Minami Arisato (AU) @ Destiny Strings (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
fracta_anima) wrote in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
animus_network2012-05-06 07:26 pm
fracta_anima) wrote in animus_network2012-05-06 07:26 pm
ITP: Consolidation.
OOC: So we don't wind up spamming the Network Comm and because some people just want to write: comment here to post your nightmares/punishment as you have written them. Please specify if it's a nightmare or a punishment in the subject line.
If it's a punishment, please also put in the subject line if it's viewable and on what day(s).
Remember to add your character's tag to the post.
Thanks guys!
--Random
If it's a punishment, please also put in the subject line if it's viewable and on what day(s).
Remember to add your character's tag to the post.
Thanks guys!
--Random
OOC
Punishment - Starting Day 6, Evening
[Except he looks down at himself, and he can see the ground below through himself. It's clear what's happened - he's a ghost. He tries to move towards the others, but they start spasming, Personas ripping out of their heads and proceeding to turn on their owners. He cries out, but no one seems to hear him.]
[Thanatos rips into Minato's chest, Medea cuts into Chidori's throat, and Moros starts tearing Jin's arm off. Ken can't do anything, just stand there and cry as they suffer and are slowly pulled apart by their own Personas.]
[It's dark again, and they're walking along a street. Minato looks over his shoulder towards something, and the group stops. Jin seems angry at Minato for some reason, and he starts yelling. Ken can't hear what he's saying, but Chidori is looking more and more distressed. She pulls out her axe, and Minato levels his gun at Jin's chest.]
[There's a crack and Minato's shot Chidori, who was moving to attack him. She falls back and drops to the ground, dead. Jin pulls out one of his grenades, and Minato just stares at him, as if daring him to do it. He pulls the pin and the world goes white.]
[They're standing in one of the higher levels of Tartarus. A huge Shadow stands before them, blocking their path. With one mighty sweep of its arm it knocks Chidori to the ground. Her face is white and her dress is stained with blood. Jin yells and summons Moros, but he's picked up by the throat and strangled.]
[Minato stares down the Shadow, and summons Samael, but the Persona's attacks don't seem to do anything. With its other arm the Shadow reaches out to grab Minato's neck, squeezing and crushing his windpipe.]
[The world goes black again - and the scenes of death and destruction play on.]
Punishment -starting Day 2 evening, viewable.
When it did, he screamed, gasping in air even as the noise rebounded back at him from the walls. Realising he wasn't in his bed, or even his room, he scrambled up off the floor only to be pulled back by a chain around his neck. Panic rising, Shion sat down with a thump and looked at the room. Any calmness he might have regained disappeared at once when he took in the sight in front of him.
"Nezumi!" Shion lunged forwards, the chain bringing him up short again not even halfway across the room. The other boy stood bound, flanked by two men with red collars. They both held knives, whilst Nezumi was gagged.
Conflicting feelings surged through him. After all, Nezumi was alive! He had survived the end of the world, or if the world hadn't ended, he hadn't died alone in the correctional facility. But... he was here, in this place that forced them to fight to the death. He was here, captured by these people. "Let him go!" Shion surged forward again, fighting against the chain to no avail. He was quickly becoming exhausted but did not stop fighting, trying to get free to help Nezumi.
"You grew up in luxury, Shion," The man on the left began. Shion's eyes flickered to him warily. He stopped struggling for a moment to listen to what he had to say. "While not too far away, those in the West Town starved and froze to death."
Shion blinked, head drooping. The man was right: Shion had been protected in Chronos as a child, purely because of his status in the Special Program, While Nezumi had starved and froze, fending for himself. Shion had been given everything he needed. He had never been too cold or too hot. Always had enough food, more than enough. A big house and a good education. Just as Shion was dwelling on this, the second man drove a knife into Nezumi's shoulder.
"No!" Shion flung himself forward again, vision whiting out with panic and anger, "Stop it!" They ignored him and the first man spoke again.
"When you were twelve, you didn't think of the consequences of breaking the law - not for you, but for your mother. She was exiled with you... you became a burden to her." Nezumi was stabbed a second time; though his eyes flickered briefly in pain, he didn't make a sound. Shion screamed again for him, screaming for them to stop. If it was his crimes they were reciting then it should be him who was hurting; not Nezumi. Never Nezumi.
It continued: every crime, every mistake Shion had ever made in his life laid bare. Each was another knife driven into Nezumi's body, the ground around him stained with blood. The fabric covering his mouth was stained red - the boy had bitten through his lip in his effort to stay silent. Shion's shouted threats turned into wordless screams and later tears as he struggled against the chain.
"You killed Yamase. If you had figured out the danger earlier, you could have saved him, but you didn't. You were lazy, satisfied with your secure life."
"You allowed children to steal from you, wasting Nezumi's money."
"The whole time you were a burden on Nezumi, needing to be protected, not capable of looking after yourself."
The words blurred into each other. Shion continued struggling, sobbing as he did so.
Hours passed, perhaps; Shion lost all sense of time. Eventually he collapsed in exhaustion, the chain holding him up in a half-crouch. A few moments later, a dull thud sounded, and Shion tasted fresh blood against his mouth. He screamed again, finding new energy as he launched himself futiley towards Nezumi's body. He couldn't reach it, of course... so he screamed, instead, not knowing what he was saying. Or if he was saying anything at all. Wanting nothing more than to hurt those that had killed Nezumi.
