#fan execution

Kazutoshi is in a large, square room, with a collar on his neck. In the room, the floor looks like The Creation of Adam by Michelangelo, though slightly altered (see symbolism). A message is then displayed to Kazutoshi : he must clean this entire illustration before the time limit is over (see facts), and the door will unlock. Looking around, he sees his cleaning equipment, and gets to work. It's easy enough. The painting washes off easily, and the door on the other side of the room unlocks with a click. Kazutoshi heads towards it and twists the doorknob, opening the door. Right as he does, a machine activates, coming down from the ceiling, gripping the arm he grabbed the knob with, and pulls it off, before retreating back into the ceiling. Kazutoshi is in intense pain until the machine then comes back and slaps a robotic arm in its place. Kazutoshi tries moving it, but it doesn't budge. Gritting his teeth, he pushes on the door with his other arm and moves onto the next room.

This room is similar to the last, except now it's a different painting - Christina's World by Andrew Wyeth, also slightly altered. The clock says 3 minutes and 10 seconds. Kazutoshi cleans this one, too, though slightly slower than the last. The door unlocks once again, and he tries pushing on it the normal way, but it doesn't work. Realizing that it's forcing him to grab the knob and get his arm cut off again, he steadies himself before he grabs and twists the knob. Once again, as predicted, the machine rips off his arm and replaces it. Trying this arm, Kazutoshi again notices that it does not move. He uses his body to push open the door.

In the third room displays The Garden of Earthly Delights, by Hieronymus Bosch, this one unaltered. Kazutoshi wastes no time, using his teeth to grab his mop, dip it in the water bucket, and keep cleaning. The timer says 2 minutes. Kazutoshi once again cleans it, slower than the last.

The door unlocks again. This time, the door opens on its own. However, when Kazutoshi crosses the threshold, a machine comes out of the floor this time, grabbing and pulling both of his legs off, replacing them instantly. These, like the others, do not work. However, when he tries to move his robotic arms to pull himself forward, they work, if just barely, allowing him to pull himself forward into the room, one that resembles Eternity's Gate by Vincent van Gogh. Using his teeth, he grabs his mop again, dumps it in the bucket, and cleans again, using his arms to move himself. But this painting doesn't come off. No matter how many times he scrubs, no matter how hard, it stubbornly stays. Kazutoshi looks up at the clock : he has ten seconds. He realizes he can't clean this, and that this entire execution was a trap. The clock hits zero, and the lights in the room shut off abruptly. The collar on his neck then lights up, and his head gets pulled off, quickly grabbed by a machine arm from the ceiling. The machine then flawlessly replaces the head, washing the now-robot Kazutoshi, and the blood he left behind. The painting washes away with it.

「 Session One, Execution Five : Complete. 」

Symbolism :

- The first illustration, "The Creation of Adam", has hidden anatomical symbolism, mainly the human brain and the structure connecting to the brain. While being foreshadowing towards his eventual decapitation (metaphorically, as the actual illustration doesn't have the head being cut off directly), this illustration is also meant to represent how he took (whoever it was)'s life, cutting off their brain flow, as that's what dying does.

- The left figure is holding a sword stabbing into said brain for this reason. God, the right figure in the original painting, is not present in the illustration, only the brain behind him.

- The second illustration, "Christina's World", is meant to act as foreshadowing in a way, as it's true representation is of a woman - Andrew Wyeth's neighbour - who suffered from a muscle disorder that left her unable to walk, dragging herself across the grass to reach her destination. Kazutoshi ends up doing this after both of his legs are ripped off and replaced with the non-functional parts.

- The third illustration, "The Garden of Earthly Delights", is interpreted as a warning against the perils of temptation, sin, and damnation. This illustration simply represents the temptation of murder (a sin), which Kazutoshi committed. The third panel specifically (the artwork is separated into three panels) illustrates hell, the punishment for said sin. Bosch (the artist) uses imaginative imagery to create a lot of torture in this panel. This is basically a message of "you're going to hell and being tortured because you murdered".

