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The first time she tried to do this, the most prominent feeling was the pain.
Just take the knife and cut off your pinky toe, it sounded way easier than it was. Hiyoko failed to do it with one hit, as the dull blade ripped the flesh unevenly and got stuck, not even coming close to the bone. She winced, her face running red – from both embarrassment and rage at that dumb piece of kitchenware. She slashed her toe one more time, trying to apply more strength, biting her lip in an attempt not to scream. The blade plunged into her flesh with a sickening noise that sounded more like a wet, dulled thud than what she usually heard when someone’s tissues were torn up.
She wanted to stop it right there and admit it was a bad, terrible idea, but the thought of going to that pig barf Mikan and giving her a chance to be useful gave her more strength. She slashed deeper, pressing the blade down with both of her hands. The sound of the crunch came with a flash of unimaginable pain, and she screamed, vision getting fuzzy from the tears running down her cheeks, ears filled with the hum in her head, heart pudding stronger and faster from the adrenaline. The only thing that kept her going was the need for despair; burning, unquenchable, stronger than any other sensation a human possibly could feel.
When the knife finally tore her skin from the other side, and what was once a part of her body now was lying before her like a piece of meat, all Hiyoko could feel was relief. She laughed, her face still red, tears running down her cheeks. She won’t lose to everyone else. She will bring herself despair, just like all of them…!
Without even bothering to clean up and bandage her wound, Hiyoko began to dance, the place where her pinky toe once was still aching. Her warm, red blood splattered everywhere as she moved around the room, elegantly, like nothing of what just happened was real. Her body was shaking, trembling a bit stronger with every movement, but her motions were too well-learned and too mechanical for one small wound to make her skill falter even slightly.
Without even noticing it, she stepped into her own blood, her feet slipping with a soft screeching noise as she fell face down on the floor. Yes, that what exactly the kind of despair she needed, Hiyoko thought, trying to get up, but her body suddenly felt weak and tired. As she tried to move, the pain grew stronger, like someone turned on a switch allowing her to sense it in full. She groaned, slipping back on the floorboards. Suddenly the ground started to feel very warm and comfortable as her consciousness was slowly fading away.
The next time Hiyoko opened her eyes she was in the hospital, her wound bandaged, the bloodstains on her clothes already dried. It seemed like that pig barf – or anyone else, it didn’t really matter – was quick enough to find her before there could be any serious consequences for her body… She got lucky. She was alive, meaning she could do more.
The second time she prepared better.
The weapon in her hand wasn’t a dull kitchen knife anymore – instead it was an axe, heavy and threatening. Hiyoko gulped as she lifted it up above her foot. One swing and it should be over. Her arm was trembling as she was preparing herself, tears already in the corners of her eyes. If her hand would slip up and cut the wrong part of her leg…
It would be even more of the sweet, wonderful despair, she thought, moving the axe down. Blood splattered everywhere, and the familiar song of crunch was more satisfying than anything this time, the main sign that another precious piece of her flesh was no longer belonging to her. The pain came with a delay, and the bleeding, for some reason, was way weaker than the last time.
This time Hiyoko did clean up her wound and tried stop the blood from flowing away. She didn’t want to die, die and free herself from any despair…!
Her dancing movements remained smooth. She tried to notice and remember every tiny mistake she made, each of the smallest deviations, like a motion that ended too fast or was too slow. They were all too little, too insignificant for anyone to really see them – the only exception was, probably, her grandmother, but she was no longer there. But even so, each of them brought Hiyoko a sweet feeling of relief, the understanding that it was not in vain.
Later Mikan tried to scold her, to convince her to at least warn her before the next “session”, but Hiyoko didn’t listen.
By the seventh time, it became almost familiar.
The pain was so weak it made Hiyoko feet disappointment. Every reaction of her body was too predictable, almost boring. The only thing that kept her going was the feeling that a small part of her was no longer there. The important part of Hiyoko Saionji, the one that would earn her money and make her famous, if Junko Enoshima, her best friend and savior, didn’t come to destroy all those rotten Saionji family traditions and that disgusting dancing industry altogether.
And now Hiyoko will help her. She will destroy the heir of that idiotic, cursed, hideous family that she hated, all by herself.
As she danced, her movements became clumsy and unconfident. She couldn’t stand on her tiptoes or turn around on her one leg anymore, and all her motions were slow and careful, too careful for a good performance. Her grandmother surely would scold her. Hell, not scold, she would probably label her a failure and attempt to murder her already. This thought made Hiyoko laugh. She continued to giggle as she cried, still honestly trying to preform her best dance, only to understand what an incompetent failure she made herself to be.
Still, that spectacle probably was enough to entertain or even impress someone who wasn’t that familiar with traditional dancing. So Hiyoko needed more.
By the tenth time, she barely could get up.
Probably it was the lingering blood loss – the last three of her toes went in quick succession and her body wasn’t able to fully recover. She didn’t care. It felt difficult to even walk, but she continued to dance, clumsily, like all of her motions were the ones of a roly-poly toy. She couldn’t move her arms freely, constantly needing them to just keep her balance. Every time her still bandaged wounds, old and new, touched the floor, she felt the pain, instinctively moving her feet up, looking like she was trying to walk on burning coals.
The despair, the sweet feeling of powerlessness it brought, it was unimaginable, far beyond anything she felt before. Finally being unable to keep even a fraction of her grace, Hiyoko fell down on her back, her body feeling unusually light and unbearably heavy at same time. She laughed as she was trying to get up, her legs tangling in her own clothes. When she was finally able to do this, she realized it was time to head to Mikan… Her wounds needed professional care and she still didn’t want to die, letting such a sweet, sickening despair go to waste.
By the eleventh time, Junko Enoshima was dead.
Hiyoko looked at her – or rather at what remained of her – with an oddly indifferent expression. For some reason, she didn’t feel much, despite all that Junko meant to her. Probably because her mind wasn’t able to identify that thing – the pool of blood and smashed organs under the press, with only two legs sticking out – as Junko. Fuyuhiko said it was undoubtedly her… because the part of her head and one weirdly clean hand remained on the other side and eventually fell into the dumpster. He said that even in death, she was smiling.
She loved Junko Enoshima.
She hated Junko Enoshima.
Junko Enoshima gave everything to her.
Junko Enoshima took everything from her.
A weird and sinister thought suddenly appeared in Hiyoko’s mind. Coming closer to the body, she slowly took her axe off her belt – this weapon was really useful not only in battle, but in all sort of tasks you needed to do in the ruined world, Hiyoko had quickly understood. Without thinking much about what she was doing, she chopped off Junko’s leg. Cutting the dead flesh was easy - almost weirdly easy, like Junko’s right foot itself didn’t want to be the part of her dead body anymore.
She will take what she lost back… Well, for now, at least half of it.
With a fresh piece of a dead flesh – nauseously stinking, wrapped in some rags without any care or attempt to hide what it was – in one hand and her faithful axe in other, Hiyoko headed back. To do what she wanted to do, she’d surely need Mikan’s help this time, but…
She knew that the sweet feeling of becoming the one with despair will be worth it in the end.