A dark rage filled him, flooding his vision with red and black. Nezumi was dead because of him, because of his crimes, his mistakes, of not being strong enough to stop this. Not strong enough to survive in the labyrinth.
Another sound made him look towards the corpse again and he yelled in shock: Nezumi was alive, covered in blood but unhurt. Still a prisoner, still bound and silent. His eyes, initially clouded, sharpened as they found his friend's.
Shion's voice was raw from screaming, "Let him go, I wont let you hurt him anymore." It was a useless threat and Shion knew it. So did they, because without batting an eyelid they began again.
"You failed Safu, you left her behind. She got taken to the correctional facility because of you." The stabbing continued, endless cycles of blame. Every time Nezumi died he woke up again uninjured, only to be killed once more. Endless cycles of pain and it was all Shion's fault.
"Even when you came here you were weak, needing others to save you... you were a burden on them when they should have been focusing on themselves."
Time lost all meaning, lost in the constant stream of crimes and blood. Shion's screams had long since subsided, he had stopped struggling altogether and yet it continued. What did they want from him?
"You heard them die, yet you didn't move to save them when you played hide and seek with the bears." Shion had stopped properly listening a long time ago. The rage and pain had consumed him completely. There was nothing he could do, no way to stop them hurting Nezumi. He had lost track of how many times Nezumi had died, because of him. All because of him.
"You read Reno's journal, betrayed his trust." Stab.
"You forced him to avoid you, and so he was attacked." Stab.
"You weren't strong enough in the labyrinth... everyone had to protect you, instead of themselves."Stab.
Days passed, Shion no longer registered anything but Nezumi's pain and so when the retrieval units changed what they said, asking a question instead of listing a crime it took Shion a few moments to register it.
By that time a knife had been plunged into Nezumi's neck again. "No! Wait... what?" Shion's voice was hoarse but he tried to concentrate. "Don't..."
"How many times does the name 'Shakespeare' occur in the novel Ulysses by James Joyce." Shion blinked in confusion, he had never even heard of such a novel. Expressionless, the man drew another knife.
"No. Wait, I..." Too late, the man drove the knife into Nezumi once more. Shion made a sound that could have been a scream had he the energy, but was more a whimper; laced with despair. "Please..." He was ignored.
"Which melodic feature is played by the violins in bar four, beat one in the first movement of Mozart's Horn Concerto No 3?" Shion racked his brain, desperately trying to come up with an answer. It was no good. He didn't even understand the question. Nezumi was stabbed again, even now given a chance to save him Shion was failing. Failing to save him, to stop them.
"How does Shakespeare use imagery in Hamlet to create a mood of tension, suspense, fear, and despair?" Hamlet... Shion had read that. He grasped onto the idea that if he got this right they might stop.
"They..." Imagery? That was pictures right? But it was a play, they used only words... He tried to think, remembering what he knew.
"They, they talk about it, it's... there's a ghost. Everyone dies..." It was wrong, he knew even before they shook their heads and drove their knife into Nezumi's chest. Shion watched, the flicker of hope he had regained falling into the darkness and despair that had taken over his heart.
"Explain the differences between two theories of globalisation." Shion stumbled to answer for a while, not understanding the questions. Never being able to give a satisfactory answer what ever he said. It only led to Nezumi being stabbed over and over again.
After Nezumi died for the fourth or fifth time since the questions had started Shion stopped answering. He had stopped struggling. It didn't matter, he had failed. There was nothing he could do. He was completely helpless, completely useless. Nezumi would be hurt no matter what because he wasn't strong enough or clever enough. He didn't know enough.
Tears streamed down his eyes as he slumped ont he ground. "Sorry, Nezumi... Sorry..." His words were almost inaudible, almost soundless apologies to Nezumi for failing him.
Still the questions continued.
"Why is the concept of citizenship problematic?" Nezumi had once risked everything for him, coming into No. 6, rescuing Shion, taking him out of the confines of the city that he had grown up in. Teaching him new things and yet Shion had failed to learn.
"Explain the term partisan alignment." Reno had tried to teach him as well, to train him to be stronger and yet still Shion had not learned. He had been weak.
"Sorry..."
"Illustrate two criticisms of the concept of tacit consent."
Even the apologies stopped eventually, tears drying up as Shion just stared forward, eyes burning. He felt nothing but pure, raging anger at the Tower, at these people, at himself... yes, himself more than anyone else.
He never knew what it was they wanted from him. It didn't stop for a very long time.
Punishment - Starting Day 6, evening;
No, logic dictates. If that were the case, you would be on the train ride home.
"I wonder if Senpai's alright," Rise spoke up first, and he opened his mouth to say something, tell them that he's right there behind her when he realized it. No sound was coming from his mouth. His eyes widen in shock, and he tried again. and again. And again. Still no sound. He tried to reach out to her, just to touch her and the others as they began discussing what they would each do now that everything was over... but he felt the painful zap of an invisible barrier, as though his soul was being blocked from theirs.
Was this because of him turning his back on the fight, letting the other live only to be almost literally stabbed in the back?
