#but i am like actually on the verge of a breakdown cus i made him late bcs i cant just figure shit out

[jrueships]

I HATEEEEE DYSPEXIA!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[the-peak-of-despair]

Mastermind! Chihiro Fujisaki - The Sixth Trial

This wasn’t exactly an old request, just a suggestion to write whatever I felt like. And I love mastermind AUs so fucking much, please, flood my inbox asking about them, I just wanna talk about our lord and savior mastermind chihiro - Mod Akane

“And that would mean..” Makoto begins, the realization striking him as he turns to Chihiro, staring fearfully back at him. “Y-You’re the mastermind, Chihiro!” 

There’s doubt in his voice. He doesn’t want to believe it. His friend, who’d opened up to him, who shares his deepest secrets, in his most vulnerable state… he’d orchestrated all of this? From the outside, he looked like he would burst into tears if he killed a bee. Suppose that’s the trick behind it…

“C-Chihiro..? I-It was you..?” Asahina stutters, looking at him horrified.

“I-I-” Chihiro begins to stutter. He looks like he’s on the verge of bursting into tears. No one in the courtroom believes this claim, how could they? But the evidence was stacked against him.. 

It’s before anyone can argue that Chihiro snaps into an entirely new persona, and the tears are gone. “Yep! That’s me! I’m the mastermind!” 

Everyone takes a step back. Chihiro’s face contorted in a way no one had ever imagined. In an instant, his entire personality changed. His tears evaporated into thin air and despair seemed to wash over his face, seeping down to his very core as his eyes lost all sign of true emotion.

“Gosh, you’re so smart, Makoto!” Chihiro says, clapping his hands like a child. “I can’t believe you found me out!” 

“No. There’s simply no way this is possible.” Byakuya interrupts, crossing his arms. “Chihiro, stop playing games. There’s no way you are the mastermind.”

“Oh no, I really am!” Chihiro smiles. With a snap of his fingers, Monokuma shut down, almost like he was playing dead where he stood on the ground. Chihiro left his podium and approached the robot, standing next to it and humming while he examined it.

..And then, in a sudden instant, he slammed his foot into the robot, kicking it as hard as he could. Monokuma flew into a distant wall, shattering into a million black and white pieces as Chihiro didn’t even blink. Everyone in the courtroom drew back, even Byakuya and Kirigri, unable to hide their shock.

“H-Holy shit!” Yashuiro screams in fear as Chihiro turns back towards the circle of survivors. The room begins to fill with smoke, making most people cough and wave it away from their faces. In a second, it clears, revealing Chihiro in a new outfit, with a Monokuma-esq color palette to boot.

“Da-dun-dun! That’s right, the mastermind all along was Chihiro Fujisaki!” He smiles wildly, throwing his arms out in a grand gesture. Standing between Asahina and Yashuiro at his new podium, he seems so small, but he’s so.. Terrifying. The sudden switch in personalities shook everyone to the very core.

“This doesn’t make sense..” Kirigiri mutters. “How could you control Monokuma and almost never leave our sight?” 

Chihiro backs up until he’s sat on top of the ‘throne’ Monokuma used to always sit on top of. He crosses his legs and leans back, getting comfortable in his seat above everyone else. “Pfffffffft! He’s an AI, come on Kirigiri, aren’t you smarter than this?” Chihiro mocks Kirigiri. “I’ve been living under your noses as the Ultimate Programmer, Monokuma wasn’t even my best work!” 

“That doesn’t make sense. His movements and conversations with us.. They’re nothing like any AI I’ve ever seen.” Byakuya argues.

“Clean your glasses, Byakuya! Didn’t you see Alter Ego?” Chihiro poses the question as he sits up and leans over the arm of his chair towards Byakuya. “They’re all easy-peasy-lemon-squeezy!~ I’ve got an iron grip on the technology production from here to Towa City!”

“Speaking of Alter Ego..” Kirgiri interrupts, halting Byakuya’s personal slander. “What was the point of presenting him to us?” 

Chihiro lets out a giggle. “Yeaah, Alter Ego was a bit of a mistake on my part! You weren’t supposed to find it. But since you did I thought it wouldn’t hurt to spin you in the wrong direction a bit!” 

“And his execution?”

“Oh, that was Monokuma’s decision! Spur of the moment thing. I didn’t really mind, it was collateral damage!” Chihiro shrugs. “Collateral damage.. Kinda like Mondo and Kiyotaka!” He smiles, and as he watches everyone in the room come to a full stop before looking at Chihiro with disgust.

