[Atsushi isn't quite sure either. Vin's world looks absolutely horrible, if that's what happens any time someone puts up even a little bit of resistance. So he stands there awkwardly for a moment before speaking up again.]
That...I get it now. What you said before, about how trust doesn't come easily.
[He's trying to make light of it, though in reality he does feel anxious as he touches the bubble and lets some of his color into it.]
---
'I'll take the front, you take the back.' Those were the instructions you had been given by Yosano-san, the doctor you had been traveling with. One train, two bombs, two members of the Armed Detective Agency to diffuse them. It's nerve-wracking to you, as this is only your third mission with the Agency, but Yosano-san is calm and collected and that helps you stay calm. If she is confident that you both can succeed, then surely you can pull through.
You hurry through the throngs of passengers on the train. They are all moving inwards, to the middle compartments, trying to avoid the blasts that will be coming before too long. You move outwards though, heading to the end of the train.
As you move, all you can think if 'If I fail to destroy this bomb, then all of these people are dead.' Moving inwards won't protect anyone. Either you succeed, or everyone dies.
You reach the last compartment, and a young girl is there, standing in front of you. She can't be older than 13 or 14, and yet she stands there like there's nothing to be afraid of. You call out to her, saying "It's dangerous, there's a bomb!" Trying to get her to move inwards, so that you can deal with the bomb without putting her directly in harm's way.
The girl turns to face you, and you see that she has a small phone in her hand.
A voice crackles over the phone: "Protect the bomb with your life. Kill anyone who interferes, Demon Snow."
Suddenly you feel a sharp pain in your stomach as you are run through. You fall to your knees, unable to cry out in pain due to how sudden the attack is. 'So fast,' you think to yourself. You didn't even see the girl move!
That's when you see it: the glowing woman with a drawn sword standing directly behind the girl. That must be the girl's ability, you realize.
You push yourself to your feet. Though your midsection burns with pain, you can already feel your body stitching itself back together. The healing process is nearly as painful as the stab itself, but you're grateful for it regardless. As long as your body keeps healing itself, you can keep fighting.
The voice over the phone speaks again: "Cut the enemy to ribbons, Demon Snow."
The ghostly figure behind the girl blinks out of view, and a moment later you feel your midsection get sliced open once more, spraying blood all over the train compartment in front of you.
'She's...too strong...' As you fall forward, landing on your face, you can only wonder what a girl like this is even doing here in the first place. "Why...?"
When the girl speaks, it's with a monotone voice, one devoid of all emotion or inflection. It's like speaking to a robot rather than a person. "My name is Kyouka. Like you, I am an orphan."
Demon Snow appears behind the girl- Kyouka- once more, hand ready to draw her ghostly blade once more. But Kyouka stands there, unmoving, only talking in that monotone voice. "I like rabbits and tofu. I hate dogs and lightning. In my six months with the mafia, I have killed thirty-five people."
Your stomach feels healed enough to stand up now, so you push yourself to your feet. You've lost quite a bit of blood, but you still have enough in you to keep going. For now. But as you get to your feet, that voice speaks out over the phone again: "Guard the bomb. Kill the meddler."
You can't be bothered with that voice though. Even as you see Demon Snow draw its blade once more, you only have one thought on your mind: You killed thirty-five people?"
In a flash, Demon Snow moves forward again, Pinning you to the wall of the train with its sword. Then it pulls its sword out, and you fall to the ground once more.
This time, as you recover- a bit more slowly than the previous two times, your healing isn't able to keep up with your injuries so well now- you find yourself becoming resigned to your fate. The Mafia wants you dead. You don't know why, but they've been trying to kill you for days now. And now all these people on this train will die, all because they had the misfortune to board the same train as you.
A young couple, the woman visibly pregnant.
A mother hugging her child.
A couple businessmen.
A few high school students.
They all stand one car back, watching you. Waiting. Hoping for a miracle.
"The fact that you still live and breathe harms those around you."
Your breath picks up, shifting to the barely-controlled sharp breaths that often accompany the moments where your past haunts you and freezes you up. You clutch your head with your hands, trying to squeeze out the voices that chase your darkest moments, but they still echo in your head freely.
"Why are you still alive?"
