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JANUARY EVENT LOG
00:00 01/01
✽ At the stoke of midnight, something shatters on the ground floor in front of the bulletin board, and the entire school goes dark: all electricity gets shut off, all flames are snuffed out, and the sky is heavily overcast to hide the moon and the stars. The only source of light are the suncatchers purchased from the student store, but even those fully charged will start to dim and go out over the next three days.
✽ Nene, Hinata, Noah, Amami, and Komaeda will smell something burning, and if they pull out their PDAs, it is hot to the touch and the casing is cracked, like something had blown from the inside, and their PDAs will not be working. For everybody else, the screen flickers when they press their thumb to their PDAs, and then goes dark again. ...
✽ If anybody was inside the main school building at midnight, I am so sorry, and for everybody else who enters the building afterwards, please watch your step. The appearance and atmosphere of the school has changed to that of the "void school" and can not be reverted upon breaking a mirror. Please refer to the aforementioned link for details about the school.
✽ As of midnight, no npcs can be found inside the school, including the library ghost, the gardener, and the cats. If a character were near an npc at midnight, it would appear as if they'd disappeared into the shadows the moment the world went dark.
✽ Nene, Hinata, Noah, Amami, and Komaeda will smell something burning, and if they pull out their PDAs, it is hot to the touch and the casing is cracked, like something had blown from the inside, and their PDAs will not be working. For everybody else, the screen flickers when they press their thumb to their PDAs, and then goes dark again. ...
✽ If anybody was inside the main school building at midnight, I am so sorry, and for everybody else who enters the building afterwards, please watch your step. The appearance and atmosphere of the school has changed to that of the "void school" and can not be reverted upon breaking a mirror. Please refer to the aforementioned link for details about the school.
✽ As of midnight, no npcs can be found inside the school, including the library ghost, the gardener, and the cats. If a character were near an npc at midnight, it would appear as if they'd disappeared into the shadows the moment the world went dark.
??? whenever you guys solve the void
✽ 01/10 marks the beginning of the final semester, and when npc students and faculty will return to school. Of the ~260 npc students enrolled at the start of December, only ~40 npc students return to school, with the other three quarters having their names crossed off the class roster in the locker area. In light of the rapidly shrinking student body, homerooms will be consolidated by year, creating a single class for each of the first, second, and third years.
✽ The countdown in front of the bulletin board has reached zero, and the glass tube appears to have shattered and bled out onto the floor, to nobody's surprise. The mess will be cleaned up by the end of the week, and in its place is a notice for the school trip taking place next month. Please see the toplevel below for more details.
✽ The science lab is now open. Add will probably elbow people out of the way getting here, but he gets dibs on the anatomical model: it is warm to the touch, and rather than being made of plastic, the skin, muscle, bones, other organs feel very much real. He thinks they might be. The rest of the room is set up like a typical research lab, with all the basic chemicals and equipment: a refrigerator, liquid nitrogen storage tank, sonicator, incubator, autoclave, laminar flow cabinet, mass spectrometer, and a high performance liquid chromatography system.
✽ It snows on and off and the sky remains overcast with no sign of the sun all month.
✽ The countdown in front of the bulletin board has reached zero, and the glass tube appears to have shattered and bled out onto the floor, to nobody's surprise. The mess will be cleaned up by the end of the week, and in its place is a notice for the school trip taking place next month. Please see the toplevel below for more details.
✽ The science lab is now open. Add will probably elbow people out of the way getting here, but he gets dibs on the anatomical model: it is warm to the touch, and rather than being made of plastic, the skin, muscle, bones, other organs feel very much real. He thinks they might be. The rest of the room is set up like a typical research lab, with all the basic chemicals and equipment: a refrigerator, liquid nitrogen storage tank, sonicator, incubator, autoclave, laminar flow cabinet, mass spectrometer, and a high performance liquid chromatography system.
✽ It snows on and off and the sky remains overcast with no sign of the sun all month.
OOC
✽ Please give the temporary locations page a thorough read! The most noticeable changes aside from the usual void school appearance is the scattered void, lack of electricity in both the school and the dorm, and the ability to walk off campus. The setting will remain as is until the characters figure out how to revert the change, or on 01/10, whichever comes first.
✽ PDAs will be inoperable until fixed. Tech-savvy characters may realize that the PDAs are powered through inductive charging, and the first step to getting them (also electrical appliances and hot water) to work again is to locate the generator.
✽ All npcs will be ICly unavailable until we unvoid the school.
✽ PDAs will be inoperable until fixed. Tech-savvy characters may realize that the PDAs are powered through inductive charging, and the first step to getting them (also electrical appliances and hot water) to work again is to locate the generator.
✽ All npcs will be ICly unavailable until we unvoid the school.
