Madarai tightened his grip around my throat even further, and I felt my consciousness slowly
slipping away. I felt emptiness, as if I were beginning to vanish, while each and every sensation
was eradicated from my body.

I couldn’t say anything anymore.

I couldn’t breathe anymore.

I couldn’t predict anymore.

My notebook slipped from my hand and onto the ground. My eyes became hazy, my vision
blurred. In front of my eyes, both the scenery and Madarai himself became twisted together.

That’s right. Twisted.

Madarai’s body distorted into a spiral, swirling… Ground became sky and sky became ground,
with only his pale face remaining the same. Then, it crumpled, and I fell to the ground with a
dull thud.

I watched everything as it happened right in front of me.
From within my vanishing consciousness, which flickered in and out like a candle, I couldn’t tell
if it was reality or a dream… but nevertheless, I watched it.
“Ghghghghahhhh…!”

Croaking like a trampled frog, Madarai fell to the ground. Almost instantly he leapt back up, his
eyes drawn to his arm, and he stared at it, transfixed.

His right arm, from the elbow down…
…was unnaturally twisted, like taffy.

I couldn’t really say what had happened. At first, he just stared at it with a blank expression on
his face. Then, as though he suddenly remembered how to, he raised his voice in a terrible
scream.

“G…GYAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!!”

It came out with such force that it seemed to expel all the air from his body. A wretched scream
filled with confusion, terror and pain.

I heard that dreadful scream, but all I could do was stand there, dumbfounded. Was I even
standing? I wasn’t sure anymore whether I was upright or on the ground. I wasn’t sure of…
anything.

I wasn’t even sure if what I heard next was a voice or something else.

“Puhuhu, I may have overdone it a bit…”

Yes, a voice. And it was… close.

“…Well, it’s not like I had any choice. It’d be totally embarrassing if you died here. I mean,
you’re the protagonist in this scene, right?”

That’s when I noticed it. It was strange that I hadn’t until now.

There was a pitch-black silhouette standing right before me. And on top of that black silhouette
floated a face I remembered seeing somewhere before.

…But I couldn’t remember. I couldn’t remember whose face it was.

“Puhuhu, you can’t remember who I am, can you? I guess that’s just natural. Well, don’t worry
about it. I’m sure you’ll come to remember soon enough.”

After letting out a laugh, the voice coming out of the shadow grew quieter.

“…But anyway, guess I gotta clean up this mess.”

What happened next…
…started before I knew what was going on, and ended just as quickly.

She placed her hand upon Madarai’s head, who was still on the ground, screaming in bewildered
pain. As she stroked his head gently, Madarai looked up with a surprised expression, when
suddenly… with a sickening crunch, his head― fixed with the same shocked-and-horrified
expression― twisted harshly and stopped at an inexplicable angle.

I had no idea what was happening.
Madarai collapsed on the ground like a ragdoll. Red froth spilled from his mouth as he convulsed
at my feet.

Ah… This is just a dream…

That was the conclusion my mind reached, and I could feel my body relax at the revelation. Yes,
it couldn’t be anything else. This scene is so far removed from reality, it can’t possibly be
anything but a dream.

“Puhuhuhu…”

Even that laughter, echoing deep inside my ears… it’s just a dream.
Suddenly, the black shadow was again standing right in front of me. But this was also definitely
a dream.

The maybe-familiar face reappeared at the top of the shadow, addressing me once more.

“Until you can remember me properly, why don’t you just call me… Ultimate Despair. Yeah, I
think that fits. Puhuhuhu…”

The eyes on that face were excessively dark. In fact, they seemed more like holes than eyes. I
stared at them blankly, beginning to feel as if my consciousness were being sucked up into their
void. Inside the holes was a bottomless swamp, full of black mud. My entire body sank deeper
into it as I was slowly consumed by something that wasn’t myself.

Then, a voice from far away:

“Let’s meet up again sometime! Then I can kill you properly!”