"You provide us with nothing but pain and grief."
"One with no redeeming values, such as yourself, has no right to live."
Down, down, down it drags you, into the familiar pit of self-loathing that often threatens to swallow you up.
But as you sink into that despair, a thought comes to you: If having no redeeming values meant you had no right to live, then wasn't the opposite true too? If you could use your worthless life to save the lives of others, then wouldn't it be okay to keep on living? If you use what remains of your strength to get these people home safely, then would it be okay to live just a little while longer?
With renewed strength, you pull yourself to your feet once more. Your wounds are healed once more, though your clothes remain bloody and torn. The wooziness from blood loss isn't so bad, you have it in yourself for one last attack. That should be enough.
"Stay away," the girls says. But you cannot. You have to act. You have to save everyone.
You reach down deep into yourself, calling on that power that you normally force away. 'Just a little bit,' you say to the tiger, 'give me just a little bit of your strength. Your speed.'
Demon Snow's sword swings in a wide arc, aiming to come down right on your head. Your one weak point that absolutely will kill you.
You lift up your arm to protect your head, and that arm abruptly shifts to the tiger's arm, covering you from elbow to fingertip in stronger muscles and thick fur. Fur that snaps Demon Snow's blade right in half, when the strike hits.
You dive forward, slicing Demon Snow to ribbons with your clawed hand. Then you stop just in front of the girl, claws pointed at her neck. She stands as still and emotionless as ever. "Stop this now. Show me where the bomb is."
The girl quietly pulls back the front of the outer layer of her kimono, revealing the bomb strapped to her chest. "My name is Kyouka," she says, emotionless as ever, "I killed thirty-five people. The last was a family of three: a father, a mother, and a young son. Demon Snow cut their heads off."
It's chilling, how calmly she says all of this. "Who...are you," you say in disbelief as you straighten yourself up, confident that she won't attack further, "Your words, your appearance...I sense no emotion from you. It's as if you're a killing machine."
The girl remains calm, standing there. Watching you. And so you speak again, more insistently this time. "You need to express yourself! If there's something you want, you have to put it in words! Is this truly what you want to do?"
You hold out your hand for the detonation device for the bomb. She wordlessly hands it over. But as soon as you press the 'deactivate' button, lights flash up on the bomb itself, indicating that it's been activated.
The voice over the phone speaks again: "Did you deactivate that, Kyouka?"
The girl, looking shocked, takes a step back.
The voice speaks again: "We are defusing nothing. Take the passengers with you and show the world the terror of the Mafia."
Then the phone line goes silent.
The girl stands there, looking shocked.
You reach out to her, shouting, "Lose the bomb!" But you know there can't possibly be time to remove it. This girl has seconds at most. And instead of spending those seconds scrambling for her life, she shoves you away and steps over to the open door of the moving train.
In that moment, as you watch her stand at the door, you realize something you missed before: Demon Snow only ever moved when commanded by the voice over the phone. Kyouka was never in control of her ability to begin with.
"I am Kyouka. I killed thirty-five people." Tears start to well up in her eyes, and her words finally, for the first time, show the emotion she has been keeping locked in for god knows how long. "And I do not want to kill anyone ever again!"
And then she jumps backwards, out of the train door.
There's no time to think, not that you would have to think about it anyway. What's there to think about? Someone is in danger, and only you can save them.
You leap right out of the train door, using your newly-shifted tiger legs to propel you right for Kyouka.
You grab onto the bomb with your tiger-hand and rip it off clean in one motion. Then you use your tiger strength to throw the bomb as far up into the air as you can. Far enough that, when it explodes moments later, nobody is close enough to be harmed by it.
Finally, you grab onto Kyouka, cradling her against your chest as you turn the two of you so you land back-down against the harbor's water below.
It hurts. It hurts so much. You fall nearly fifty feet to the water below, and you might as well be hitting cement with how fast you're going. You're pretty sure you've broken several bones with that stunt there. But your bones will heal within minutes. This girl- Kyouka- is alive and well, and that's what matters.
Your life is to be one of service to the people, and pain like this will become very common. But as long as your actions protect the people of Yokohama, then you will take on that pain each and every day.
This is what gives your life purpose. This is why you're still alive.