- The final illustration, "Eternity's Gate", is a portrayal of and old man in intense despair and cathartic crying, making it considered the saddest painting in history. This just reminds Kazutoshi of how he murdered because of his own feelings being identical to this illustration (you know, Ken dying, leaving not much left for Kazutoshi to do after he gets out [at least, that's my interpretation.]). This is also why he can't remove any of it; he can't scrub away his grief and his sins (not can he bring whoever he killed back to life or something), so he can't scrub away the illustration that represents that, either.

- The man is replaced with an illustration of Ken, basically meant to torture Kazutoshi even more as he tries to wash it away, a.k.a trying not to think about what Ken would think of him. It's supposed to represent how even Ken won't forgive Kazutoshi for this, and is crying in the afterlife.

- The background (which is normally some sort of house, eith a wooden floor and fireplace) is also heaven, which is telling Kazutoshi that despite dying, he isn't going to meet Ken, because he's in heaven and Kazutoshi is going to hell (as is the reason for the third illustration).

Facts

- There are four rooms, because Kazutoshi is student four.

- Kazutoshi also gets four minutes to clean up all the rooms for the same reason. Each room he cleans gets slower and slower as he loses more limbs, and the painting themselves are more water and soap resistant. By the time he had gotten through the final door with his barely functioning legs and grabbed the mop and tried to clean the illustration, he only had ten seconds left when he looked up.

- The execution features artwork because I wanted it to (I love artwork symbolism), but also I think the art being there would be fitting if Ojima had something to do with the plan, he was the one who died, or if it was something he did that led to the person being murdered in the first place. But especially if Ojima was the reason his plan failed. It would be even more mental torture if it was.

- I named this execution "Disinfection" because of the below point :

- The collars pulling his limbs off and then them getting replaced with nonfunctional robotic ones is representing how it's "cleaning" him, as he wants to die, something that is considered "unclean" by some (additionally, in the Elizabethan era, people believed that killing themselves was against God, therefore they would break the Chain of Being [too long to explain] and basically ruin the world), and also because he murdered - a sin ("unclean") - and therefore, through cruel irony, it is "cleaning" him of his sins by removing him piece by piece, until the "filth" is finally gone. I use the words "filth", "clean", and "unclean" because of Kazutoshi's talent as a Crime Scene Cleaner. Because the best executions are always talent-themed. (・ω・)b

- When the room is washed, the only thing left is the now robot version of Kazutoshi, completely immobile and useless (like how he would probably feel if Ken died and he could've done something to stop it). It also washed away the painting on the floor, because now that Kazutoshi's dead, he can no longer feel grief, and therefore the painting, the representation of his grief, is gone. Plus the Heaven part is washed away, again saying that Kazutoshi is going to hell and not meeting with Ken in the afterlife like he wants.

Anyways that's the end of my rant, Jesus that was long. I spent two whole hours wasting my time coming up with this lmao si I felt I had to post it at some point, because we all know full well I won't end up using it for shit. :D

Well, you already know it’s Kazuichi Soda. I revealed it at the end of the previous installment in this series. No surprises in this post. Nope, none at all.

When Kazuichi tries to remember the past few days, what comes up doesn’t feel like a memory. More like an off-kilter movie starring himself… or perhaps a nightmare that seems unreal but feels vivid. When he reflects, he sees some quixotic freak trying to live out a hero fantasy. Yelling for Monokuma to wrestle him, offering to restrain Chiaki while the others check up on her, attempting daring physical feats before being restrained himself - the very thought of such needless risk chills him now. But he can’t deny that this other Kazuichi was (some distorted and disturbing version of) the kind of person he always yearned to be.

Then, late last night, he awoke to a noise from outside. The chair that had been propped against the door handle had been removed. He was finally free to leave his room. When he slammed it open, he found that Chiaki’s door was open as well. This was bad news: the patient’s violent impulses had only worsened with the disease’s progression. For someone so dangerous to be outside of her ravaged room, on the loose and probably on the hunt … Kazuichi couldn’t let this stand. He needed to rally the troops and help them find her.

