So it wasn't her fault that he'd been such a freak. Akamatsu's execution would've been so much more thematic. Elegant, even.
Akamatsu's lip wobbled. "Yeah…Monokuma is the worst. Saihara-kun didn't deserve that. Even if he—Even if he—" Akamatsu collapsed into herself, sobbing. "I don't want to believe he did it! Why would he say he didn't? I d-don't understand! Did he want us to die? I don't b-believe that! And with the shot...But I don't—"
Tsumugi sighed, leaning forward and wrapping her arms around Akamatsu. It wasn't her fault. Saihara hadn't actually done anything. When Akamatsu had failed to set up the library ramp, Tsumugi knew he'd be the one to go. When she smashed Amami's surprised face in after darting out the door, she knew the trial would be messy.
When Saihara hadn't taken the first blood perk and had denied being the blackened till the very end it was because that was the truth. But that did have the unfortunate side-effect of making him look like an entirely different character than he had been.
What a waste. Tsumugi had liked what she'd written. She tightened her grip around Akamatsu. She was surprisingly warm.
"I said it in the trial…I plainly don't believe Saihara-san was capable of cold-blooded murder." She pet Akamatsu's hair, murmuring around the shell of her ear. "Who knows what he was thinking, but I can't imagine he wanted to hurt you—hurt any of us."
Akamatsu gripped tighter, the hitches in her breath faster and faster. "W- what?"
"Maybe…maybe he was trying to get to the Mastermind, just like he said with the cameras. That it was one hundred percent the truth? Maybe he lost faith they would work…"
It was Akamatsu's motive, but a good writer knew not to waste a perfectly good plot point. Akamatsu tensed in her arms. Even if she hadn't finished her trap, she'd still started it. There was still her own shot in her bag.
"R-really?" She gasped into Tsumugi's neck. "You think that? But…why would he not—"
"Yep, that's the plain truth. I think Saihara-kun was a good person, like Kudou Shinichi, you know? I don't think he wanted to kill any of us. I think he had a plan and it just failed."
"That sounds—that sounds like the Saihara-kun I knew. I still—"
"And you knew him better than anyone, right?"
"R-right. I did."
Akamatsu didn't sound like she quite believed it. That was okay. Tsumugi made fiction real all the time. She continued petting Akamatsu's hair, running her fingers through the strands. There was something soothing about it.
"I don't think he'd want you to cry like this. I think he'd want you to move forward no matter what. I can't believe he'd want you to die."
"Yeah…maybe. I just wish that he'd told me then, because…" She paused, mumbling something almost inaudible into Tsumugi's collar. "Or maybe it's because of me…"
Distracted, Tsumugi kept sliding her fingers through Akamatsu's hair and gently worked the custom hair-clips out. Akamatsu kept growing heavier until drool started seeping through Tsumugi's jacket.
"Ah."
She could have Monokuma remove Akamatsu. There were plenty of excuses she could give. She could wake Akamatsu and she'd probably stutter and skip off to her own room.
There were a lot of things she could do.
Instead she pulled Akamatsu and the chair forward. It wasn't easy, since she was dead weight, but Tsumugi had moved heavier. She'd worn heavier, depending on the cosplay. Akamatsu continued to sleep through the maneuvering until she was askew on the bed. Then she sat the clips on the desk.
Having Akamatsu here like this made it feel like there were a thousand eyes on Tsumugi. There probably were. This was prime emotional whump content, served for the masses hot and ready. Tsumugi's moment was meant to come in the last trial. A designer wasn't meant to take up this much room.
She stared at Akamatsu's furrowed sleeping brow. The strands of messy blonde hair fell in front of her face and on the pillow, almost like a halo. It was impressively imperfect.
But sometimes cosplayers had to wear their own creations. She'd rather a protagonist as perfectly crafted as Akamatsu come to her than languish in her own thoughts. Love, Tsumugi decided as she crawled to the other side of the bed, was hard work.
She fell asleep to the sight of Akamatsu's back and tried not to think of how awful it felt when she wasn't there in the morning.
Tsumugi dressed, throwing her sleep rumpled clothes into the bottom of her closet. It didn't matter, the washing machines would be around in a few hours. Her bedding had been clumsily smoothed out on the side where Akamatsu laid. The desk was bare.
When she stepped out she was surprised, though. Akamatsu stood outside her door again, this time much more chipper and practically bouncing on her toes. Her hair was perfectly swept back into place.
"Shirogane-san! Good morning."
"Ah, you're more chipper! Good morning."
"Sorry I left, I wanted to clean up a little after…all of that." She flushed, smiling. It was a much better look on her face.
"It's fine. I'm just plainly glad I could help!"