[there are some things about this she doesn't understand - she's never seen a bomb or a train before, not to mention most of the abilities on display here, but she doesn't really need to understand what they all are or how they work to follow the memory. and the feelings in the memory throw her off more than any of the objects or powers. the physical pain is one thing, and she'd be sick with worry if his injuries didn't stitch themselves up as the events continue, but the emotions...
she glances towards him, clearly concerned, but she isn't quite sure what to say for a few moments. eventually:]
You... do have worth. [...] You shouldn't do something like that here if you don't have to. When you jumped, I mean.
[He's not sure how he expected her to react. He's told Vin that she's like Kyouka, but he hopes she doesn't find the comparison offensive now that she's actually seen her. But the response she does end up giving, it makes his chest feel warm and flip-floppy and his stomach starts acting up in the way it's been for a couple weeks now. He's still not sure if this is a good or a bad thing, but in the moment it feels nice. He likes this warmth, as strange as it may be to him.]
I can think of a few people I would still jump after, even now.
[she pauses for a moment, deciding what to say, before:]
I know that when you were hurt weeks ago, you said that you would place the safety of others before yourself. [...] But if you come to a situation where you cannot protect everyone, I would have you protect yourself first.
[Part of Atsushi wants to argue that he doesn't want to lose Vin either. But another part of Atsushi feels warm and fuzzy at hearing that she doesn't want to lose him. It's that second part that wins out, with the butterflies in his stomach making it difficult to argue.]
I...mmm. Okay.
['Okay' in that he won't argue. But he will probably still be reckless if given the chance.
He also has to put a hand to his chest to try and get his heartbeat to calm down.]
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
timeasmymeasure
no subject
Date: 2022-03-08 04:58 am (UTC)[Not that she could have picked the specific memory she showed anyway.
He'll hold onto the hug for a moment longer before letting go.]
no subject
Date: 2022-03-08 05:02 am (UTC)[that's genuine, but as he pulls away - she isn't quite sure what else to say about that.]
no subject
Date: 2022-03-08 12:32 pm (UTC)That...I get it now. What you said before, about how trust doesn't come easily.
no subject
Date: 2022-03-08 01:29 pm (UTC)...I am glad you didn't have to understand it before. But - I'm sorry you had to see that, too.
no subject
Date: 2022-03-10 04:34 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2022-03-10 04:37 am (UTC)[a little shrug, though.]
But... I hope that it won't be this way much longer.
no subject
Date: 2022-03-10 05:13 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2022-03-10 05:19 am (UTC)[she frowns. ]
I just hope I'm not too late, if I return.
no subject
Date: 2022-03-10 05:44 am (UTC)[He doesn't actually know, but he wants to be encouraging regardless.
Also, they are still in the bubble, so Atsushi laughs sheepishly.]
I guess I have to go too, huh?
no subject
Date: 2022-03-10 01:57 pm (UTC)[her expression says she isn't sure, but she doesn't want to be a downer, so she nods with a little smile. then she glances at the bubble with a nod.]
Whenever you're ready.
cw: terrorism, gore, verbal abuse, suicidal thoughts
Date: 2022-03-11 02:13 am (UTC)[He's trying to make light of it, though in reality he does feel anxious as he touches the bubble and lets some of his color into it.]
---
'I'll take the front, you take the back.' Those were the instructions you had been given by Yosano-san, the doctor you had been traveling with. One train, two bombs, two members of the Armed Detective Agency to diffuse them. It's nerve-wracking to you, as this is only your third mission with the Agency, but Yosano-san is calm and collected and that helps you stay calm. If she is confident that you both can succeed, then surely you can pull through.
You hurry through the throngs of passengers on the train. They are all moving inwards, to the middle compartments, trying to avoid the blasts that will be coming before too long. You move outwards though, heading to the end of the train.
As you move, all you can think if 'If I fail to destroy this bomb, then all of these people are dead.' Moving inwards won't protect anyone. Either you succeed, or everyone dies.
You reach the last compartment, and a young girl is there, standing in front of you. She can't be older than 13 or 14, and yet she stands there like there's nothing to be afraid of. You call out to her, saying "It's dangerous, there's a bomb!" Trying to get her to move inwards, so that you can deal with the bomb without putting her directly in harm's way.