It was a small voice, coming from far away, but at the same time it seemed as though it were
being whispered directly into my ears.

This sure is… a strange dream…

With that last thought, I finally became totally submerged inside the bottomless swamp, and my
consciousness was completely lost.

“……Hmm?”

The girl tilted her head to one side.

“……Hm? Hm? Hmm?”

Junko Enoshima tilted her head even further this time.

“Hmmmmm… It’s great that I came back and all, but… what’s going on here?”

She swayed up from her crouched position to look at the thing in front of her. It was a dead body.

A man, his neck and arm twisted at a severe angle.

“Um… let’s see. This guy is…” She raised her hand to her chin, and closed her eyes tightly,
posing like a great detective on the verge of a huge deduction. After a short period of indecision,
Junko Enoshima suddenly raised her voice in a cheer.

“Oh yeah, I remember! That’s right, he said his name was Madarai! Aw, looks like even in death

I forgot you…! I wonder if I’ll end up super-forgetful too? …As if! Aha, ahahahahaha!”

Enoshima’s laughter echoed through the night sky, stacking upon itself as if there were several of
her, laughing in simultaneous chorus.

But, the next moment, her laughter stopped. Her face turned sullen, as if she had suddenly grown
bored of laughing.

“Huhh… Anyway, where’d that other corpse disappear to?”

Suddenly, she was laughing again. Where just moments ago she seemed bored and irritable, she
became jubilant, as though a switch were flipped.

“Well, it’s not like it matters where he disappeared to, right? Puhuhu, I am so despair-inducingly
great at these kinds of things!”

The second her declaration was done, her face turned sullen yet again.

“But, it’s so unsatisfying when your plans always succeed… Whose fault is this? Isn’t anyone
going to take responsibility…?”

Her expression changed with every sentence that came out of her mouth, but none of it was an
act. Every time, it reflected her true feelings. Despair-inducing capriciousness; that’s what she
was all about.

She was the Ultimate Despair, Junko Enoshima, after all.

Still gloomy, Enoshima shuffled toward Madarai’s dead body.

“It’s your fault, y’know. Hey!” She prodded the body with the toe of her boot. “Hey, say
something! What’s up with being so easy to kill?! You should’ve at least made an effort to
disrupt my plans! How can I possibly despair like that?!”

At that point, she suddenly changed her voice. “I…It hurts! I’m so sorryyyyyy!” she whined,
mimicking the dead Madarai’s voice as though it were a morbid ventriloquist act. “Enoshima,
please forgive me!”

She began kicking the body more forcefully as she continued to speak for it. Dark red liquid
dribbled from its mouth. “I’ll repent by killing myself, so please forgive me!”

Enoshima returned to her normal tone of voice.

“But you can’t do that! You’re already dead!”

Having delivered her grand punchline, she stomped hard on Madarai’s face.

Squelch. A thick, crunching sound surrounded her.

“Puhuhuhuhuhuhuhuhuhuhuhu!”

Enoshima laughed a loud vulgar laugh, as if her one-woman show was the funniest thing she’d
ever heard. But she soon grew tired of that too, and her face returned to its original expression.

“Well, then… I guess I have to call that pitiful sister of mine, and ask her to clean things up over
here.”

First, the filthy corpse.

Then, I’ll need her to take care of that shed, too…

“And finally, I just have to get rid of that nuisance of a boy that Ryoko Otonashi loves so much!”
Having confirmed her immediate plans to herself, Enoshima started laughing again, as if she had
just remembered something funny.

“Puhuhuhuhuhuhuhuhuhuhuhuhu!!”

She laughed vulgarly and grandiosely, facing the sky with both arms spread open. Her cruel,
gruesome laughter echoed high in the night sky. There was no coherence to it, nor any necessity
or sentiment behind it.

That was what the Ultimate Despair, Junko Enoshima, was all about.