Everyone, please... hear me...! But no matter how hard he pleaded, screamed at the top of his lungs, there was no answer. Nothing but they group of friends drifting apart as afternoon gave way to evening. It was almost as if he wasn't there, did not exist at all.
Yet there he was, standing at the now vacant table before sinking into his usual seat and buying his head in his hands. No one could hear him, no one could see him. Was he truly a wandering soul in this world...? He couldn't even begin to dwell on the thought as night fell around him, as did the rain. Yu sat outside in it for well over an hour, not caring if he'd get sick or not - could a ghost even get sick? - as he thought of what he could do before he began wandering the town. No one could see him, see the rain fall down upon him. Not even Izanami, who had seen through his barriers and to the overwhelming loneliness in his heart, seemed to notice as she stood there in her human guise and stared up at the sky with a smirk crossing her lips.
What was even going on, anymore?
Three "days" go by as though they were a blur, and he watched as his friends went on with their daily lives. Rise had already left to return to the entertainment industry, Teddie returned to the TV world, and the others had school now. They all seemed close, regardless.
"Huh, that's odd," he once heard Yosuke mention as he and Chie walked to school.
"Hm? What's odd?"
"Yu hasn't answered any of the messages I left him..."
Because I'm RIGHT HERE. His heart cried out, begging the first bond he'd ever made in his seventeen years of life outside of his family to hear his voice. Just once but to no avail. His shoulders are shaking, and the rain was beginning to relent. Why... Why can you not hear me? Yosuke... Chie... Everyone...
...The fog began to roll in, almost as though brought about by how obscured his presence was to them. No one noticed the body that hung up on the telephone pole just outside the school except him, and he screamed even louder because he recognized it.
Teddie-!
Yet no sound fell on their deafened ears, and he fell to his knees as he saw the second form... was Rise. She hadn't even made it to the station...
His friends had unknowingly left him behind, even as the police came to collect the two bodies. Even his uncle looked like he was trying not to let his emotions get the better of him as he placed the sheet over Rise's and then Teddie's faces. Meanwhile Yu couldn't move, couldn't leave their sides. They couldn't hear his sobs, couldn't see him breaking down in tears as the fog grew even thicker, couldn't feel as he tried and tried... just to lay a hand on them one more time.
And it kept repeating...
One by one, they vanished into the fog and he couldn't do a damned thing to stop it. He understood now how Namatame had felt, being unable to stop the deaths of the first two victims. The pain he'd felt when he lost his lover, and then the girl who's discovered her body... how Yosuke felt when he'd agreed to help him get back into the TV. He knew it too well, because he saw it happen. Over and over again to those he loved like family. Deep down he knew it was only a nightmare, but it doesn't stop... never relented...
Then his entire world was gone, consumed by the fog as he floated there and static began crawling up his fingers, his toes, his hands, his feet, his arms, his legs... Yu had no more tears to shed as he barely existed there with no one to save him this time, no sweet release as his entire body screamed in pain though he felt nothing. But then, that dull ache was the worst of all.
Is this what would have happened had I not...
The young man stopped in his tracks,standing/floating there in the fog alone having wandered even though every step became painful. Nothing made a sound, not even his footsteps or his collapse.
Enough... I- I've had enough.
The feed ended there as his body flickered in and out of sight in both fog and TV snow...
Punishment - Starting Day 3; Public
It was a gear.]
Aw, fucking shit. [He tried to tug himself off, but it was all pretty useless. If they wanted to let him escape, they would. He was just wasting his energy and time. His head snaps forward though, when he starts hearing screaming.
Dave grits his teeth at the sight before him. All his friends are lined up across from him. Familiar faces. John, Rose, Jade, and Terezi. All the trolls he met were here too. Even Bro, Mom, and Dad. What was going on? There were even people he had started speaking to in the tower. Rose Strider. Taiki. Namine. Francisca. Shit. Why were they here? This was his punishment right? Why were they the ones getting punish-fuck.
This wasn't fair.
He tugged at his restraints again, this time with reason. He was okay if it was just him getting punishments. But this was different. If he hadn't died. This...they wouldn't be involved in this.
And then John was pulled forward. No, no, no.] Stop. Fucking cut this shit out. You won. I got myself killed like a dumbass. Stop.
[Of course they don't listen. That would be silly. Dave goes quiet, but the screaming starts. One by one, everyone he's cared or known are tortured relentlessly. He watches as organs are removed, limbs removed, bodies burned, friends drowned. It was unbearable from the start. Of course they would start with his closest friends. He wanted to apologize to John as he watched them gouge out his eyes. To Jade as they broke her fingers before removing them completely. To Rose as her tongue was cut off. He wanted to apologize to all of them, but the words never came out. Hidden behind the dark shades, his face never changed expression. It kept the usual nonchalant, uncaring stare. Behind the dark panels of plastic, his eyes told a different story. One that couldn't be seen to others, but a story he knew. He clenched his fists tightly, digging his nails into his palm. Enough to make them bleed. It was a small pain that he wished for. It made the ache in his heart hurt a little less. It distracted him just a little more. He tried to stay composed. Tried to not lose it even as his mind was barely in his grasp.
Even as, one by one, the remains and bodies of his friends were tied to him. They swung like pendulums on a grandfather clock.