“C-Collateral d-damage..?” Makoto stutters. “T-Those were our friends, Chihiro! What the.. What the hell!? They were your friends!”

“Huh, were they?” Chihiro asks sarcastically, tapping a finger to his chin. “Huh. If they were, I just used them!” 

“Y-You what…?” Asahina stutters.

“I used them! I mean, Mondo and Taka were like a package deal! I needed Mondo to make me stronger, and Taka only played by my rules! Let me tell you, it was s-”

“S-Shut up!” Makoto interrupts Chihiro, who perks up, interested in his sudden boldness. “W-We still need to talk about what happened in the last trial!”

“Oooh, you mean where I killed Sakura and framed Toko ‘cus I got bored? What’s there to talk about?” Chihiro asks, excited. “...Aha, did I let that slip?” 

“R-Repeat that.” Asahina suddenly becomes cold, her fists balled tight at her sides. 

“I’m sure you heard me, Asahina!” Chihiro smiles, standing from his throne and once again approaching the podium. “I killed Sakua and framed Toko!”

Asahina begins to breathe heavy, doing  everything in her power to contain her anger as Chihiro continues to talk. “I mean, really, do you think Toko could actually kill Sakura? I don’t even think her wacky double-personality could’ve taken her down! So I worked a bit of magic, aaand..!”

“SHUT THE HELL UP!” Asahina screams, slamming her hands on her podium. “Y-You- You bastard! What the fuck is wrong with you Chihiro?!” She screams, turning and grabbing him by the collar, dragging him close to her face, so close that his feet barely grazed the ground. “I- You fucking killed her! Y-You killed Sakura! I-I- I loved her, you...you..!”

Chihiro doesn’t even look phased as Asahina spits venom in his face. “Hey, Hina! You remember what happened to Junko? Right?” He grins sadistically as the fear begins to strike Asahina, who drops him and takes a step back. 

There’s a familiar whirring noise, and out of nowhere there's a spear that shoots from the middle of the room towards Asahina, almost identical to what happened to Junko. Asahina flinches and draws back violently, forcing the spear to only grace her cheek before slamming into the wall behind her. She opens her eyes, breathing heavy with fear as she held her hand to her cheek. “O-Oh my god..”  

“Gah, I missed!” Chihiro pouts. “I need to get better at shooting games.” 

“G-Games?! Y-You could’ve killed me!” Asahina yells, still holding a hand to her cheek. 

“That’s the fun in it!” Chihiro grins. Once upon a time, this was a wide, innocent grin. Now, it was nothing but evil. Full of despair and agony. And that’s probably exactly what Chihiro wanted. 

Makoto could only wonder- what could possibly push this poor boy to the breaking point..?

If you looked close enough, the answer was laid out in plain sight. 

“Well!” Chihiro claps his hands. “What is there to talk about now? Surely the trial won’t come to a close so easily!” Chihiro scans the room, taking in every facial expression of pure disgust and pain around him. 

“Why..? Why did you do all this?” Makoto asks, basically gripping his podium for dear life. He couldn’t just take all of this in easily. One of his best friends, through this entire hellhole, a person he’d protected with his fucking life and would follow into battle blindly… he was the mastermind? Chihiro, a boy who no one would suspect, he was pulling the strings, he’d orchestrated every death, he’d warped Hope’s Peak into a place of despair..? 

He recalls the moment in the bathhouse when he told Kirigiri: “I’d follow you into battle if I had to!” 

And her response.. “Not such a wise choice, is it?”

Chihiro’s face falls. “Do you know what it’s like, Makoto..?” His tone changes, it’s low and unlike anything anyone had heard from Chihiro before. “To be bullied, every single day, pummeled into the fucking dirt?!” Despair overwhelms his entire face, but he starts to laugh.. “Every.. Goddamn day! Until the point where you.. Hahaa.. You’ve gotta change your whole identity, just to be safe!”  

“Chihiro.. I-” Yasuhiro looks like he’s about to set a hand on his shoulder. Forgetting for just a moment that this was a boy who’d killed his friends, and possibly even thousands, just remembering that once upon a time they were friends.  

Chihiro smacks his hand away with alarming strength, still laughing all as tears gather in his eyes. “NO!” He screams, almost like it was a reflex. “I don’t need.. Ahahaha.. I don’t need anyone’s help anymore! That despair..it only.. It only made me stronger! AhahaAHAHAHA! A-And I- I’ve basked this entire world in despair!” Chihiro hugs himself, breaking into boisterous, manic laughter. 