Akamatsu reached out, gripping Tsumugi's hand tightly. Her palms were soft, the fingers long. Akamatsu had been a pianist before, though in a world without Ultimates she'd simply been great.
"I thought about what you said again," Akamatsu said. "And you were right. We gotta go on, you know? I'm putting my faith in Saihara-kun—that he wanted to stop this game. And that means we can't give up either."
She leaned in closer, their hands pressed between their bodies. Her eyes held a frantic energy, but that was okay. That could fade in time.
"I won't fail, I'll carry his wish on. And I want…I want you to help. If you're up for it? Without you I don't know what I would've done. So thank you for helping me see how stupid I'd been."
This was her one out.
"I—if you'll take someone as plain as me, then I don't see how I could refuse."
Akamatsu squealed, hugging her. Akamatsu probably touched her more than she had ever been touched in her life, barring all the con creeps she'd met. She finally let Tsumugi go and she ignored the strange impulse to reach back.
"Yes, and don't call yourself plain. You're totally mysterious and sexy and really really nice. I'm sure when I see your cosplays they'll blow me away."
"Yes, but you have to dress up too."
"I'm pretty sure I already agreed to that!"
"Oh you did, didn't you?"
"Mmhmm!"
Akamatsu was still a bit jittery on the way to the dining hall, but something had settled within her. Her shoulders were straight and her head was high. Tsumugi felt a bit silly for worrying.
True to her word, Akamatsu insisted on dragging Tsumugi everywhere. She'd followed her through the newly opened rooms and ranted to her after Harukawa hadn't let them enter her lab. Then she'd been dragged all the way around to gather the rest of the students for the flashback light.
It was a surprising amount of work, being the supporting lead. Akamatsu kept touching her too; hands on her arm, touches to her shoulder, the time she'd started braiding Tsumugi's hair at the dining table, and all the countless hand holds to drag her to-and-fro.
Akamatsu left her alone to hang out with other people, of course, but she had insisted on early morning meetings between the two of them and hadn't skipped a single one. They just chatted, really. Tsumugi wondered if it were as interesting as the training Momota would've had with Saihara.
Probably not.
"Well, it's my own fault for not saying no, I guess," Tsumugi told the mirror before they were due to leave for Yumeno's magic show. After she'd gotten done spitting bugs out last night and had time to check the camera footage, she'd seen that Toujou had done everything right and murdered Hoshi.
Tsumugi almost felt disappointed as they sat through the beginning of the show. There was something exciting about improvisation. She knew Hoshi was going to be devoured into nothing. She hadn't known Akamatsu would stop stacking books.
There were screams around the two of them as the water turned red. Tsumugi imagined it looked nice in Danganronpa-censored pink.
"Hoshi-kun," Akamatsu mumbled in horror, standing messily. "Not again…"
She trembled and Tsumugi swiftly followed her to her feet. She allowed herself a low gasp and swayed as Yumeno appeared again before the crowd, right in front of Hoshi's bones. Her sway brought her against Akamatsu unconsciously.
There were accusations and the cacophony of voices as the body discovery announcement played. Akamatsu squeezed Tsumugi's arm tightly before her shoulders went stiff.
"Everyone! Quiet!"
She gleamed glittering gold under the lights of the gym. Everyone listened, of course. Akamatsu was still their leader, even if she hadn't noticed the things Saihara hadn't been doing.
Monokuma stopped by to pass out the Monokuma Files, giving a sneer to Akamatsu and an additional taunt to Hoshi's corpse. His beady eye stared at Tsumugi and she ignored him; tuning out the Monokubs, and flipping through her own file.
She chided herself. It was important that the murder had gone right, Everything was exactly as scripted.
"We all need to work together to solve this, for Hoshi-kun's sake." Akamatsu said loudly, then read out the content of the file. "Drowned, huh? I guess it wasn't the fish then…"
Even with her leadership, people still split off. A murder was a murder. People weren't programmed to trust so easily after that.
It'd be up to Tsumugi to see Akamatsu through her first trial, then. "Let's go check around the crime scene. That's what they do in detective manga and games, at least."
"And what we did in the last trial." Akamatsu's fist clenched. The determined slant of her face was familiar. "Saihara-kun's not here, so we have to make up for that."
Tsumugi cooed, not entirely falsely. "Ah, Akamatsu you sound so cool when you say it like that. Very protagonist-esque. So I'll do my best too! For you and Hoshi-kun and even Saihara-kun. I might be plain but I'm not going to give up!"
She felt eyes on herself and turned back towards Akamatsu. Something in her face had softened, the light of her smile warm. Tsumugi found her cheeks heating against her will and had to bite back the disturbing twist in her stomach at it all.
"Yeah, Tsumugi-san…let's do this." Kaede's grin faded and she marched toward the tank, Tsumugi following in her wake.