The girl turns to face you, and you see that she has a small phone in her hand.
A voice crackles over the phone: "Protect the bomb with your life. Kill anyone who interferes, Demon Snow."
Suddenly you feel a sharp pain in your stomach as you are run through. You fall to your knees, unable to cry out in pain due to how sudden the attack is. 'So fast,' you think to yourself. You didn't even see the girl move!
That's when you see it: the glowing woman with a drawn sword standing directly behind the girl. That must be the girl's ability, you realize.
You push yourself to your feet. Though your midsection burns with pain, you can already feel your body stitching itself back together. The healing process is nearly as painful as the stab itself, but you're grateful for it regardless. As long as your body keeps healing itself, you can keep fighting.
The voice over the phone speaks again: "Cut the enemy to ribbons, Demon Snow."
The ghostly figure behind the girl blinks out of view, and a moment later you feel your midsection get sliced open once more, spraying blood all over the train compartment in front of you.
'She's...too strong...' As you fall forward, landing on your face, you can only wonder what a girl like this is even doing here in the first place. "Why...?"
When the girl speaks, it's with a monotone voice, one devoid of all emotion or inflection. It's like speaking to a robot rather than a person. "My name is Kyouka. Like you, I am an orphan."
Demon Snow appears behind the girl- Kyouka- once more, hand ready to draw her ghostly blade once more. But Kyouka stands there, unmoving, only talking in that monotone voice. "I like rabbits and tofu. I hate dogs and lightning. In my six months with the mafia, I have killed thirty-five people."
Your stomach feels healed enough to stand up now, so you push yourself to your feet. You've lost quite a bit of blood, but you still have enough in you to keep going. For now. But as you get to your feet, that voice speaks out over the phone again: "Guard the bomb. Kill the meddler."
You can't be bothered with that voice though. Even as you see Demon Snow draw its blade once more, you only have one thought on your mind: You killed thirty-five people?"
In a flash, Demon Snow moves forward again, Pinning you to the wall of the train with its sword. Then it pulls its sword out, and you fall to the ground once more.
This time, as you recover- a bit more slowly than the previous two times, your healing isn't able to keep up with your injuries so well now- you find yourself becoming resigned to your fate. The Mafia wants you dead. You don't know why, but they've been trying to kill you for days now. And now all these people on this train will die, all because they had the misfortune to board the same train as you.
A young couple, the woman visibly pregnant.
A mother hugging her child.
A couple businessmen.
A few high school students.
They all stand one car back, watching you. Waiting. Hoping for a miracle.
"The fact that you still live and breathe harms those around you."
Your breath picks up, shifting to the barely-controlled sharp breaths that often accompany the moments where your past haunts you and freezes you up. You clutch your head with your hands, trying to squeeze out the voices that chase your darkest moments, but they still echo in your head freely.
"Why are you still alive?"
"You provide us with nothing but pain and grief."
"One with no redeeming values, such as yourself, has no right to live."
Down, down, down it drags you, into the familiar pit of self-loathing that often threatens to swallow you up.
But as you sink into that despair, a thought comes to you: If having no redeeming values meant you had no right to live, then wasn't the opposite true too? If you could use your worthless life to save the lives of others, then wouldn't it be okay to keep on living? If you use what remains of your strength to get these people home safely, then would it be okay to live just a little while longer?
With renewed strength, you pull yourself to your feet once more. Your wounds are healed once more, though your clothes remain bloody and torn. The wooziness from blood loss isn't so bad, you have it in yourself for one last attack. That should be enough.
"Stay away," the girls says. But you cannot. You have to act. You have to save everyone.
You reach down deep into yourself, calling on that power that you normally force away. 'Just a little bit,' you say to the tiger, 'give me just a little bit of your strength. Your speed.'
Demon Snow's sword swings in a wide arc, aiming to come down right on your head. Your one weak point that absolutely will kill you.
You lift up your arm to protect your head, and that arm abruptly shifts to the tiger's arm, covering you from elbow to fingertip in stronger muscles and thick fur. Fur that snaps Demon Snow's blade right in half, when the strike hits.
