Chapter Text
She stared at the body on the end of her lanyard. Her eyes widened as she dropped it, watching the body of the man she barely knew anymore drop to the floor. She covered her mouth, drawing up a gasp. What had she done…?! She just… She just…! She stood in horror. This was her first time seeing a dead body, wasn’t it? So surely, this was a reasonable response for seeing such a horrible thing…!
MonoKuma stared for a few seconds, slowly going to the body to investigate it. His eyes avoided contact with his daughter, and she felt ashamed because of it. After a while, her voice slowly raised.
“Is…” She shakily asked, “Is he alright…?”
“...Unfortunately, no,” MonoKuma quietly replied, “He’s dead…”
So she really…!
MonoKuma suddenly shot from the body to his daughter, latching onto her. But it wasn’t an act of aggression. Of course, it wasn’t. MonoKuma would never hurt his child. Instead, he checked over her, eyes still wide.
“What about you?” He asked in an urgent tone, “Did he hurt you? Do you need bandages?”
“I don’t think so…” She said, “He just- he just grabbed my shoulders… I don’t think anything that bad happened to me…!”
Her eyes slowly wandered back to the body, seeing what she’d done. The lanyard was tightly wrapped around his neck, and he showed no signs of breathing. He was dead… Yes, this man was aggressive, but to kill him… She killed him. She–
“This wasn’t your fault,” MonoKuma interrupted her thoughts, “MonoKyoko, this wasn’t your fault.”
“I…” She struggled to speak.
“MonoKyoko, please listen to me,” he gently shook her, “This is not your fault. It was an accident – I know deep in my heart and soul that you didn’t want to kill this man. It wasn’t your fault. You’re not getting in trouble for this, I can promise you that.”
He pulled her into a hug, embracing his daughter. In return, she leaned into him. Instead of pulling her attention onto the corpse, she shoved her head into the warm embrace of her father. She felt the need to cry. The knot in her chest was too bearable… …Un-bear-able… …She tried to cheer herself with a pun, but it didn’t help.
“We’ll bare this cross,” MonoKuma said, “It’ll be okay. I’ll take care of this for you. You’ll never have to worry about him again. …Just… forget this happened for me… It’ll be much better if we both tried to forget about this.”
Forget…
Yes, forget.
That’s all she needed to do. She just needed to forget about this whole event. She needed to truly forget about the man or the event.
She’s MonoKyoko, daughter of MonoKuma. Sister of MonoKid, MonoSuke, MonoTaro, MonoPhanie, and MonoDam. Family of Hope’s Peak Academy.
She’s just a normal girl whose father is a headmaster. She’s not a killer, or a detective, or anyone related to that. She’s a reserve course student. A normal reserve course student.
She’s just a student with her dad holding her in his arms.