Suddenly, he spied, leaning against his doorway, a sword. Its origin was unknown, perhaps unknowable … maybe even divine. Yes, this blade must have been intended for him to wield against evil. No need to rouse anyone else from their slumber. He shall handle this himself.

The brave knight found his foe at the front entrance, struggling to unlock the door. Grinning, he leapt toward her and repelled her away, blocking her escape and protecting the other half of the island’s residents. Unfortunately, watching movies of samurai and ninja and knights doesn’t count as training in the weapon. Kazuichi’s clumsiness with the sword enabled her to dodge his parries and swings. She got behind him, then scurried up the steps that lead to the restaurant. On its other side, he realized with a gasp, there’s an outdoor stairwell that can bring her right to the cottages.

He chased. He confronted. He cornered. At last, he killed.

The victory of the moment vanished in the same instant as the target’s soul. Between blinks, Kazuichi stopped seeing a bloodthirsty fiend. He then saw Chiaki Nanami, a quiet and chill girl who got sick and acted differently. Though he couldn’t fully trust anyone under these circumstances, he’d felt that she was harmless enough, even pretty cute. Now, he was holding what looked like a sword, and it was right through her stomach, and the blood wouldn’t stop gushing down the stairs.

Terrified, he impulsively removed the blade and chucked it into the air. The splash it made as it landed in the swimming pool (from far away - guy’s got muscles!) spooked him. Afraid that the sound may have awoken potential witnesses, he fled back to his room, where he awaited his fate. Maybe he wouldn’t even make it to morning. What had prompted him to impale the girl, he recalled with a wince, was that in a last act of desperation, she’d slashed him across the chest with her nails (they’re normally filed short for optimal button-pushing, but she’d been growing and sharpening them at the hospital). He was bleeding, too ... really badly. Knowing he was dead either way, he fainted.

Morning came. Kazuichi was alive, his wound bandaged. He zipped his jumpsuit. He couldn’t breathe a word. Not until another seemingly harmless and pretty cute girl, Ibuki Mioda, urged him to damn himself.

He gets more sympathy than expected. So does Chiaki, which is good. Everyone now understood the nature of Despair Disease. Neither patient was in the right frame of mind. Neither would’ve really wanted to kill. He arguably even saved their lives at the cost of his own. Which is heroic! But, Hiyoko observes, he also failed to speak up when Peko, Fuyuhiko, and Byakuya were all this close to being falsely convicted. So he nearly negated his own sacrifice to what he would’ve known, subconsciously or otherwise, to be his benefit. A coward to the end.

“Can you blame me?” he shouts, no longer caring how he came off. “I don’t want to die, either.”

But die, he must. The votes come in. Monokuma bangs the gavel. Ready or not, it’s punishment time.

Kazuichi’s execution sees him yanked into the air by a claw and dropped roughly onto a conveyor belt. On the other end is a killing machine, a mess of gears and pointy objects and belches of flame straight out of Saw. With walls on either side, he can only run against the flow, as fast as his long legs can take him. Miscellaneous parts and machinery threaten to trip him, and Monokuma (dressed in appropriate safety gear) ramps up the belt’s speed. For the climax, you ever see that part from the movie Modern Times where Charlie Chaplin is caught between moving gears? It’s that, but less silent comedy slapstick and more horror movie mangling.

No one’s happy with this. Least of all because they still couldn’t conclude who among the staff could’ve helped him escape. Someone on the outside had to open the patients’ doors, drop off the weapon, and bandage Kazuichi’s wounds. Speculation runs wild: Byakuya must've done it because he knew where the sword was kept. Ibuki must've done it because how else could an airhead like her solve this mystery? The whole medical staff must've done it because they couldn’t think of a more painless way to stop the disease.

Ibuki takes some pride in saving everyone’s skins, but the agony of the execution and the distrust of her peers severely bums her out. She wishes she could go back to the gates of Hope’s Peak so she could turn around and leave. Or to that fateful morning when the disease first struck, so she could tell everyone what she knows now and maybe change the outcome. She’d even settle for earlier this morning, when she found Mikan beside her in bed again, looking all snug, feeling really warm …

Oh. Oh, shit.

Next week.

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