So, you're dead. Shame, that.
But on the other hand, it's actually kind of nice.
When you "wake" in some odd version of it, you'll find yourself lying on a rather plush bed. It's cozy and warm and just soft enough to tempt anyone back into sleep. The room is equally nice, if small, and when you turn and open the curtains to look out the window, you will see... wait, is that the town?
It is, actually. The town is laid out quite simply across the window and no matter how many times you may bang or wave through the window, no one seems to notice you. If you're smart enough to give up the venture and leave the small bedroom, you will notice that, of course, you are on the train.
The train that, is actually pretty fancy.
Moving through it, past the sleeping cabins and through to the main carts, you will find a dining car with fine dishware and meals of all kinds made at a push of a button or a request given to the air. They'll appear, freshly made and ready to eat at the table of your choice with any drink you could want. There truly doesn't seem to be any limits when it comes to the luxury of the meal.
There is also a bathhouse car with private bathrooms and saunas to fit up to four. Even one rather large room containing a small pool/hot tub of sorts is available for just about anyone to take a dip. It's kind of outlandish, honestly.
Then the lounge car, with its library and plush armchairs and couches. A pool table, a darts board, even a small area dedicated to painting. There's a bar too, fully stocked and ready for anyone who needs a drink. All it would require is a request from the bartender who... looks surprisingly familiar?
The Sheriff is there, much cleaner cut than his counterpart outside of the train. He looks up mildly at any arrivals, giving them a nod of greeting before going back to organizing bottles or setting cigars out for a smoke. He doesn't seem to be surprised at all by anyone who appears. Just... ready to serve them, whatever they may wish.
It all sort of seems okay for a moment, until you realize you're just here to wait for the game to end. Awkward. |
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sheriffexe) wrote2017-01-13 11:14 am
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He ignores the way his own chest tightens over Jason's words. It's... still unfamiliar, receiving letters like these. (Because in spite of the way that Jason phrased things, and in spite of the part in Shinnosuke's mind that would like to argue otherwise, the caring is still there in between the lines.)
He doesn't know what the last bit means, even if he can make guesses. And comforting has never been his strong suit, so after a pause, he simply says, wryly:]
I'm a little offended that he's convinced we were both morons who broke curfew.
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I know! I can't believe he and the others really think we would've been so dumb. We're smarter than that, aren't we?
[ Briefly presses her head to his shoulder, taking a deep breath. ]
... I wrote a couple people letters early last week. I didn't know I was going to die, but ... I thought something might happen that I couldn't control. So I wanted to be prepared. The one I wrote to Jason, it ... it was a joint letter, to him and Natalie.
[ She could detail more than that, but she probably doesn't need to. The smile on her face is very sad. ]
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[He reaches up with his free hand, again towards Xion's head, though this time he gives her hair a ruffle rather than simply patting her.
Unfortunately, the future—their past, now—works in ways they can't predict. Often, they're bitter ones.]
Jason's a reckless moron. Whatever he does from here, it's on him, and no one else.
[Shinnosuke's worried about him. Still, that concern is pointless, he knows. There's no longer anything he or Xion can do for him.]
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Either way, she does try. Though her smile remains a bit hangdog, she tries to buck up a little. ]
Yeah, he is. Like some people I know. [ somewhat pointedly. she'll never let the two of them live down their post office brodate. ] ... I hope he'll be okay. I can't imagine how he must be feeling. I just hope he can be strong till this game is finally over.
[ However that end arrives. Knowing what they all know about how the end must come, it won't be pretty, either way.
She's quite for a moment, and then she sorts through the letters on her lap until she can grasp the one from Percy. She doesn't ask him if he's ready. She figures she'll know if he is, whether he says it out loud or not. ]
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[It's said with no venom, though. Breaking into the post office was a stupid (and, in various ways, traumatizing) move, even if it did them some good (and then the Sheriff burned it down, but that's pretty fitting for everything in Shinnosuke's life, to be honest...).]
... Who knows?
[There's unfortunately the very real possibility that Jason's going to snap, but Shinnosuke can't say anything more on that. He has no idea—both if Jason will and what that's like. Not for a lack of wanting, but... as tempting as it's been in the past to let himself lose it, that's never been an option.
He has to keep a strict rein on his emotions at all times. (He's getting tired.) It's why he remains calm now, tilting his head in acknowledgment, even as he dreads Percy's letter.
