Side note, but reading the comments makes me think of a story with the protagonist as the evil heroine, the most stereotypical egocentric "This is the world of my dreams, I am the one in the center stage!", but somehow she ends up meeting the villainess as a kid, and decides to "befriend" to get closer to her. However, she starts to get too close to her, emotionally, she sees that the villainess is treated like trash at her own home, and that people spread rumors about her because she is cold and has a sharp tongue, which are defenses she build to protect herself. At first she is like "haha, you get what you deserve, you shitty villainess!" but the people bullying her get to her nerves and she starts to defend her after she sees her crying in secret. As they grow up together, the heroine starts to show her real personality to the villainess, and feels confortable around her since she doesn't have to act cutesy all the time. The heroine still thinks she is going to conquer all the love interests and condemn the villainess, delighting herself on the idea of how much more heart broken she would be when her best and oldest friend betrays her. But despite planning this, she let crucial moments slip by to not hurt her "Eh, I'll do it tomorrow", and their friendship grows.
Eventually, even without the heroine doing much, the small things she did, and other people's false accusations accumulate to create a condemnation event. It is everything the heroine dreamed about, all the love interest are on her side, the public is on her side, if she just follow the script, she'll become the queen and will be loved by everyone. But she can't. She is the one that steps to protect the villainess, saying that anyone who want to hurt her friend will have to go through her, and defying the crown prince openly. He, frustrated for being rejected, sends both of them to a convent in the northern region. A few months later, when the heroine, who until now has been cursing herself for ruining her own dream, realizes she is enjoying her new life alongside the villainess. Is at that moment, that they hear that there is a commotion going on in the capital, a civil war has started. The royal family falls, and a democracy is stablished, which makes them able to return.
The plot twist, is that the villainess is a "looper". She lived her life once already, where she never met the heroine as a kid. She still had a pretty hard life growing up, so she hardened her heart. She only met the heroine when they entered the academy, and she also acted as if she wanted to be friends with her. The villainess rejected her, as she could easily see through her intentions. Still, the heroine wasn't going to give up, and she started to follow her all the time, both trying to win her over, and to be perceived by others as being bullied by her. Her attempts, however, were quite pathetic and the villainess break through them rather easily. For example, she wanted to pretend the villainess burned her books, but instead of denying it, she admitted it, saying that they were of such horrible quality that she couldn't stand it, and that she would give her better ones. Desperate for her failures, the heroine would have tried to fall from some stairs while pretending the villainess pushed her, realizing she could get hurt really bad only after she had already jumped. The villainess jumped too, holding her head so it wouldn't crash against the steps, but instead, she ended up breaking her arm. The heroine is furious because everyone feels sorry for the villainess and has conflicting emotions about having being saved by her, she is feeling regrets, but convinces herself is too late to change her path.
The condemnation arrives, and while the heroine feels really bad, she doesn't defend the villainess. Without that, she is incarcerated instead of exiled. Months later, the heroine visits her in the dungeon to gloat to her, she got everything she ever wanted, everyone loves her and she is going to be queen, while the villainess is suffering in a dark place alone, malnourished and dirty. "Then why are you crying?" the villainess asks. The heroine kicks the bars, telling her it is all her fault, that she can't enjoy her happy ending after having used her as a step. To make things worse for her, the civil war started. The people were fed up with the corrupt noble class, specially with the royal family. They thought there was some hope when the commoners who had joined the academy said that the heroine, a commoner with divine magic, had been welcomed by the crown prince and started to reject his fiancée, who was a member of one of the most ancient and powerful noble families. But the opinion of them started to change when they saw the prince only respected the heroine, not daring to speak with other commoners if it wasn't necessary and being rude to them. And the heroine barely paid attention to their problems, she was too self centered. On the other hand, the villainess stood up for them, which gained their sympathy. When she was imprisoned, people started to demand her freedom and better conditions. The knights were dispatched, and the civil war exploded. The conflict in this timeline was longer and harsher, but at one point, they managed to release the villainess. After recovering, she joined them and guided them towards victory. The royal family was incarcerated and condemned to the guillotine, and with them, the one they saw as a traitor, the heroine.
The scene turned back, the villainess went to see her in the same dungeon, and after everything she had lost and suffered, she wanted to make her suffer, but seeing her in the same position she has been, she only felt pity for her. More so when she didn't plead for her life, she just asked her to forgive her, forget her, and get her own happy ending. Before being taken to the guillotine, the heroine asked the villainess if there could have been another way, if they could have been friends if they met under different conditions. The villainess goes on and tries to live her life, but the sequels of her imprisonment and the war make her health get worse, and she dies a few years later. In the afterlife, she is offered to decide the conditions of her next reincarnation, as a compensation for how much the heroine screwed up. She decides to go back to her own life in the past, and manipulates the events so that she meets the heroine as a child, she exaggerates a bit how much the treatment from her family affects her to gain her sympathy and such, which lead to the second timeline, with both of them surviving at the end.
