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

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. ]