He's ready, mostly because he'll never actually be ready, so it might as well be now.]
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She is no more ready for this than he is. This time, she thinks, she'll probably cry, and it's not like she wants to. She is scared to death for Percy, scared he won't make it, scared he will, scared that this game will destroy the person she's come to love with everything she has to give.
With no real preamble, she'll open it up and start to read. Her voice will snag on the very first line, wondering and sad, and that's a pretty good preview of how the rest will go.
She chokes up into real tears halfway through his paragraph to her. You were brave from start to finish-- and she has to stop, her shoulders shaking as she lowers the letter and swallows a few times. It aches, how much she misses him, how scared she is, how much she hates this. Once she's done with that paragraph, she'll briefly press the letter to her chest and murmur: ]
As if I didn't have it memorized. Dummy.
[ A few breaths, and she'll start on Shinnosuke's. For this she's calmer, though something about her voice is very tender. It makes her glad, in a weird way, that someone else knew Shinnosuke, too. Was there for him, wanted to fight for him. It's the last line of that paragraph that robs her voice of power, and for a moment she's wordless, silenced by hope and pain.
It's not until the end - the vert last two lines - that she really reacts again. She reads the words aloud, then pauses, and reads them again, much softer. There's something about that -- something she doesn't like. It makes everything that's been twisting in her chest go awfully still. ]
... you don't think--?
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... He wonders if Xion intends on going home with Percy. It sounds like Natalie intends to, at least. Good for them.
Not for the first time, a part of him regrets ever telling Percy about his sister—about showing another side to himself. He wonders if Percy wouldn't have bothered with all his talk about being a team, if he hadn't seen that aspect of Shinnosuke.]
... What a moron...
[It's not your responsibility, he thinks. And it's strange, to think that anybody besides Gunjou would fight to help him reach his sister. Perhaps it's not surprising, as Percy has no stake in that fight—no idea what Apocalypse Alice means, no idea why it's the target of humanity's greed—but in that same vein, he should have no reason to care.
Likewise, Percy's final words bring hope and with it, pain. Shinnosuke doesn't know if he wants to hope, but he knows already that he can't help but have faith.
Time will tell if he's disappointed.]
I don't know. He could just mean that he hopes to end the game soon and thinks we'll all be brought back to the town... or he could be up to something. He's close with Mr. Barnham, who might've told him, or maybe the Sheriff told him, considering all the merit's he got now.
... Though if he knew, he'd just say so, wouldn't he? Or at least I hope he would. It's not like he's being censored, so he doesn't have to get all vague.
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Please help her. All I want is for her to finally live the life that she's been denied all this time.
... hadn't surprised her at all. It was just that, everything she'd ever come to learn about him had suddenly made sense. In the end, it's one of the reasons she's still here. With him.
(Trash wouldn't sacrifice everything about his own life - his only chances at happiness - to save his little sister.)
She'll laugh, a strangled sound, when Shinnosuke insults him. She feels ... similarly, at least. Terror claws at her throat and keeps her from speaking for a long moment. ]
Percy ... is the kind of person to take everything on himself. Whether he should or not, even if he says he'll work with others... in the end, he'll always decide it's his responsibility, or at least his fault. [ ... ] He blamed himself for not finding our killer but called us a team in the same letter. I think ... he has trouble remembering what it is to lean on other people.
[ Ironic, coming from her. More ironic, who she's saying it to. ]
I think ... if he really did know, he wouldn't want us to worry, because he's going to take care of it himself. I was hoping Mr. Barnham would tell someone, but...
[ .... ]
I'm worried about him, [ she whispers. ] He tried so hard to protect everyone. Tried so hard to protect me. I don't think he'll break, and that's ... that's what scares me more than anything.
[ What does it mean to go through this kind of game while caring deeply for everyone around you and somehow not snap in half? ]
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[But he suspects as much. It's rather difficult to find people who can genuinely rely on others when it counts, huh? Shiro, Yousuke, and Himi made it seem so easy, but they're the exception, rather than the norm.
He knows what Xion's trying to say. Perhaps he feels it, as someone who may not be so different from Percy, in the end (as much as the idea pisses him off). Breaking might be the easier option. Once you start breaking, you start dulling yourself to everything around you. In a way, learning to cope hurts in unimaginable ways.
