[ WEEK ONE – KILL LOG ]

[sheriffexe]

[ Tonight, when everyone is finally safely in the realm of "not here", the Sheriff approaches the jail cells with his keys hanging off his finger. He reaches the doors and unlocks them both, just raising an eyebrow at both the girls before backing up. ]

Time for you to both go home. Pretty sure y'all know how to do it by now. I'll be upstairs and I'll come for one of you in the morning.

[ After that, he tips his hat and just walks right out of the door to the station. It's up to Ao and Tiara now, it seems. ]

Comments

[abasing]

Your bro--

Oh my, Miss Ao!

[How hard was she clutching that damn bottle? Tiara didn't even realize they were so fragile, damn. She steps forward immediately, reaching for Ao's hands.]

Did you cut yourself? Please, take care with that glass.

[Once the party healer, always the party healer, it seems.]

[kensho]

[ When Tiara rushes over to help, Ao stares at the blood on her hands and the glass covering it and she can't help but begin to tear up. She has to -- she has to do something. She has to get back to Sakurashin and she doesn't want to do this but -- ]

I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm really really sorry!

[ Which of course means one hand grips a rather large piece of the broken bottle as she slides out of her chair and sends it swiping through the air at Tiara. Her other hand moves to her face, wiping at the tears and really just covering her face in blood in the process. ]

[abasing]

[Oh.

It's only battle-honed instincts that save Tiara there. She flinches backwards, stumbling and falling, and crashes to the ground, eyes wide as she stares at Ao.

There are tears in Ao's eyes--but there's also no doubting it.

The girl's trying to kill her.

And can she blame her, really? She's trying to kill Tiara because it's Ao or Tiara. It's one or the other. Only one of them can go home, and if neither of them does this--both of them die. Ao has to save her brother.

But Tiara has to survive too. For the sake of her goals, for the sake of the peace she's wishing for, she has to survive. Her fingers press against one of the bigger shards on the ground from Ao's mess, and clenches around it, ignoring how it bites into her skin. Ao can't give up now, right?

She'll be ready, when Ao tries again--she won't die here.]

[kensho]

[ She doesn't know what she's doing, honestly. She's never tried to attack anyone before, not really. She remembers holding the fork to Enjin's throat, feeling the hate flow through her veins like cold, unforgiving ice. She doesn't feel anything like that now, not even as she sniffs and wipes at her nose and grabs her shard harder. It digs into her palm and her eyes focus on Tiara.

She has to do this. She has to do this so she can go home. Tiara's on the floor so this should -- this should be simple. She blinks to get tears out of her eyes and takes a breath before rushing forward with the shard held in her hand.

She has to attack. She has to attack. She has to kill. ]

[abasing]

[It's kill or be killed here--and Tiara doesn't intend to be killed.

(She remembers Ao talking about her home in that cell, as if it was her favorite place in the world, as if there was nothing more beautiful.)

Tiara rolls to her feet, twisting to dodge the jagged edge just barely, and lifts her own glass shard.

(Ao's face had lit up at Yuna's cakes too, and Tiara had wondered, for a brief moment, at how similar they both were in their simple pleasures.)

She jams the glass forward, at the closes skin she can find, working off of pure instinct and adrenaline and nothing else--and feels the warmth of blood over her fingers as she slams the glass shard into Ao's throat.

(It's sickening, really; a day ago, she'd been grateful it was someone like Ao she was stuck in those cells with. And now?

Now there's nothing.)]

[kensho]

[ Ao freezes and for a moment, just a moment, she's not truly sure what's happening. The shard in her hand drops to the floor and she sees Tiara, armed and troubled and --

Oh.

She tries to swallow and pain blossoms through her, unbelievable amounts of the type she's never felt before. Blood fills her mouth and spills over her lips and she holds her hands up, catching the spray in her palms. She looks at them and then at Tiara and she gurgles slightly, is able to choke out a -- ]

I'm sorry.

[ And then she starts to stumble away. Get away, get away, get away. The shard is in her throat but not deep enough and every breath is agony. Her bloody hands drag everywhere as she grabs chairs and then the door as she pushes out of the saloon. She's not sure where to go, stumbles blindly and finds herself closer to the train than anything else.

Blood follows her, dripping all over the dirt as she walks and walks. She trips over the railroad tracks, falling to her knees as she drags herself across them. Where is she going? Where is she going? Ahead of her, she can blearily see the coal mines and there really isn't any way back, is there?

She collapses into the dirt, staring up at the moon above them and it is still so, so very pretty. She thinks Gin would have liked this sky, as clear as it is. Maybe now she can show him. She feels blood spill out of her mouth and throat and she thinks she's going to die, but oh -- it's taking so long, isn't it?

A shaky hand lifts up to grab the shard as best as she can and she pushes. Every last ounce of strength she has left finds Ao pushing the shard deeper into her throat, dragging it across the skin and --

Ao Nanami is dead. ]

[abasing]

[It's horrible.

Ao stumbles away and Tiara lets her, remaining crouches on the ground, shivering as blood spills over her hands. It's horrible. It's so, so horrible. It's so horrible because she's a monster and more than anything, she'd wanted to stop this from happening.

She didn't want to be a monster.

But in the end...she is. She swallows, tears in her eyes, and slowly pushes herself to her feet, swaying. She has to... find Ao. Even if--even if she might be dead, she might not be too. (If she's not, what will Tiara do?)

She can't just leave her. It feels wrong. So she follows, and the blood is easy to see by moonlight, a shining in the light, and that's disgusting too. Tiara had been right. Beautiful things in a horrible place is a horrible thing in and of itself.

Ao's dead when she finds her. She's clearly dead, staring up at the sky, and shakily, Tiara reaches out to close her eyes. This... isn't right. Leaving her body like this, in the dirt... she lifts Ao's arms without thinking, almost, and drags her towards the graveyard, something she'd seen earlier. A proper burial--a proper burial....that's only right.

Right?

One of the plots is looser than the others; Tiara can't read the names of the graves in the darkness, but she chooses that one for its ease. There's a shovel--helpful. She digs, as best she can. but Tiara's weak and the cuts in her hand from the glass sting, and she only manages a shallow hole. Shakily, she looks over at Ao.]

I... I am so sorry, Miss Ao. So... very sorry.

[She puts Ao in the shallow grave, and dumps dirt back over her, but it's a messy job, done poorly, and then she drops the shovel, blood smeared on the handle still.

She has to go clean off her arms and hands. And then.... what?

She doesn't know. But it doesn't really matter, does it? She's a monster anyway.]