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MISSION 2.B
Participants: Shuichi, Akira, Rika, Kokichi
Location: Fourth Floor
Date: 08/22 - 08/28
(ooc notes: I will state any possible content warnings in the subject line of the mod response when it comes up. If anything makes you uncomfortable, please tell me so I can back off and refocus the thread.
There will be no tag order, and a mod response will come after at least 4 player responses OR the next day, whichever is earlier. Please note this means that if you're absent for a day or more, the thread will move on, but I will pace things so that people aren't missing large plot beats.)
Location: Fourth Floor
Date: 08/22 - 08/28
(ooc notes: I will state any possible content warnings in the subject line of the mod response when it comes up. If anything makes you uncomfortable, please tell me so I can back off and refocus the thread.
There will be no tag order
cw burn descriptions, suicide
After this? Something... I've never been able to watch until the end.
[ Shuichi looks back at his friends and his friends... they can hear noise from down the hall, things crackling and crashing, people crying and moaning, the smell of burnt flesh, the smell of alcohol that continues to linger outside despite being in relatively fresh open air.
The student finally steps away from the ledge, keeping a hold on Shuichi's hand and leads him over towards the structure covering the stairs (the this thing, whatever this is called) and waving for the other three to get on top of it before the other students start pushing their way up the stairs and out the door. The sight doesn't get easier from when they saw the state of these students from the ground floor, skin charred and peeling, flesh underneath raw and bleeding, the way they fight each other to fit through that little opening of a doorway in their bid for freedom, piling on each other, grabbing each other, snapping bones and breaking noses just to get outsideโ and for what? A breath of fresh air, a fenceless space, bodies stepping off the edge and falling one by one by one.
All this time, the desperation to escape leaving so much death in their wake, it was only to run towards death themselves. There is no helping them. There is no saving them. There is no ledge, no ladders, no way around the clocktower separating the other half of the rooftop. Nothing but the sheer drop forty feet to the ground.
And, after the five of them left on the rooftop finish watching the scene, what option is there but to join the others?
Day in and day out, it's this sort of memory that replays. ]
no subject
They climb atop the structure that houses the stairwell (which apparently is called a bulkhead in architectural terms.... the more you know, I'd never have guessed), and even if they need to pause for a while to make it, Shuichi has no intention of staying separate either. He'll take the student's hand again without protest, squeezing it softly through the rest of the nightmare scenes that unfold. It's... difficult to watch -- so he understands that answer, in a way, frustration building up in the back of his chest as he bites at his lip not to cry.
Is there really nothing they can do for these students...? This goes far beyond themselves. It isn't fair. He doubts that any of these people he has to watch as they head to the edge is responsible for what happened... for the state that they're in, for the fact that they have to die. ]
Ah... um, Goto-san...?
[ It takes him a while to remember, and when he does it's not certain. Sorry, but it's difficult to remember a name that was spoken by Clamor like... maybe once in his presence, at most. (And they were... sort of, a circumstantial witness in Izumi's murder, that helps.) i'm sorry i didn't wanna call them hooded student anymore ]
The roof catches fire eventually, right? That's the logical conclusion... but I do think Kurusu-kun has a point. If we have any time before then... there might still be something we can do.
[ i'm sorry ori i'm trying to cheat the system (again) ]
no subject
Yeah, the roof catches on fire, and everyoneโ everything inside burns except for the frame and the outer walls. It comes up here and... I jump. Because I'd rather die on my own volition than be backed into a corner and burned alive.
[ They've never seen the end. Even this much, seeing former classmates fling themselves into the abyss, is further than they'd like to see. The prospect of being all alone, the prospect of having no other choice.
The flames burning on the fourth floor after they passed through it, sealing off any chance of turning back. ]
no subject
The frame and the outer walls...
[ Outer walls... ]
Then... is there something that keeps the fire contained?
[ Maybe the same thing that kept them in? But people can jump from the rooftop... right? So it has to be on the lower floors. ]
no subject
[ Construction worker? The counselor. Either way, they have no idea why the school itself remains standing even after its lower floors are reduced to nothing but a husk, and also no idea what good knowing would do. ]
What are you thinking?
no subject
The windowsill... on the fourth floor. I don't think anyone could do that alone, but if the five of us work together... we might.
[ There was a window, right? Only one... but there was, he just tried it before they went up the stairs and through the door. Shuichi's voice feels shaky as he speaks, but he doesn't stop. After all... even if they don't try, it's not like the end would be different. The most that they'd risk is the same thing they're risking now. ]
We can't hold out for too long standing there, but if this really is just a memory... we don't have to. There's a time limit, right?
[ The point past which Hikaru died -- not in any of the repeats, but that first time, in life. They wouldn't remember past that, so wouldn't the memory end on its own? ]
no subject
[ The reason for the time limit is that growing fire they can see glowing behind the door back to the school, and it's the reason why this is as far as they've gone and never turned back.
Is breaking through the window and falling thirty-five feet instead of forty from the rooftop any better? ... ]
no subject
[ Yeah, he's suggesting they lower themselves with each other's help from the roof to the window on the outside, just a little insane, this is fine. They only need to hold out and survive like a second longer than Hikaru's memory, right? ]
The fire stays contained in the building... I believe in your observations, Goto-san.
[ In the fact that just maybe... there's something they've earned at the end of repeating their suffering all this time. ]
1/ cw suicide
Hikaru is the one with nothing to lose, no reason to say no, so if everybody is in agreement then that's that. They'll believe in Shuichi too. ]
Okay.
[ Alright. The windowsill doesn't stick out too much to get a good foothold, but there's it's wide enough for five people to pack close together and hang on. Hikaru lowers themselves first, gaze falling on the two gorinto on the other side of the glass, a sad smile on their face as they scooch over to the leftmost edge, watching the fire ravage the school and its students that they, despite everything, loved.
Seconds pass. Minutes drag on. Sweat on their fingertips make hanging on difficult, let alone the trembling muscles in their arms. The memory isn't ending, because the ending has always been set in stone. ]
...I'm going to let go.
[ The least Hikaru can do is give prior warning. ]
Don't worry, this isn't me giving up. This is a memory... one that I locked away because it was too much to bear alone. But I'm not alone, am I? None of us are. I think I'll be able to handle it now, so... Thank you for being with me and seeing this through to the end.
2/2 cw suicide
IF WE MEET SOMETIME IN THE FUTURE, COME BE MY FRIEND, OKAY!?
[ They're swallowed up by the darkness below, and up above... it's light. It's the window shattering with a burst of flame and piercing glass, so hot it feels cold, the shock of a cold shower on a hot summer's day, the startling wide awake from a nap you hadn't meant to take. ]