In response to everything—when placed in similar situations to a game like this—Shinnosuke learned to become cruel. (But not cruel enough, apparently.) To get used to the idea of "killing people". May Percy remain a better person than he is, Shinnosuke prays to a god that surely doesn't exist.]
... It's like you said before. In this game, an ideal solution comes about when we all work together. But because no one's willing to communicate... it all falls apart instead.
If Percy's still retaining the barest levels of non-moronic behaviour, he'll at least tell the others that he's up to something, and hopefully they'll drag it out of him. [...] Dunno if I have that much faith, though.
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[ They're really no better than Percy, either of them. But, in the end, it isn't one of them trying to shoulder all these burdens alone. It's just Percy. Good, true, honest, trying-so-hard-it-might-snap-him-into-pieces Percy, who would hold her when she had nightmares and got offended when she thought he didn't trust her.
Xion's fingers compulsively curl until she hears the paper start to crinkle and she at once lets go, frowning a little at the way she's twisted it up a little. Oops. ]
... I hope he will. I just ... don't know. It's so frustrating having to just sit here and watch! I know the train is supposed to be a place we can rest, and we have to be here if we want to leave, but in a way, it still feels like a punishment. Just being able to watch and not help, it's ...
[ Xion looks up, directing her gaze out the nearest window. ]
... the worst.
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Tick, tick, tick. Every second then was agony, and every moment that passes now isn't much better.
As someone who isn't used to idle time, he hates it.]
Yeah, it is. This place was already an unwanted detour for me—being stuck in this stupid train is just a detour from that detour.
[He needs to save his sister. He needs to help those still alive. He can't do either of those things now.
He'd think something like honestly, I might as well just be dead, except he technically is, so that doesn't help. Stasis is, perhaps, the true hell. Just as the living might be envious of the dead here, he can't help but envy the living for at least having an option.]
Well, the Sheriff's employers run on pain. Guess they're making the most out of that, even in the supposed afterlife.
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actually,
would be why she's had nightmares each night since she arrived. Nightmares of collapsing to the floor, useless, her body not responding despite her own desperation to live, to keep breathing, not knowing how she'd die but knowing she would--
thinking only of the people she loved, apologizing to them over and over--
well. That's for her to know, and try not to tell anyone, and work out as best she can on her own.
Though, in a strange and horrible way, it might be a comfort to know that though their deaths were connected only by the man who killed them, they still ended up feeling similarly. Wanting to fight, not being able to, and now ... being trapped in unusual idleness that chafes them both.
She's a fighter and a soldier. Down time is anathema to her.
Shinnosuke wins a thoughtful look as he uses the word detour -- and she remembers, of course. His sister.
... ]
I always wanted to ask what your world was like, [ she says softly, looking away again. That their pain is sport she knows but does not acknowledge. She's given them enough of her grief. ] It just never seemed like the right time. ... you have a sister you want to save, don't you?
[ Her gaze falls to their arms, still twined together. For a long time she understood that he was pushing others away, keeping himself solitary, little though she understood why. When she heard that name - Saki Arisu - that was maybe the first time she started to get it, even just a little.
Then you can't inflict pain on those who might worry about you, like I did. ]
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Yeah. That's right. I'm guessing you want to ask about her, huh?
[She wouldn't have brought it up otherwise, he assumes.
Xion's asked once before about his world, but he didn't give her a proper answer. He spoke of the peaceful surface, of citizens who went about their lives in prospering cities. Not of the ingrained corruption, not of the disaster that had befallen the world, not of the Labyrinth Disease.
Not of his sister, whom he lost to said disease.
He doesn't talk about her. He can't, back home, save to Gunjou. Everyone knows the name of Saki Arisu, otherwise known as 《Apocalypse Alice》. By revealing that he's her brother—that he's an idiot who wants to save her—then others will only use him. That's the sort of world he knows, after all.
But he's mentioned her to people here. Briefly to Higekiri, who was going to die soon at any rate. To Percy, because exhaustion had caught up to him, from losing Yuna; from what was going to be Sara's fate; from having to suspect and deceive Xion. To Natalie, because he no longer saw the point in hiding anything beyond his own instinctive inclinations to privacy.
There's no harm in telling Xion, really. No risk, other than the possibility that she might feel sorry for him.]