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Can we stop this? If you're angry just... [ There's a cruelty in trapping her in talking like this that she hates. What is she supposed to even say? The glance she shoots Sou is both sad and angry before she bites her lip and sighs. ]
If you don't want it back, I'll keep holding onto it. It would be weird if I threw it away. [ And she doesn't want to wear it. There's blood on it...in more ways then one. ] If you wanted to...that would be different. But its not mine!
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Just what, Sara? ...I'd say I have reason to be angry, don't I?
[She really isn't trapped here. She can end the dialogue and walk off at any time... with what she's purchased, even. Anger isn't quite what he's feeling though; maybe initially, at this point it's dried to a bitter woundedness.]
If you say so. Personally, it's no longer my problem what you do with it.
[Well, maybe it would be a little, if she burned it or something. But in the way where he's effectively blockading himself from letting feeling complicatedly upset about it go anywhere else because he made the choice just now that he'd have only himself to blame for it. He takes back the bag of chips, which disappear back into his jacket with a rustle.]
There's your prize. Unless you've got anything else to barter?
[It's cold and detached, but at least he's not running her out of town? It's... kind of silly, but the kotatsu-coffin-stall between them does feel like a shield even if she could probably jump over it easily if she really wanted to. That leaves room for the fact this is getting a little weirdly fun.]
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[ She'd thought being ranted at would be better then this but now she's feeling more unsure. Maybe she doesn't want to know what Sou is feeling. Maybe it will be so awful she'll loose control again. ]
I'm sorry, alright? It's weird to tiptoe around it... You were right, I shouldn't have been mad.
[ She'd proven him perfectly right in every universe, and she had only herself to blame for it. Self esteem, rock bottom. She's still angry, somewhere, enough to want to push back...but its not like its a situation where she can confidently say she was in the right. So she's sorry. Now shut up and let her be. ]
One kotatsu please. [ You ever apologize for attempted murdering a guy and then segway into demanding the one thing in the room that you couldn't feasibly steal when his back was turned. ]
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[They both know exactly what happened, even as he still doesn't know why. Being mad about something, apparently, but right... right about what? There's so many things she could be referring to, that he can't really pinpoint it. Even narrowing it down to that disastrous conversation doesn't quite help.]
.......
...
...
It's not for sale. This is a food stall, Miss Sara.
[Just an utterly deadpan look. This was absolutely not what he was expecting, but also not his first rodeo with buckwild requests at the counter.]
If you can eat the whole thing, then it'll be free of charge.
[Good luck getting him to turn his back he is watching these things and Sara like a hawk... although honestly if she just took something his resistance would be by definition feeble.]
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[ It slips out naturally, the same cadence as months of previous conversations. Her lips twitch into a smile, and her tone lightens. For a second, the harsh bitterness in Sou's voice is just exasperation, and the tension is just another roommate argument. The moment dissipates as quickly as it arrives, but the echo of it hangs there. ]
...Do you not want to talk at all?
[ She's tried to leave him alone but...they live in the same building. They're trapped in the same school. They have the same friends. She can't hide from him forever, as hard as she tries. ]
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[What is he doing.
They've fallen back into a months-worn groove. Shin hasn't had months of seeping away disentanglement, of call and no response; just that single gunshot ending to it. So he has to do it himself... he can't put himself in that kind of danger again, even if it hurts.]
...
Should I be required to make small talk with my would-be murderer? Just because we can't avoid each other doesn't mean we're friends, Sara. Ahaha, the game itself kinda proves that, doesn't it...?
[That was an even smaller confined space, less people to have degrees of separation with, and they still managed a pretty serious rivalry. It's the kind of thing that he hates about the less savoury people in Yogen; there's no avoiding them completely either, and they all have their own followings. If there's a solution that would allow Shin to avoid getting dragged to weekly puzzle time, he'd like to hear it.]
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[ She doesn't move, she doesn't walk away. She can suppose they're not friends any longer, even if it hurts, but she doesn't want to leave it at that. Take Sou's weird bribe and pretend everything didn't happen until...what? One of them ends up dead, the year repeats, they forget everything and she'll wake up alone in this school again? She'd been so happy when she saw him again. Now that she thinks about it, this is how their first meeting should have gone anyway. Sou hating her isn't anything new at all. Treat it like she's meeting her Sou for the first time, and everything gets easier. ]
It's okay if you hate me. I'll do my best to accept your feelings and not get mad anymore. You have a lot of good reasons...even if I'm mad at you, I can see that. Um...I guess thats all I can really say?
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It's easy to say 'I won't get mad'... until the next time you are. [His tone is dry. That's such an easily broken promise it might as well be empty air, in Shin's mind... Especially since she's saying she is mad in the very next breath.] Ahaha, hate you... Don't think I can. I'm the one who saw you try and shoot Komaeda and thought 'that'll never happen to me', now wasn't I?
