Danganronpa/D4DJ One-Shots

Villain, Villain, It's Me, Brilliant and Bad

The robotic cat landed gracefully on the windowsill, metal feet surprisingly quiet. It had jumped up from the smooth, black-and-white tile floor, its red, black, and white fur gleaming in the sunlight streaming in through the blinds of the window.

"I can't wait to go outside!" The cat said as it peered through the window's blinds.

"N-no, wait! We're n-not ready yet!" A pink and white bunny robot held out a dainty paw as she pleaded with her feline sibling.

"I didn't say right now!" Just a flash of aggression surged through the cat as it scoffed, literally looking down on the rabbit.

"NYAHAHAHAHA! Awwww, are my precious, widdle, baby siblings jealous?" An obnoxious, nasally voice split the air from the doorway.

"Monokuma!" The other two little robot animal mascots cried out as the bear (all three of them were the same size) strutted in cockily.

"Yep, yep! That's my name! And mystery and secrecy are the game!" He raised a deadly-sharp claw to his lips, half of them lined with terrifyingly jagged teeth. His jagged, red eye flashed, his implied threat made clear. Monomi and Monochio could ask all they wanted, he would never tell.

"Oh, now how does that little ditty go...?" He tilted his head, lulling sarcastically. Then he seemed to remember, if he'd ever really forgotten. "Two can keep a secret if one of us is dead!" The black-and-white bear cackled again. "Villain, villain, it's me! I'm brilliant and bad!"

"Oh, no!" Monomi wailed in alarm, clutching her pink and white ears as little tear droplets appeared in her beady, mismatched eyes. Monochio said nothing, but it felt the fur on its spine prickle and stand up on edge. They were all siblings, from the same "litter" despite being three wildly different species, but there were times when Monochio got the feeling that their ultimate goals were not aligned...

Monomi is... all right... Monochio's own thoughts even managed to sound unconvinced and unconvincing. But Monokuma...?

HE was the real source of trouble, the one the cat didn't trust. That bear...! There was just something about him... And his weirdo creator.

"Oh, Kuuuummaaaa!" As if reading Monochio's thoughts, a young woman practically kicked in the door to their computer lab.

"Eeeep!" Monomi shielded her head again, shrieking. Monochio, meanwhile, felt its paws leave the windowsill, instincts kicking in. With a yowl to rival Monomi's, the robotic cat jumped skyward. The girl in the doorway—a blonde bombshell named Junko Enoshima—seemed completely unbothered by how she'd bothered the other two animal mascots.

"Oh, Junko!" Monokuma sounded pleased as he turned around and greeted his creator, extending a paw to her for her to shake and hold.

"Was that... Really necessary?" A man as opposite from Junko as black was from white stalked after her, so soft-spoken and light-footed that he was practically a ghost, seeming to hover just above the ground as he glided along. His long, flowing black hair floated after him, adding to the aura of mystique and otherworldly power that surrounded him.

"Izuru!" Monomi gasped. He was her creator. Rather than looking excited like Monokuma, or even comforted, she looked even more afraid.

That left Monochio's creator as the third and final Mastermind and Ultimate Despair to arrive.

"Sorry I'm late. I had to debug and remove a few glitches from my Assistant Principal Program," said the young woman with green hair. He held up a frog-shaped flash drive as she entered the computer lab with a glib smirk.

"Esora!" Monochio scuttled over to the Ultimate Corporate Manager. Technically, it liked to say that it had up to six mothers (Maho, Esora, Saki, Rika, Hiiro, and Haruna, since each had a hand in programming one of its six personalities), but Esora provided the bulk of the resources to build Monochio's body, so as a newly-built prototype, it felt the strongest affinity to her, at least for then...

The three "parents" of the three robot mascots had come to fine-tune their work, honing the coding and the building. The animal animatronics always had room for improvement, and with the leader and most Ultimate of Ultimate Masterminds and Despairs ready to kick off her Tragedy, she wanted everything ready in advance so that the ultimate big day went off without a hitch! A cruel smile twisted slowly across Junko's face when no one was looking. No one except Monokuma, that was...

"I think you know what to do with this, buddy!" She whispered, giggling, sounding like a girl a decade younger than she actually was. Her eyes shined as her lips puckered and she rested her chin on her knuckles sweetly. She slipped something to Monokuma, and he nodded imperceptibly. It was Junko's trademark, to sow the seeds of discord and Despair among her own disciples. Monokuma was about to wreak havoc on the other two. Would Izuru and Esora prove themselves worthy followers of Junko and stand up to the curveballs she threw? Or would they be unable to contain her treachery? Only time would tell...

And there's no time like the present! The Ultimate "Fashionista" and "Ultimate Mascot" met one another's eyes, stifling sadistic snickers behind their hands. Izuru and Esora's backs were to Junko. Izuru could hear Junko snickering behind him and his red eyes narrowed as he continued to work on Monomi, perfecting the coding that would create the AI copy of his lost Lenore, the Ultimate Gamer, Chiaki Nanami.

Esora missed Junko's unhinged laughter only because she was busy hooking her Esoran flash drive into the nearest computer to aid Izuru in his programming, not that the Ultimate Ultimate really needed the help. Monochio, however, observed the way Monokuma and Junko seemed to be conferring with one another, and the fur on its spine stood up again. Let the games begin...

AN: Fun fact, even though I was planning D4DR since the day the Merm4id Show ep9 dropped (where Rika's VA drew a very Junko-like Rika), the exact date I started drafting the fic was 3/8/2023. I know the exact date because it happened to coincide with the release of the harmoe (Towa and Yuka's VAs) album "Villain" (which inspires this fic's title).

Also yes, this is an AU fic where the 3 games' mascots ALL get little robot bodies like Monokuma. In canon, Monomi is more like Esoran, only a digital program. And Monochio is meant to be large in canon while, in this fic, it's the same size as Monokuma. They're all siblings under Junko/the other Masterminds and Despairs, of course.