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Xion lets her eyes search his face, quiet while she thinks. There's concern there, faint, bust mostly it's a lot like she's trying to figure something out. Figure him out, maybe. The sum total of their interactions has probably been shaped, almost entirely, by Shinnosuke's sister.
After all... ]
Isn't she ... the reason you've been fighting so hard all this time?
[ Whether she means fighting to play this game,
or ... fighting so hard to be alone, well ... actually, it might be both. ]
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[Simply. And then calmly, if offhanded:]
She's my reason for living.
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What's she like?
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She's... [was? how should he refer to her?] ... a willful and enthusiastic girl. She likes cute things, though most girls her age would, I guess. She's afraid to sleep alone in the dark.
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What sort of things do you think you'll do, after you rescue her?
[ Glancing at him with bright eyes. Not when -- after, like it's a foregone conclusion that he'll get her back.
To Xion, of course, it already is. That's just how much she believes in him. ]
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I don't know.
[When saving her in itself was supposed to be an impossible goal, he hasn't been able to think much about what comes after. At any rate, he wasn't even supposed to be at this point in his goal this soon; things happened one after another, and he's ended up having to improvise.]
I don't even really know what face I should make when I see her again... [Considering the trash he's become, and all. Pensively:] There're a lot of other complications too. Realistically speaking, I'd probably be lucky to survive at all once I make it out of there...
[The world would never ignore that a diseased girl—let alone the one that spawned Apocalypse Alice—returned to normal. The likelihood that others would try and use his sister as a guinea pig afterwards isn't none, he figures. As for him... the world, likewise, wouldn't turn a blind eye to what he'd done. He can't imagine that the reaction will be a kind one; otherwise, why would Liezel be so eager to see it?
Well, won't it be delightful to find everyone surprised and disappointed when the puppet I'm controlling brings back a girl whom he severed from the labyrinth, without bringing back any magic from this place which the whole world is paying so much attention to?
If they're lucky, the other messes he needs to deal with will be forgotten in the above chaos.]
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Xion watches him, all his carefully held in fear and refusal to hope, and shifts. Their arms are still linked; so she links their hands, too, finding his and threading their fingers together. ]
Smile. [ said soft. ] That's all you'll need to do. Until then... I know you'll fight. That's all we can do, isn't it? If there's anything I've learned from being here, it's that you have to fight, as hard as you can, and ... believe. I'm sure that ... no matter how much you pretend, you have people back home who care about you as much as we do. They'll support you, too, so you should let them, okay?
[ She can't help but think that Shinnosuke probably is the kind of person who ends up with friends anyway even when he claims so much he doesn't want them. ]
Maybe I don't know everything about what you'll face when you get home. But even if I knew all of it, I'd still ... [ -- ] there'll always be someone who believes in you. And besides ... I know you won't give up, anyway.
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Is he really allowed to smile, though? He chose to let tens of thousands of people die when he was only seven. For the sake of his goal, he's abandoned people, killed them, and turned a blind eye to the corruption that ran rampant in the world. He condemned his cousin for her human experimentation, but he knows that he has no right to: he's not so different, when the main reason he returned to Japan was to test his incomplete Holy Sword switch on diseased girls.
(He remembers Asahi Momoka, who smiled at him and thanked him as he slit her neck.)
In the end, he's nothing more than a hypocrite. For him to smile upon reaching his sister... that would probably seem cruel to the world—that he can still smile, even after everything.
Like a villain pretending to be a hero.]
Those people are part of the problem...
[Gunjou is one of the issues that he's hoping will be forgotten in the chaos, but if she isn't, then he won't let the world forsake her. Because she's his friend, probably, and she's the only person back home whom he knows Xion's words apply to: no matter what, she'll help him, and so he has to help her. With that said, he has no idea how.
And Shiro and the others are another story—all the more as Xion speaks, as it reignites how much he wants to believe in them. He can't let that faith blind him, however. No matter how much he might like them as people, he doesn't know which faction they belong to. Even if they support him, their organization may still be his enemy, which in turn makes them the same.
He'll have to tell them, sometime. He can only hope (ha) that when that time comes, he won't find himself with a knife in his back.
Or, if necessary, that he'll be able to strike Shiro down.]
Unfortunately, just a few people won't be able to fight against the world themselves. [...] But you're right in that giving up isn't an option.