“What do you mean, the entire world?” Byakuya asks, seemingly unphased by Chihiro’s manic breakdown. Of course, Byakuya wasn’t ever ‘friends’ with the boy… though part of him couldn’t help but reflect on the.. Choice words he’d used against him before. 

Chihiro doesn’t even stop laughing. “Oh, ah..ahaha! I forgot all about that! While you were all locked up in here, the entire world has plunged into despair!” He claps his hands twice, before throwing his arms out wide, gesturing towards the monitors on every corner of the room. The monitors flicker, then turn on, showing a repeating news broadcast.

The broadcast was simple, a repetitive broadcast of a red sky overtop of war and destruction, all with the face of Monokuma plastered all over.  It shakes everyone in the room to the core, except for Chihiro, who gleefully watches his handiwork as he wipes his tears away. “Isn’t it lovely!? Everything destroyed.. Right down to your very bloodlines!”

“No. I simply won’t believe this.” Byakuya starts again. “This is foolish. A highschool boy couldn’t just take down the world.”

“Ahaha, I didn’t work alone, silly Byakuya!” Chihiro grins. “Despair spreads like a plague! And that plague even took down your precious Togami family!” 

“Wh-What..?” Fear seems to take over  Byakuya, if only for a split second. “Th-The Togami family doesn’t just lay down and die! Who the hell backs you!?”

Chihiro laughs. “Despair, dummy! How many times do I gotta repeat myself!?” The words send Byakuya down a spiral, even without evidence.. The very thought shook him to the core.

“H-Hey!” Makoto argues. “This can’t be true! Last I remember, the world was just fine! We’ve been here a month, tops, there’s no way you could’ve done this in all that time!” 

“Weren’t we already over this?” Chihiro asks. “You lost your memories! If I whack ya hard enough, you might get ‘em back! But we’ve all been cooped up, shielded from the outside world! And now you’ve spent your days trying to crawl out of this home we all built together! Isn’t that just a tad hypocritical?” 

“W-Wait, you mean..?” Asahina catches what Chihiro means first- the world had crumbled, and they’d all been here for two years, and then they… 

“W-What was the point of all of this!?” Makoto asks, cutting off any other thought processes about how they’d been gone for two whole years. 

“Huh? Well, I kept you alive, hijacked the airwaves, and displayed you murdering each other for the world to see because I wanted to spread despair to the last dying shreds of hope in the world!” Chihiro explains casually. “I mean, I’ve laid this all out in plain sight for you.” 

“W-” Byakuya begins to speak.

Chihiro interrupts. “Yeah, yeah, be quiet, we’ve had enough of you. Now!” He claps his hands together, excited. “Since this is a trial, I give you one last vote. You can vote for despair- vote to give me the punishment I deserve- or, vote for hope, and stay here for the rest of your golden days!”

“L-Let me get this straight..” Asahina starts. “If we just vote for hope, none of us die..?” 

Chihiro hums. “Well, I suppose, but.. That doesn’t sound as fun! So how about this: vote for hope, and I’ll only execute one of you! The rest of you get to live out the rest of your lives with moi.” He folds his hands under his chin, in an oh-so familiar way. Was he mocking Celeste..? 

“W-Who’ll get executed..?” Yasuhiro stutters.

“Hm..” Chihiro hums as he looks around the room. He starts pointing from person to person. “Eenie.. Meanie… minie… you!” He lands on Makoto, who exhibits a fearful look in return.

“Y-You’ll execute me…?” Makoto stutters, fearful. Somewhere inside him, this felt familiar. 

“Well of course! You seem to be the obvious answer.” Chihiro smiles gleefully, as if he didn’t just imply that with ease he would slaughter his friend. “Why, you used to be my closest friend! You.. were the first person I trusted! What better despair than for you to die at my own hands?” 

Makoto takes a deep breath as he turns to his friends, full of despair and pain. Their hands hovering over their levers, obvious that they would seem.. Almost willing to put Makoto’s life on the line. He looks back at Chihiro, with a devilish grin paired with despair-filled eyes. He starts to laugh, like a loud symphony, bouncing off the walls and into everyone’s ears in an inescapable manner. He laughs so hard he almost starts crying once more, laughing so much it hurt.

Laughing like someone who’d been torn up inside and out and loved every fucking minute of it.