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goshdangronpa · 7 months

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“I-I’m sorry,” the girl stammers, then steels herself. “Um … my name’s Mikan Tsumiki. I’m the Ultimate Nurse. A moment ago, you p-passed out. I was only taking off your choker to make sure you could breathe …” She braces, as if anticipating a punch. “Th-that’s why my hands were on your … um … your throat …”

This - the first scene in “I DISAGREE: An Ibuki Mioda SDR2 Protag Swap AU,” echoing the first scene from SDR2 - is Ibuki Mioda’s first interaction with Mikan Tsumiki. She sees nothing to forgive. She sees someone trying to help an unconscious stranger, caught in a situation so awkward it’s funny. And endearing.

She decides that they’re friends now.

Bacterial Contamination: Mikan Tsumiki, Ultimate Despair

Less than a week later, Ibuki’s reeling from a disturbing realization. That morning, she’d been thrilled to find Mikan beside her in bed for the second night in the row. She has her own assigned room, and each hotel room has two beds. Yet there she was, subverting that "only one bed" ship fic trope, snug and warm with Ibuki. Quite warm, in fact … Noticeably warmer than the day before …

It’s true. After being in more constant contact with the patients than anyone else, Mikan Tsumiki caught the Despair Disease. That’d be true, I reckon, in just about any universe where she’s the Ultimate Nurse during such an outbreak. And once again, she’s the reason two of her classmates are dead.

What’s different in this AU is that she doesn’t even have to carry out any murders herself. With Chiaki already in a malicious mood and Kazuichi already spoiling for a fight, kicking off the killing game was as simple as opening their doors. The only other necessary task was retrieving a weapon for Kazuichi, to even the playing field. I can’t think of a good idea for how she finds Byakuya’s hiding spot and gets Peko’s sword, but she does (I’m sure glad this is just a series of speculative posts and not a fleshed-out fanfic or a full-on fan game!). Very little work on her part, and very little risk …

Or so she believed. Remember, Monokuma suggested that if anyone died at this makeshift hospital, the medical staff might be considered guilty. When Kazuichi returned from his fight with serious wounds on his chest, Mikan had to patch him up so he wouldn’t bleed out. The bandaging jobs was so professional, in fact, that no one else could’ve done it. Her efforts to save her own skin only gave away her role in the night’s slaughter.

“And she gets to live?” Nagito asserts with surprising coldness. With the trial already over, a new conversation threatens to break out among a group that threatens to become a mob. Once they start asking questions like “Could they even trust her around them?” and “What if she does it again?”, the responses could get real ugly real fast …

“But everything’s okay!” Ibuki asserts. “I mean, not okay okay. It’s all tragic. But Mikan’s okay now!” It had to be like what happened with Chiaki and Kazuichi, right? She only did something so horrible because that’s how the disease would affect such a sweet and caring girl, right? And Kazuichi and Nagito independently confirmed that their symptoms vanished in a snap after Monokuma’s bloody terms were met, so she’s fine now, right?

Ya know … she could be. This is a direction I could go. Mikan would have something to actually be sorry about, a strong reason to hate herself and shun all company. Ibuki could then insist on being her friend, resolute in her knowledge that all this only happened because she’s a good nurse and a good person. There’s room for drama, interpersonal conflict, Hiyoko going beyond her usual bullying into someplace darker, and redemption through love in a victory for hope. It absolves the girl of all actual guilt, making her easier to get behind. Removing the whole “one person murders the shit out of the other thing” also expunges all the toxicity that some people don’t like about any killer-victim ship.

That’d be great and all, and I would love to see an AU like that. But I’m taking this AU somewhere different. I can’t make the path to tsumioda so smooth and straightforward! Partly because I’m trying to stick with DR’s typical reluctance to canonize any pairings (Imposter’s right there too!), but mostly because I love the drama. So I’m spicing things up and making this ship problematic in a completely different way.

"It's all over, so she's fine now, right?!" Ibuki shouts. The response comes: "No, that's wrong!" Although Ibuki’s suggestion makes complete sense, Hajime awkwardly notes one problem. One could read pure altruism into Mikan stopping Kazuichi from bleeding to death - of course the nurse, faculties now recovered, would do anything she could to save a life. But such a severe wound would leave a trail of blood from the restaurant to his room. A trail that could’ve resolved the whodunnit a lot faster if it hadn’t vanished. Someone must’ve cleaned it, and cleaned it so well that they didn’t leave a trace. As with the bandaging job, only a professional could’ve done this so well.

Everyone presses Mikan for an explanation. 13 sets of eyes bore into hers. She laughs. “I was hoping to save this for later …” (I really thought about it!) “... but I can’t avoid it.” Just like in SDR2, Despair Disease hit Mikan differently than anyone else: instead of flipping personalities, she regains the one she had before they landed on that beach six days ago. And as Monokuma confirms, though the cheeky bastard won’t give away why just yet, personalities can flip back but memories regained aren’t so easily forgotten again. And what’s not just like in SDR2 is that they’re stuck with her.

Nagito, placed right between Mikan and Ibuki in the courtroom’s podium arrangement, lunges for the traitor. She breaks out with shocking force, knocking her former patient to the ground, then sprints away at an even more shocking speed. (I love the idea that Mikan’s a fast runner - a necessary skill for evading bullies and pulling off that otherwise impossible murder plot in SDR2 Chapter 3.) Making it to the elevator before anyone else, she exits Monokuma Rock by herself. The rest of the class will have to catch the next lift. By then, she’ll be long gone.

Gone. The person Ibuki had worked so hard to figure out, the girl with whom she managed to carve out some good memories out of some truly stressful days, the kind of close friend she’d hoped to make when she accepted the invite to Hope’s Peak … she’s gone. The thought crosses Ibuki’s mind that maybe that girl was never really there. She shudders.

Next week: the end of Chapter 1, for real.

PREV: The First Blackened

NEXT: Ending Chapter 1 with a Sleepover

#I DISAGREE: An Ibuki Mioda SDR2 Protag Swap AU #danganronpa #super danganronpa 2 #sdr2 #goodbye despair #ibuki mioda #mikan tsumiki #tsumioda #despair disease #nagito komaeda #a pleasant coincidence that this post is coming out so closely to Halloween #an even more pleasant coincidence that it's coming out on Day 6 of danganwlweek2023. the day's theme: DESPAIR #this was one of my first ideas for the AU and I'm thrilled to finally share it #(this is also maybe the first song title/chapter pairing I conceived)#please excuse the version of the song on the Spotify playlist. they don't have the original anymore. this cover is p good too tho #me (a huge fan of tsumioda): I am going to make an Ibuki/Mikan dynamic that is so toxic #ahahahaHAHAHAHAHAH

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