Your name is Dave Strider. You're thirteen years-old and you're watching your friends get tortured and killed in front of you because you went and got yourself killed. Your name is Dave Strider and you're slowly turning into a clockwork made of your loved ones, counting down each second of their lives and your own. And you can'd do anything about it.]
Punishment - Day 8 (around 9:30am onwards), viewable. [tl;dr ahoy]
He'd been dying anyway, Thanatos, he'd lost control of the Persona, and it had been slowly choking him. Instead of fighting it, he'd given in and let it kill him, finally, rather than burden anyone else. The events of the Labyrinth have become a blur of pain and people dying, of his own pain, of killing and monsters and flesh-like walls. But slowly, as he opens his eyes, he realizes that he's on Port Island, at home, on the streets. At first, his mind is racing and he's half-conscious, thinking it's the Dark Hour, glad, but concerned. It's night time and there is, after all, blood all around him.
But slowly, as his brain catches up with his eyes, he begins to realize he is hearing things, seeing them, and that... it isn't what he thinks it is.
The blood... where is the blood coming from? There was no fountain or leaking pipes that could have changed around here, were there? And as he listens quietly, his mind begins to slowly realize something. He is hearing the rattling of chains. He is hearing something far worse, too: the faint noises he'd perceived to be the bustle of the city... are in fact the screams and crying of people dying at the hands of the monster some would call a 'Persona' he is leading. He had not noticed it immediately, but he has been slowly moving with the Persona, and at first, the boy you see now, blue hair, gray eyes, had not seen the corpses at his feet. Or behind him. Or in the streets. Or that the blood under his shoes is familiar, and horrifying--but it isn't the Dark Hour's doing. There are no coffins in the street.
Only corpses, everywhere, all around him.
Chidori, dress stained red, her body mangled. Jin, lying much the same way, and then Ken, and then even Koromaru, who by the looks of it had died trying to protect the others from him--
No. He thinks, this can't be it. This is a nightmare. It's not real...
He keeps walking. The screams continue. Like a puppet master being controlled by its own puppet, until finally, he stops for long enough to find a window, as if looking for victims inside. He can't close his eyes, no matter how hard he tries, but he can widen them in horror as he realizes that all along, he's had this... wetness, a sticky sort of feeling.
He realizes now... that it's the blood of his friends, his team, of innocent people around him. That it is not just Thanatos that has been doing this. It has been him. He did it. They were the same thing, after all, weren't they?
Thou art I... Is what it whispers in his head, and all too late he realizes this is his fault, that he's been doing this, as he begins moving again. Someone else, a couple he doesn't know. He strikes them down with the aid of his Persona, again and again and again, each person brutally a viciously assaulted with more than a 'swift' end. The brutality just rises, and as it does, the blood that is on him has no more time to dry than when more stains his white shirt, and he keeps moving in a cold, uncaring sort of way, a trail of corpses and blood in his wake, the Persona following him.
Minutes go by slowly, agonizingly. Half an hour. Then an hour. Then two. He wants to scream, to struggle, to tear away out of this hellish puppetry he seems to be under, but he can't.
Why? Why did I... Why did he kill so many people? I'm no better than him-- He's no better than Takaya, really, is he? He liked it, didn't he, murdering others. As if to add insult to injury, the voice of the God of Death whispers in his mind and yet somehow it echoes everywhere.
"You have taken so many lives," it jeers at him, despite not having a face to smile with, "What is stopping us... from proving that they truly are no better than we? Do you not desire their end? Do you not envy them and wish them a despairing end because they have not suffered?"
He is frightened by the brutality. Afraid. He knows the words of that... abomination, if it could even be CALLED anything else, might just be true. As if in amusement, it lets him scream.
"No! I don't... I never meant... they were all--"
Sadly, the fragmented sentence that Minato manages is not very impressive, and he cannot escape, though he does try. They march on in silence for a bit longer after this. Eventually, the murders, brutality, and magical destruction blur together and so does he; it is hard to tell who is doing what anymore. He's so exhausted, how many hours has it been, how long must he be forced to endure this...?
Then the Persona speaks again. "You always have meant it," it says to him mockingly, and then somehow, it's his own voice he hears, and he's horrified further, just when he thinks it can get no worse. "These people don't deserve to live. I've looked into them... requests for hits like these are making the world a better place." It says, and he shakes his head, fighting it.
"... Those people... were awful. They were abusers and--" He is cut short by the Persona.
"Look at yourself, boy, you belong with me for a reason! There is no difference between you and I!" The voice is cold and cruel, and he realizes he is being pointed toward a broken window (did he cause that? Is all this destruction his doing? Had the murders of his friends and half the city not been ENOUGH?), inside, someone's shop or home, he can no longer tell, but everything is frozen in ice. In the reflection of that ice, he does not see his Persona anymore. To his horror, it begins to dawn on him that at some point, they truly had become the same thing. Perhaps the sword is his own, and not the Persona's; the coffins and chains surround him, and not the Persona at all, but him, with horrible cold eyes and briefly, there is pause as he tries to fight this change, shaking. There are tears, but he cannot make himself stop.
The reflection-self holds the pistol up and mocks him as another innocent, too afraid to say a word or move, is taken by him and shown in the reflective ice as the gun is pointed at them and--
Bang.
"This is what you do!"
