It’s easy to walk without expectations of humanity. Don’t perform. Just exist, and don’t think too hard about what that means. It’s so much easier than what they’ve been going through. I-statements and introspection and non-violent conflict resolution, as if they’ve ever had a say in any of this.

They shake their head somberly. “Until I’ve thrown my life away in pursuit of the perfect tomato plant,” they say, “it’s not talent.” They look at Mukuro. A nondescript facial twitch should somehow indicate they’re not serious about the statement. “Didn’t they teach you anything?

Her freckles seemed to have multiplied since last time they met. Or maybe it’s just been too long since they’ve seen each other in a world that isn’t so desaturated that everything tastes like chalk.

She gasps, hand on heart - (a little too much like her sister until she grips down, until the fabric of her skirt crunches under mock-shock) - and spins easily on her heel so she can reel back without breaking eye contact.

"You mean, you haven't thought about it?"

Her recovery has been easy by comparison, people she's never met in any way that matters congratulating themselves on drawing out a previously buried personality that laughs and jokes and socializes and all but damn well glitters. Mukuro half expects to look down and find her tattoo still in wrappings. That girl wasn't her either, really, though she seems to be a good enough halfway point.

"I don't know if I want to see a tomato that isn't worth dying for."

Here, though, she's blunt. Clumsy. Any camaradarie she tried to fake with Peko would fall apart in her mouth.

(Will they understand that she's joking? Should she explain it? Should she apologize? Was the garden off-limits? No. The uncertainty is gone as quickly as it reared its well-trained head. She's sure they understand that she's teasing. They've known her better than she suspects even Junko cared to. They won't be upset.)

(They smell like aloe. It’s nice.)

No more smiling. They’ve both made an attempt, and while the thought is nice, it’s time to move on. The expression doesn’t fit their faces well and they’ve made the point that they intended to- that maybe, maybe, possibly, someday, if they work hard enough, things actually have the potential to turn out alright.

“It’s a way to pass the time,” they say, putting on a wide-brimmed sun hat to protect their ghostly complexion from the tropical sun. “Hardly a talent.” They aren’t quite prepared to die for their tomato crop, which seems to be a prerequisite for calling something a talent among this crowd. They begin walking down the hall with a gesture for Mukuro to follow.

It's always been easier for her to move around people who know what they expect her to be. Her sister, an idiot, the sixth bullet in a world-renowned gun: she can do that. Peko expects her to be herself, but that's a lie. Peko expects nothing.

(And there's just enough left above water in her to insist that that isn't the same thing at all.)

"God forbid," she jokes, keeping careful pace alongside them, "we start using that word to mean what it actually should. If I touched a plant I think it would die just to get away from me."

They look good in the hat. Mukuro can't remember if she ever saw them wear it before.

He’s an earthshattering force, holding the remnants of the world in a loose hand that’s halfway to dropping, taking heavy steps to let every corner of the building know he has arrived. There’s no point in pretending otherwise when the girl of his own man-made war has her back to him and her eyes everywhere, agents three blocks down with their guns and phones at the ready to react. They all know they’ll die if they touch him. There just aren’t enough bullets to stop an empire.

“Pretending I am not here earns you no favour.” Righteous and holy and deep like the chasm inside, if Tanaka didn’t have her attention before he grabs it now. “That’s no way to treat your beloved Emperor, Ikusaba. Turn around and face me.”

His arms are crossed over his torso and he taps the tip of his boot to the concrete beneath. Every beat is the rhythm of their blood, every breath their own tepid treachery. He likes the threat of death when he stands in the despair hunting grounds. They’ll never dare, but if they do dare, it’s the last time they’d try.

She spins, and smiles. His majesty can't touch her - try as it might, it splits like oil and water, her aura piecemeal metal, her life the antithesis of everything he prides himself in embodying. The only string that connects them is thin, faded, inked haphazardly. In him and nobody else does she find the brutality she looks for; the clean lines of neccessity. His people are salivating dogs in chains of gold, and hers claw themselves open for the warmth. Only here does she see the same unwillingness to scar, to bleed, to falter and be caught.

"I've missed you, you know!" Mukuro chides, trading his displeasure for her own softer version. "I thought you were avoiding me. It was heartbreaking."

