#the stuff with mukuro's emotional turmoil can be unpacked better once we're further in i think. but that's most of this one

[catboyebooks]

in the aftermath of having almost been murdered by her own sister, mukuro struggles to make sense of what just happened. her actions up till this point have all been according to junko's plan. talking to naegi earlier (to ascertain if he'd gotten any memories back) was part of the plan. the fight with monokuma just now was part of the plan. monokuma was supposed to respond by opening a trapdoor beneath mukuro's feet and "imprisoning her in a dungeon" away from the other students, thus allowing mukuro to continue assisting her sister from behind the scenes. obviously the spears were not part of the plan as previously discussed. if naegi hadn't shoved her out of the way, mukuro would have died. junko just tried to kill her.

i'm sure i'll talk about all this more in a moment but i do have to note how immediately obvious it is that mukuro is a victim of junko's abuse, rather than an equal partner in the whole shsl despair thing. her first thought upon realizing that her sister tried to impale her to death is that she must have done something to deserve it.

as mukuro's struggling to process all this, naegi manages to open his eyes and weakly tries to talk to her. he asks mukuro why she's dressed up like junko. he's smiling at her. he tells her he's glad she's safe. this triggers a big reaction in mukuro (already it's pretty obvious that she harbors genuine affection for naegi, even if she can't articulate that to herself) and she falls to her knees and screams.