He's a monster. He's a monster. He's horrible. He shouldn't exist. He knows it's right. Then, slowly, deliberately, he takes out his sword, as the poor person is not dead yet, and cuts off their head before he continues moving forward. With every step, there are more people running and screaming and trying to get away, and each time, he strikes them down, expression twisted as though he enjoys it, though every reflective surface that he passes shows not that Minato, but one who is crying out and struggling instead, and that this is not what he wants at all. It will continue, even when the Dark Hour appears itself in the nightmareish Port Island, he's luring people out of their coffins just whispering to them and murdering them all terribly as Shadows appear to feed on the corpses brutally.
He is slowly broken. There is nothing left. Death... death and destruction is all he is.
He is a monster.
He cannot stop himself.
He killed Chidori. He killed Jin. He killed Ken and Koromaru. Eventually he even finds Minami and murders her, too. He will kill everyone. He is his Persona. He is the one who is evil, who shouldn't exist.
He is the monster. And so it continues...
Punishment - Starting Day 5 in the early morning; Public
The next thing he knew, he was here.
He had found himself in space, a dark void. It was cold, but that damnable twisting within him was gone at last. All around him were other worlds, other Incipispheres, other sessions. After a moment, he realized he could view them.
==>
Your name is JADE LALONDE and you've made a horrible mistake. In retrospect it seemed almost ridiculous to have trusted Jack Noir, but it was too late now--Prospit has fallen and your dreamself is dead, and worse still Rose had prototyped...something, you don't even know what it is, but it doesn't matter now. John messaged you moments ago, Jack caught up with Dave, and knowing David it was a heroic death, trying to take the Slayer down once and for all. He never had a chance.
Strider is back at the Land of Shade and Clockwork now, he has a plan, and you have a sinking feeling you know what it is. You can't even be scared anymore, there's nothing that can be done. You watch as he bypasses Rose's denizen altogether and brute-forces the system, and you scarcely even feel it when Jack runs you through. As you bleed out in the Land of Frost and Light, you can see the light erupt from LOSAC, and you feel as if you'll be fine, this is giving you all a second chance--besides, that wound can't be more than a
scratch
==>
David feels a headache starting to come on, and he feels almost sick at what he's witnessed. He goes on. They are all like this. Always different versions of himself and his friends, or of the trolls, or stranger still, of some version of what appeared to be his mother and his friends' guardians in their youth, or a session occupied by both his friends and their guardians in some iteration. One way or another, Skaia's fucking thresher of a "game" ended them all, or they erased themselves to try again in some form, whether they went through proper channels or carried it out improperly as he once had.
While victory is certainly possible in Sburb, Skaia has no interest in whether players win. It's a parasite, a plague on existence, destroying entire dimensions so that it can continue to feed itself. The game scatters countless seeds, and even a Scratch gives it a means of some propagation. A new universe will be created one way or another. Whether the players win is absolutely insignificant to the game's goal.
Old life is sacrificed to make way for the new. The children go into the woods and don't come out again, eaten by the witches and wolves, and from their bones and spilled blood, new life is created--beginning the cycle anew. It's a fucking deathtrap, designed to kill you and everything you love. Everyone you love. While he had every reason to fear Yggdrasil, she was right about every last thing that she said to him. He had known this before, but it had never been demonstrated so thoroughly.
The pain in his head grew, the pressure building in his skull constantly with his outrage and desperation at every doomed world he saw. He was forced to watch all of them die, again and again and again, and occasionally Skaia had fun with it, leaving them waiting for weeks, months, sometimes years for oblivion to finally reach them, whether due to the game's challenges or the group breaking down, or simply running out of food...
He can't bear to see what would happen next in the ones that went that way. He knows what the result will be.
He screams now. He can't stop.
He cannot watch anymore, but watch he must, in desperate hope that in all the myriad worlds, there is one where they win the game or else break it.
Your name is David Lalonde. You are thirteen years old, and you are in indescribable agony. You want nothing more than to be killed to stop it in this moment(it occurs to you that you are already dead, this is your hell), but you refuse to stop checking these worlds. As your mind starts to slip away from you, you only grow more defiant.
You faintly realize that your screams have gone almost silent. Your voice is gone, but still you scream.
Do you think I'll cry?
I won't cry.
My heart will break before I cry.
I will go mad.
Punishment, day 8, public
If he were dead were Psiioniic and Disciple dead as well? He looked around and realised he was in Japan. At least what was left of it. He stared around the rubble and began to walk. The first person to see him screamed and ran away, as did the second.
He saw Nunnally's body first, broken, pale skin contrasting with red blood in the rubble. Suzaku stared in horror, "Nunnally..."
A child screamed in horror running from him with wide eyes, terrified of him. Suzaku had the feeling this was all his fault, that it was his failure. He walked for a long time; the only people who didn't run from his in terror were dead. His friends, or his friends until he had betrayed them, abandoned them, left them to die. Anya and Gino, in the midst of their wrecked Knightmare Frames. The student council, Lloyd and Cecile. It is a few hours before he comes across Lelouch, his white emperor robes stained red with blood. Still alive but dying, he looks towards Suzaku and all Suzaku see's is contempt in his eyes.
Suzaku meets his eyes, taking in the contempt while around them the world lay in ruins, dying because Suzaku had betrayed it. Abandoned the world and everyone in it. Left them to die as he continued living.
punishment || starting day 3 || public
And then a beat later, everything is soft again. Sunlight, wind, and a voice.