He knows what her disrespect is, she's almost certain, knows better than to truly take offence at her bared neck. If he lunged for her - if he crossed that distance like the lightning scar running down his cheek, all thunder and glory and blood - she's almost certain she could stop him. It's the flicker of doubt that matters, the same way his recognition of it does.

"Anyway. All hail! What have you been up to?"

Chihiro sways back a quick and anxious second at the sight of Ikusaba-chan’s fist, but the moment she registers who her visitor is is obvious. Her shoulders drop from their tense position to one almost relaxed, and she offers her classmate a smile.

“I am, yes!” She says. “I was just working on, uh–” a swift pause, and she lifts a shoulder in a shrug. “–part of my final project. You look. You look nice!”

Good one, Chihiro, way to ask what she wanted, or invite her in, or act at all like you understand social rules.

"I - thanks. You look nice too. I, um."

She breathes again, carefully, and lays out her question in front of her. Piece by piece. If she says the words the way they line up, it won't matter what else she does.

- and that makes it easy again. Pure, simple action.

"We have the public exams coming up in two months. I know we have to present our planned presentations soon. I wanted to ask you to collaborate with me."

“No, I got it! Big sis always checks her e-mail. I just figured if you really meant it, you’d come find me, an’ I wouldn’t have to waste time on scheduling stuff!”

Ah, the “wants something” seat. It’s really a blue-moon type deal, that Saionji ever doesn’t eat alone; lunch is when Mahiru meets her agent, see, and Nidai’s always out under the trees feeding baby birds or some philanthropic horseshit like that. Beyond that… well. This is Hope’s Peak Academy, not Hope’s Best Friends Academy. The other talents can clique up all they want, can look at her with whatever eyes they think she notices at all. It’s none of Hiyoko’s business.

And she likes being a walking schoolyard cliche. It lends her an aura of importance, those rare times someone braves the blast zone to meet her out in the open like this, and she can lean forward on her elbows like she matters. Even if it’s just for “fashion”, it’s still fun.

“So you really want a makeover? It’s probably about time!”

Mukuro blinks slowly, a horrible counterweight to Saionji's artificial mirth. Sometimes the seer reminds her too much of her own sister, that same rumbling undercurrent of fake-childish impatience, that same hollow ring to jokes. The difference is tiny, but unignorable. She respects Junko.

This brat - older than her, wiser, more cutthroat by miles - isn't in the same league as her sister, and all of the annoying dullhard habits Mukuro tries her best to suppress and change come easily to her hands now. Like loyal dogs. Like spite.

(These kids will get closer to what her sister dreams of than she ever will, but she'll never let them in. Junko-chan will pit them against one another just to watch them bleed, she's almost certain, so there's no harm in getting the first cut in.)

"... No, thanks."

That's the pettiest thing she can think of to do: to waste Saionji's time. She speaks slowly, rolls the lid of her drink in tiny regimented circles while she thinks.

What does she want? (What Junko-chan wants.) What does Junko-chan want? (To talk to Saionji.) Why does Junko-chan want that?

The lid spins out an answer she already had.

"She needs you to talk to your friend with the red hair. About her club buddy. You know what that's about, right, Hiyoko-chan?"

    To Junko, the world was coated in a pink, saccharine glow. Ethereal, she lies in wait in the very heart of something that she has conspired to dissolve from the inside. Impatience brews in her veins. It’s painful. Like torture. She is the chemical reaction that threatens to explode, and let the despair that brews in her core seep into every abysmal corner of the earth. It was only a matter of time. The stars had nearly aligned, and soon, she could…

❝ Make a move?❞

    She blinks, eyes lift to glace at source the familiar voice. Figures. Timing was of the essence, and her older sibling had an opportune sense of when to barge in on her, and ask dumb questions. Tilting her head, strawberry blond locks cascade down over her shoulder.

❝ Why? You’re not getting too antsy, are you?    I mean, it’s been a year now.“ 

She lets that sink in. A year. ❝ Give or take. Everyone else is just getting comfortable.    Don’t worry. It’ll happen soon. Before you can start the show,    you’ve gotta set the scene. Get the atmosphere just right.    Build suspense. You know. That sort of thing. We’ve    already got them all right where we want them. The    only thing left is to let everything else fall into place. ❞

A year. A year, give or take, of breathing in air her soon-to-be-dead friends are recycling - a year with nothing to do but listen to the fighting echo outside, to her classmates shiver and give up, to surrender. The sight of them all desperately trying to bring light back into the school would have been enough to end the world, Mukuro thinks, if Junko had been able to air it. A year.

