It fizzles.
Like soda, it's bubbly and full until it goes flat. Like a firework, it is beautiful, but temporary. Like a candle, it will always be snuffed. That's the thing with movements, you know? They fade. You either fall out of love, or you die. There is no other option.
When Junko Enoshima dies, it is as if they killed God. It burns. It itches. It leaves her in rapture, in agony, in bliss. And then, it fades. Once you taste the worst despair, once you learn to live with it, nothing else compares. Anyone can get used to constant pain; just give them enough time. Every despair will eventually lessen; every wound will eventually heal, unless it kills you first. Playing with the wound will prolong it, but unless you kill yourself doing so, even that will turn into a scar eventually. That's why Junko Enoshima dies: because deep down, she knew it too.
Despair becomes tasteless, eventually. You lose interest. If you can survive it, it grows dull. Humans are adaptable; they adapt to pain until they stop feeling it, when it is constant. When you are young, your emotional pain is all encompassing—something to indulge, something you think you would not be you without. But then, well. You grow up.
You endure.
See, the thing about despair is that, eventually, after the fun wears off, after the allure and glamor has faded, after you've eaten your fill and become full…
It becomes boring.
Sacrilege to think. But Ibuki Mioda thinks it.
The movement dies without anyone propelling it. It always does. Always will. For a while, Junko was a martyr. When she died, the despair that rose up in opposition was even more extreme in her absence. Retaliation. But without a different figure head rising up, it cannot continue that momentum. Without Junko Enoshima, it cannot continue that momentum.
You cannot be hungry forever. You cannot eat forever, either.
“It's not really fair.”
Hiyoko is frowning at the smoke in the distance. Gaze distant, gaze troubled, holding the canned coffee Junko favored despite hating how it tasted.
“What's not?” Ibuki asks.
“That it fizzles. Soon, the world will heal from Junko-nee, talk about her as if she was a calamity of the past. I don't know. We did so much, but it wasn't really for anything, was it? Ideology that doesn't hold up—a world that will forget us, even though we tried to kill it.”
Ibuki laughs. “Ibuki already knew this would happen.”
“Really?” Hiyoko glances at her, her brows furrowed and eyes questioning.
“Of course. Everything dies, eventually. Even God's, even movements, even Junko, even us. It was always temporary.”
“But… Why did you do it, then?”
Ibuki paused, humming thoughtfully. “Just because it's temporary, it doesn't mean it never meant something. But truthfully… Hope was the reason.”
“Hope?” Hiyoko's face twisted on the word. An Ultimate Despair, talking about hope. A wonderful joke to the world outside of them. But Ibuki knows Hiyoko will understand.
“She made Ibuki hope she could be permanent.”
“Ah… I don't know if anything I did was for hope. Or if it would make it better, if it was. I think… I was just angry at the world. I wanted to hurt it. I wanted to hurt it back. Because… Junko-nee broke me. She made me believe there was no such thing as kindness. So why shouldn't they burn?”
Ibuki laughs, once again. Refrains from calling her naive , if just barely. Hiyoko scowls. “That's not the problem. Many people are ‘kind’. They're trying to do the right thing. Even Junko-chan was like that.” Ibuki paused. “It's just that no one can agree on what's kind. What would make the world better. Kindness is everywhere, but it will not save us.”
“What a pessimistic outlook.” Hiyoko murmured. “But, it's what I expected from Ibuki-chan. I used to believe quite strongly in kindness, you know. I admired it. In a way, I thought it did save me.”
“Do you feel very saved, Hiyoko-chan?” Ibuki asks, smiling without teeth.
Hiyoko paused. “No. Not anymore, I guess.” She laughed faintly. “I don't think ever again.”
She took a sip of her canned coffee, grimacing at the flavor. “What about you?” She looked up from her eyelashes, “Do you feel saved, Ibuki-chan?”
“No.” Ibuki smiles. “No, not really.”
But then again, is she meant to be?
(Junko Enoshima did not save them. Junko Enoshima does not save anyone.)
Hiyoko snorts, waving her can. “That's because people like us don't get saved.”
“Of course not.” An obvious statement. Hasn't society made that perfectly clear? From the start, they would have never saved any of them. From the start, society had made each and every one of them to begin with. “Villains don't get happy endings.”
Hiyoko smiled, eyes dark and tired. “Neither do victims.”