Darkness. Sunlight, wind, and a voice. Darkness. Sunlight, wind, and a voice.
Darkness. Sunlight, wind, and a voice. Darkness, sunlight, wind, and a voice.
Darkness, sunlight, wind, and a voice. Darknesssunlightwindandavoice. Darknesssunlightwindandavoice.
Darknesssunlightwindandavoice.
Minako's crying is barely audible thirty cycles later.
She gets it. She lost everything. She won't get it back. Please...stop.
Day Five--Viewable
For as long as she has been fighting Shadows, Minami's known she's gotten a bigger kick out of it than feels normal. A thrill that runs through her very being with each jab and slash and spell cast that met its mark. Every time her spear sank into the not-quite-flesh of a shadow, it felt like her very soul was singing.
She wound up being sick in the toilet almost every night they went out. It would have been one thing to be numb to the killing, it would've been all right if she'd even been afraid. But this? To take joy in the brutality they sometimes had to inflict to take out the shadows?
What was wrong with her? Is this why none of her families ever wanted her around? They saw this in her and didn't want her near them again?
Would SEES feel the same way?
That's why when she awakes again after being killed, she's at first relieved. There's no one around, no one who saw her fight, who could tell how much she liked it. Then, the monsters came out of the shadows and she settled herself in place, not having the will to fight after the horror of the labyrinth.
But this place had other plans and soon, soon, she found her arms tugged forward as if she were a marionette, her spear in hand.
The brutality she laid into those monsters is better left unsaid. Even moreso when her spear broke and she was forced to use her hands to continue to rip and tear and pull them apart. The thrill! The sense of utter joy it sent through her! Why, she found herself laughing in girlish glee as it continued.
This is wrong. Make it stop. I don't want to be like this.
"Gross! Why do we have someone so sick even in our school?"
Yukari. No. Why is she here? Why is she seeing this? Why can't she stop?
"I hate to say it, but an asylum might be the best place for her."
Akihiko. When did he get here? No. Nonononono. Not here. Not like this. Not while she's laughing like a schoolgirl over tearing apart creatures that won't fight back, that scream and writhe in pain as she tears into them.
"Man, get her some electroshock already! She's freaking me out."
Junpei. If Minami had eaten well at all the last few days she knows she'd be throwing up by now.
"Or a lobotomy."
Oh god. Shinjiro. Why couldn't she even cry?
Out of the corner of her eye, she can see Fuuka looking ill, her face pressed against Junpei's shoulder to hide from the scene before her.
"I am afraid a lobotomy would do nothing for her murderous tendencies. The only course of action to stop her madness would be complete termination."
Aigis. That was when her heart finally broke. Not Aigis. Not Aigis who accepted her and wanted to protect her and went out of her way for her. Not the first person Minami had felt truly wanted her around, the first person who she could honestly call a friend and not constantly second guess herself around.
"Don't bother."
and her brother. At least him she's used to hearing it from.
They keep saying things, discussing her, moving away from her when her tirade--oh god how high is the pile of bodies getting? Why is she not getting tired? Why can't she stop?!--gets too close, as if she'll turn on them, too. Minami is scared she might, but she can't say a thing. Just keep ripping and tear and oh god her hands are raw and weak and why aren't they fighting back at all?
Eventually, when Junpei starts to throw up, they leave. And Minami is left to continue her murder spree.
It's hard to tell if she's laughing or sobbing by then.
Punishment- Starting Day 6, Evening- Viewable
Medea has never failed her before.
Even as she moves forward, Chidori can feel Medea try and scan the thing holding the rest of Strega captive, can feel the power swell, sweep forward- then falter and dissipate completely. No matter how she pushes, how many times she uses her evoker, there is nothing- Medea can't scan it, can't hurt it, can't stop it. It holds the others effortlessly in shifting tendrils of itself, keeping them immobile, keeping them defenseless. Ken is already hurting, his small frame not quite able to bear the strain of the grip it has on him, and his cries make her try even more desperately to summon Medea forth once again. There is nothing but silence in her mind in response as her evoker clicks uselessly beneath her chin, and she gives a frustrated noise in time with the yelp- helpless and unintended- that escapes Jin, one of his arms snapping-
-(she can hear it, sharp and crisp, like someone's stepped on a twig)-
- the lower part of his forearm bending outward at an unusual angle. She doesn't hear anything from Minato, but she doesn't have to- the clench in his jaw even as he gags on the blood that comes up through his gritted teeth says all she needs to know.
"Let them go-!"
Her voice sounds raw and desperate to her ears, and it frightens her because she has never, ever sounded that way before. But then, she's never been this helpless before, been this close to losing the only thing she has in the world that she will fight tooth and nail for. It seems like no matter how quickly she moves, she can't quite reach them before it starts to really hurt them- and each moment that passes with her unable to help them, they suffer for it. Her axes can't reach at first, but even when she gets close enough that they hit, they just bounce off and clatter to the ground, skittering to a stop at her feet. She pulls them back into her hands and tries again, but too late, she can hear the sounds of it tightening its grip on the other members of Strega even as it lashes out and sends her sprawling, her axes falling from her hands, evoker slipping out of its hidden pocket and landing nearby.