You dive forward, slicing Demon Snow to ribbons with your clawed hand. Then you stop just in front of the girl, claws pointed at her neck. She stands as still and emotionless as ever. "Stop this now. Show me where the bomb is."
The girl quietly pulls back the front of the outer layer of her kimono, revealing the bomb strapped to her chest. "My name is Kyouka," she says, emotionless as ever, "I killed thirty-five people. The last was a family of three: a father, a mother, and a young son. Demon Snow cut their heads off."
It's chilling, how calmly she says all of this. "Who...are you," you say in disbelief as you straighten yourself up, confident that she won't attack further, "Your words, your appearance...I sense no emotion from you. It's as if you're a killing machine."
The girl remains calm, standing there. Watching you. And so you speak again, more insistently this time. "You need to express yourself! If there's something you want, you have to put it in words! Is this truly what you want to do?"
You hold out your hand for the detonation device for the bomb. She wordlessly hands it over. But as soon as you press the 'deactivate' button, lights flash up on the bomb itself, indicating that it's been activated.
The voice over the phone speaks again: "Did you deactivate that, Kyouka?"
The girl, looking shocked, takes a step back.
The voice speaks again: "We are defusing nothing. Take the passengers with you and show the world the terror of the Mafia."
Then the phone line goes silent.
The girl stands there, looking shocked.
You reach out to her, shouting, "Lose the bomb!" But you know there can't possibly be time to remove it. This girl has seconds at most. And instead of spending those seconds scrambling for her life, she shoves you away and steps over to the open door of the moving train.
In that moment, as you watch her stand at the door, you realize something you missed before: Demon Snow only ever moved when commanded by the voice over the phone. Kyouka was never in control of her ability to begin with.
"I am Kyouka. I killed thirty-five people." Tears start to well up in her eyes, and her words finally, for the first time, show the emotion she has been keeping locked in for god knows how long. "And I do not want to kill anyone ever again!"
And then she jumps backwards, out of the train door.
There's no time to think, not that you would have to think about it anyway. What's there to think about? Someone is in danger, and only you can save them.
You leap right out of the train door, using your newly-shifted tiger legs to propel you right for Kyouka.
You grab onto the bomb with your tiger-hand and rip it off clean in one motion. Then you use your tiger strength to throw the bomb as far up into the air as you can. Far enough that, when it explodes moments later, nobody is close enough to be harmed by it.
Finally, you grab onto Kyouka, cradling her against your chest as you turn the two of you so you land back-down against the harbor's water below.
It hurts. It hurts so much. You fall nearly fifty feet to the water below, and you might as well be hitting cement with how fast you're going. You're pretty sure you've broken several bones with that stunt there. But your bones will heal within minutes. This girl- Kyouka- is alive and well, and that's what matters.
Your life is to be one of service to the people, and pain like this will become very common. But as long as your actions protect the people of Yokohama, then you will take on that pain each and every day.
This is what gives your life purpose. This is why you're still alive.
no subject
Date: 2022-03-11 02:29 am (UTC)she glances towards him, clearly concerned, but she isn't quite sure what to say for a few moments. eventually:]
You... do have worth. [...] You shouldn't do something like that here if you don't have to. When you jumped, I mean.
no subject
Date: 2022-03-11 03:54 am (UTC)I can think of a few people I would still jump after, even now.
[One of them is standing right in front of him.]
no subject
Date: 2022-03-11 04:11 am (UTC)And I imagine those people would not want to lose you.
no subject
Date: 2022-03-11 08:42 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2022-03-11 08:44 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2022-03-12 02:06 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2022-03-12 02:47 am (UTC)I know that when you were hurt weeks ago, you said that you would place the safety of others before yourself. [...] But if you come to a situation where you cannot protect everyone, I would have you protect yourself first.
no subject
Date: 2022-03-14 02:56 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2022-03-14 03:01 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2022-03-14 03:44 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2022-03-14 03:47 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2022-03-14 03:57 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2022-03-14 03:59 am (UTC)What I mean is... [tiny frown.] I would not want to lose you.
no subject
Date: 2022-03-14 04:08 am (UTC)I...mmm. Okay.
['Okay' in that he won't argue. But he will probably still be reckless if given the chance.
He also has to put a hand to his chest to try and get his heartbeat to calm down.]
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