She's not as good at this as her sister is. Every time someone puts a worried hand on her shoulder, she expects to hear the blade fall. Even here in the pink glow, in the horrible glare of her sister's clever eyes, she's waiting to be caught. They have to suspect something. Kirigiri is kind to her and she's never understood why, but as time stripped the class of their optimism even her cool stance has begun to change. Every day they talk, and every day Mukuro feels them step closer to the edge of discovery.

It's a coin-flip's chance: heads for Junko courting their destruction. She'd do it. Have them caught, have Mukuro claw them out, and then begin the game. The days before a game was due to end were always the worst for her, as the predictability of her own plan pushed Junko into action.

"It has... It's been a long time. I just. I wanted to ask if we were still doing it, I guess?"

A year, and her unpredictable sister.

"You get bored pretty easily, after all..."

(And she saw what happened, didn't she, to Matsuda. What happened when Junko got bored of school, of waiting, of other people's despair. Mukuro pushes her thumb through the cuff of her sleeve without thinking, an old nervous tic, a defensive movement.)

"We are, we are still -"

- doing it, right? You haven't thought of something better, right?

She doesn’t need to knock. Not that they don’t value privacy, but she’s the shadow of the blade they’re not longer allowed to carry and it’s better if the two of them skip awkward reintroductions and get back to business.

“Hello.” They flash the briefest of smiles at Ikusaba, because their tone is all seriousness and there’s just enough distance between them for Pekoyama to worry about her missing the underlying warmth. That, and they want to show her that hey, that’s kind of a thing they can do now. “You wanted a tour of the garden.”

She freezes for just a second, that same unfamiliarity with goodness that she knows plagues them all pressing heavy hands onto her shoulders - but it shakes easily enough, here, with Pekoyama. Her smile back hurts her cheeks to hold.

"I heard Kamukura wasn't the only one cultivating new talents," Mukuro jokes, committing every moment of Peko's expression to memory greedily.

(She's been starving for this, and she hadn't even known. Even Junko couldn't gift her this - this tiny, brusied thing. The exit wound to Pekoyama's entry.)

( MUKURO ) : Somehow I don’t believe that. ( MUKURO ) : But besides that, thank you!! ( MUKURO ) : For offering to share, I mean. After all, you don’t have to. I would be upset if you didn’t but I guess I’d understand!! ( MUKURO ) : But, I’m feeling okay I guess. Better maybe?? I can never really tell.

sure i do. we're friends, aren't we? what kind of pathetic friend would abuse your weird magics and not even pay the cake toll

i mean that's good, i guess. if you felt worse i'm pretty sure you'd know.

She slips a small smile at her double, leaning against one of the desks lined up around them. She knows what the other girl is talking about, had felt the exact same fear when she first looked her not-twin in the eyes. That’s one of the ways she can tell the girl in front of her isn’t Junko. Junko could never understand her, was completely incapable of comprehending how Mukuro felt.

     “ Yeah… no. I’m not Junko-chan. If I was, I’d probably be making some         awful comment about the unfairness of both of us looking like the ugly         twin. ”

She holds her breath for a moment, before laughing at herself. She rubs the back of her neck with one hand, swinging her legs out in front of her as she does so.

     “ Well… if I were in a coma, this would have to be the strangest coma         dream I’ve ever had. Or, you know, the only coma dream I’ve ever had.         Same thing, really. Anyways, I’m not sure there’s much I can teach         you. I’ve, ah… made a lot of bad decisions. ”

She nods, quiet, and tucks her fingers under the edges of her pleats. It's an easy kind of habit, one that's always helped her to untangle her own muddled up throughts, and she knows that the - the other - the. She knows that she won't take it as a weakness. Knows that hiding her hands isn't a peace gesture, knows that it isn't possible to communicate one with a body made in pieces like a rifle for the same intended end.

"If you were Kochan, I'd probably be crying," she admits, feels where the admission should twist in her gut and doesn't quite. "You know how she is."

It's good to know that she's not alone in that worry, at least. She can't think of a choice she's made that isn't embarrassing. A diversion will look clunky no matter how subtle she thinks she’s being, but when the other option is discussing just how badly they’ve let down Junko...

"... wanna talk about how cute the girls at Hopes Peak are, instead?"