Her ribs are cracked- she can feel that much- but she rolls onto her stomach and pushes herself to her hands and knees regardless.
Will your failures ever cease, I wonder?
Medea's voice, cruel and mocking, as she struggles toward her evoker and pushes herself back to her feet.
She halts with it halfway to her temple, and it slips through her fingers as she looks to the creature once again, eyes locking onto her teammates- or rather, what remains of them. Jin's limbs are all at odd angles now, head lolling backward against the back of one of his shoulders, blood spilling onto the limb that had been wrapped around his neck, fragments of his vertebrae scattered in the pooling liquid. Ken looks smaller than normal, as if every bit of him has caved in on itself, blood welling beneath his unbroken skin like a full-body bruise, its only escape through his mouth and what remained of his eyes. Minato looks like its tried and failed to pull his bones clean from his body, skin split neatly along the lines of his skeleton, but only pushed halfway off, pale and bloodless and oh God-
The music on his headphones is still playing as one of them dangles dangerously on the ear closest to her.
It turns then, offering them forward like someone showing off- look what I did, isn't it neat?- and the bile rises in her throat, hands going to her mouth as her stomach threatens to empty itself. At this angle she sees Minato's heart beat in the space between his exposed ribs- once, twice, shudderstop- and then it drops him and the others to the ground, the sound they make as they hit the ground slick and unpleasant.
She doesn't realize she's been screaming until she chokes on her own voice as the monster turns on her at last and her vision goes dark, eyes squeezing shut-
Pathetic.
She opens them again to the sounds of Ken calling for her help once more, sees them all in its grip again...
It's all she can do not to let her screaming begin anew.
Day 8, viewable
Why only those sounds? That's because the land are littered with people's bodies.
The school was full of bodies of his classmates and his teachers. It's obvious they're dead, but he still run over and check for their non-existent pulse. It's gone. They're dead.
He runs out of the school and into the streets. Shadows are everywhere, fleeing from him, being neutral or chasing after him.
He can see bodies of other people he knows. The old couple at the book store, Mamoru lying down at the bench he always sit at, even young Maiko's corpse at the playground.
All he can hear are the Shadows' screeching and the voices in his head. They're not as loud, because the bonds he have are gone.
Gone. Dead.
What about the dorm? Minato holds that glimmer of hope as he runs for the dorm. But inside the SEES dorm, the first thing he see are their bodies.
Their dead, mangled bodies.
They're dead...because he's not there for them as their leader.
Minato looks around blankly, he looks out of the windows and at the streets.
And see a younger Yu Narukami. His mask finally cracks.
Minato Arisato's only company in this lonely world are the Shadows and the disappointed voices.
Punishment, Day 6 [TRIGGER WARNING FOR NEEDLES AND MEDICAL SQUICK]
He sat up—he hadn’t even realized he was lying down—to a familiar white room. Familiar? No, this wasn’t the tower at all—the walls and ceilings were white, but this shouldn’t have been familiar at all. His bed was harder, made of metal, and there was only one where there should have been four.
He sat up, his elbows resting on his knees, and ran his hands through his hair in exasperation, menially noting that the missing one had returned in his sleep. But something far more concerning grabbed his attention, and he stared at his open palms. No longer was he wearing his green bomber jacket, or even the white spandex suits that he had woken up in months ago. His hands were uncovered, and his sleeves were off-white. It took him a moment to process what it was; a standard white lab outfit. Not a uniform, or a lab coat, but something more befitting a patient. Something more befitting of his childhood memories. Something standard to the Kirijo Laboratories.
He glanced down at the rest of his attire in shock, and sure enough he had the white pants to match. The same white, blank outfit that he had worn for a good part of his childhood. A name tag identified him not as Jin Shirato, but a number; numbers he remembered but didn’t care to read, he’d memorized them throughout his childhood and spat on the combination once he had obtained his freedom. He idly thought about ripping the serial number off his jacket and storming out.
But he would’ve been stopped anyway, as when he looked up a group of men in white lab coats entered; the room was no longer empty and white, but instead outfitted with various machines, some purely mechanical for recording data, some for observation and monitoring, some that held chemicals and the remnants of shadows. All disturbingly familiar and unchanged.
The scientists approached him without addressing him, grabbing his arms, rolling up his sleeves, and an instinctive panic started to settle in Jin’s mind. He pulled away angrily, wrenching his hands away from the experimenters as a grimace crossed his face.
“Fuck off--!” He yelled violently, elbowing one of the scientists in the midsection, who let out a gasp of pain and stepped away. “Where the hell’s Minato?!” He demanded, bringing his newly returned arm back around to punch another man in the stomach before he could grab him.
“Minato?” Another scientist, that hadn’t been assaulted, sounded genuinely confused. “There is no one who goes by that name here.”
Jin’s eyes widened in surprise, though he couldn’t quite tell himself; he didn’t quite remember his vision being this blurry, and it was here he became aware of the fact that his glasses were gone. That’s right. He hadn’t gotten them until after he had escaped. Surely this was all some sort of twisted flashback from his paranoid mind?
No. But they would have known who Minato was, even if they hadn’t cared to remember most of their names. And he knew by his own voice that he was far too old to be a child stuck in the lab again.
In that momentary silence of his shock, a couple or scientists grabbed his arms, slammed him back on the bed to the sound of his grunt and clanging metal, and strapped him down to the metallic table. He struggled against his bonds and gave a yell.
“Screw off! Where’s Chidori?! Where’s Takaya?! Where are Izumi and the others?!” The last one was a stretch, but surely there had to be someone?
One took out a needle, testing the amount of liquid that was inside, and pricked his arm, injected it into his arteries. He winced. Some of the other scientists began speaking among themselves.
“Sir, there’s no one here on record by those names. Not even unofficially.”
“Must be delusional. Probably a result of extenuating mental stress.”
“Monitor him closely. See if you can identify a pattern in his thought process. And check how the Shadow reacts.”
Not on record?
Doubt and worry was beginning to make its nest; no way. He wasn’t delusional. He felt more sane than he had in the past week, there was no way---
His thought process was interrupted by another prick in his arm, and another in his other, and then another, and soon he lose track. They were worse than the initial one; bigger, more painful. Some started to bring over tubes. With the newly created holes, they stretched the skin on his arms and inserted the tubing, some pumping in blood, some pumping it out, some pumping in strange liquid that he couldn’t identify and he couldn’t count how many there were because his eyes were shit and his head was beginning to swim.
He took a breath; noticed again that his hearing was altogether improved as his mind was suddenly flooded with noise. He could pick up beeps and footsteps more easily than he could a day ago. That’s right; after they escaped was when he started to conjure up explosives. Chidori had always warned him that too many and he would go deaf. He said well, he wouldn’t rely so much on his sense of sound then. The constant booms and detonations had dull that sense a while ago. But that was after he escaped.
His heart sped up; the heart monitor he was connected to reflected that but—wait when had they set that up? He became aware of the wires and electrodes they had hooked up to his chest and struggled against the straps again, a sense of claustrophobia that hadn’t been there before nagging at his mind.
“I’m not delusional—other tests subjects, my teammates—Ken too, and Koromaru, what the fuck did you do with them--?!” He picked up the growing desperation in his own voice and it made him feel even sicker. His anger was ignored, except for one scientist that paid him a moment only to tighten his straps so they dug into his un-perforated skin and kept him still.
Another however, took pity. “There’s no one in this facility that goes by the names you’re giving us. You’re experiencing a delusional fantasy or perhaps a false memory.” He spoke almost as if he were talking to a five-year-old.
Jin’s temper flared; No. He wouldn’t believe it. Couldn’t believe it. His muscles tightened, but all that managed to do was aggravate the already agitated skin and unsettled the tubes and make his arms ache. He tried to kick, loosen the bonds or at least knock someone in the face, but eventually they held his legs down and strapped down his lower body as well.
Another man shooed the one who spoke to him away. Those who accompanied him had rolled over some other machine. They made sure Jin’s neck was restrained and began attaching electrodes to his temples. This won’t hurt, they promised.
But of course they were wrong; he knew they were, they had done this before. The machine would monitor something like his brainwaves, but the Kirijo Group always had to take it a step too far. The next thing he knew there was pain in his head again. Moros was forcefully unsettled again, not so much as coming out as being stirred from its passive-aggressive rest. His head was throbbing; his arms were aching; his chest was heaving; his heart was thumping. He was panicking.
He wasn’t going to scream in pain; that wouldn’t help anyway, it never had. His ears were pounding; too many sounds that were too loud than what he was used to, and too overwhelming on top of every other little bit of pain. He could hardly see anything clearly and that only made him even more scared.
His thoughts were racing. Where were they? Where were they?
Whatever the scientists were doing, they seemed to let up a tad. Jin managed to strain his neck ever so slightly to the side. There was an observation window here; all of the rooms had them, so the other scientists could observe or someone could see if a Persona went berserk. It afforded a small look into the hallway. He remembered when he was a kid he would always look out and see the other kids. Once he had seen a girl with audacious red hair, a boy with blue with special escorts, and a tall boy with a very particular look in his eyes. If he watched, he could see them again. They had to be here. They had to be somewhere. Anywhere. And as impossible as it was, he held out hope of seeing a boy with brown hair and even a small white dog too.
The scientists didn’t pay him mind as he watched. ‘He’s delusional,’ they kept repeating. ‘No one by that name or description is employed on these premises.’
They kept asking him questions about them; when did you first meet them, what are they like, do they protect you and comfort you? He answered all of them to as much as he felt like indulging these assholes, but all of them answered him with the same denial once he demanded to know where they were. One of the men wanted to diagnose him with Multiple Personality Disorder. Another offered PTSD, and another said that they were simply a coping method, like a child and their imaginary friend.
Every time he overhead their theories his muscles tensed, and it made the pains in his arms and his chest even worse. His thoughts raced, his temples throbbed, and Moros writhed in anger, and the scientists seemed a bit more satisfied with themselves.
Sometimes they swapped out the equipment he was attached to. Had to re-insert new veins, poke new holes, administer new liquids and medicines. Change the settings on the monitor systems, swap out the electrodes attached to his chest and head. He had no idea what any of them did other than make him various degrees of numb, nauseous, pained or delirious.
He kept watching the hallways, but no one familiar came by.
All he could distinguish was a rotating cast of men in white, but he lost track of the passage of time.