[Like an idiot. Absolutely stupid. He's the shadow of angry, he's upset, he's betrayed and hurt... but hate isn't coming. He wishes it would... or maybe it would mean he cares more than he does.]
Already knew that's how you solve problems. [Guess he was a problem!] You're just a very violent girl, Miss Sara.
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[ That doesn't make sense. The whole way she's trying to process this, drawing the line between the Sou she knew in the game and the one she knows here, pretending the six months were just a fluke based on a lie. That's what makes the most sense. If Sou doesn't hate her then what...what does it even mean? She's conflating them, but she can't, but...its like dangling the hope of forgiveness right in front of her. She can't be selfish, but its an alluring light in the downpour of her own self image.
You're not supposed to say "I hate myself", but she can hate the things she does. Why can't Sou? ]
Yeah. You're right...
[She can't refute him. All the evidence points to him being right. Like a maze she didn't know she was going down, or a sliding slope she couldn't see, there it was. How she solved problems. She would apologize to Komeada...eventually. She had a vague recollection of saying she'd do it during graduation when she got drunk during new years. ]
But I don't want to be.
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[??? What does she mean, that's not right? Shouldn't she be happier about that? He'd had the bitterness queued.]
Sorry to disappoint.
[Not hating her isn't the same as forgiveness, or trust. In a way it's just it's own 'ah yes, I was right.' Hearing her just acknowledge it like that is bizarre, though.
Sou can mentally squirm out of a lot of his past actions... they were in the past, it's not like he can do anything about them now, he didn't know that would happen, it was just tit for tat, anyone would have done it, if they were in the same position as him... some part of himself is never fooled, the part that's a floating grin in blackness. You're not supposed to say it, but he does hate himself. Very badly, sometimes, weeping red and inflamed rejection of his own heart.]
Can't say it's not effective...! [It's that dead eyed smile tone.] If you don't want to be then you're going to have to do a lot more than just saying so, Sara.
[To him, that statement's about trust. It's impossible to tell if someone really has changed... or if they're just using your belief they might. Not without tangible, unchanging proof and even then... you can never be sure it's not going to end, whether by whim or plan. It's in her own words even; it's action alone that means something.
But, less to him, it's also accurate in the sense that, well, that takes work. And time. Sometimes an above-average amount of time, if Mishima's correct.]
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[ If he was waiting to share his bitterness, then here is hers. Its like she can contain everything she feels in that one sentence. She can say it as light as air, but its there. What had she shouted before she grabbed him? You don't know anything about me? Haha... ]
So...should hate me. You only compare us when you do.
[ She turns away to wring her hands, no longer willing to meet his dead eyes. ]
Telling you was supposed to prove that, but it all went wrong. [ Not even sure why she's saying it, its not like he'll believe her. Even at the best of times, Sou never reacted well to anything she confided in him. Like everything that hurt her, hurt him worse, doubled. Suppose that was still true.
He wants proof, but Sara has nothing. How could she prove something like that? Especially if she's just...this kind of person now? How do you stop being violent? Who teaches you how to not react in frightening ways when you're frigthened yourself. Hating her actions, hating the people she's the same as didn't stop her. Being more angry and more miserable hasn't made her feel any less unstable. So what? What do you do? Just accept you're stuck as someone you don't like, and leave it at that? That might be all she can say. ]
I guess I can't give you any kind of guarantee. It's like I said, you didn't know me at all. Sorry.
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How do you know I was calling you Hiyori? I could have been saying anything, like that. [Innocent expositiony expression ahoy. Amazing he got any coherent noise out at all, honestly.] Could be you just heard it that way. A guilty conscience, maybe?
[Being stuck as someone you don't like... it's a recurring fear within him. That the shape he mangled and broke himself to try and fit to has set, and that's him now. People who tell him otherwise... maybe he's too good at convincing them so. He still doesn't have a solution; he tries, can't do anything but try, and it still keeps happening. His only real claim is that it doesn't turn into physical violence, but that's not the same as doing no harm.
It's true, he doesn't believe her. It makes a certain amount of sense for that to be her reason, even as it rankles, but it's so easy to say anything after the fact. He can't see inside her head, know what she really was intending at the time. She definitely was making some kind of big deal out of it... as she says though, it all went wrong regardless.]
Guess I didn't... [It's a murmur. He's not going to disagree.] Ahaha, just when I think I have you figured out, you always somehow prove me wrong.
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[ It's freeing to not have to pretend she didn't know him anymore. She can just...say she knows otherwise. Of course he conflates them. That's how it is. Her conscious isn't any more guilty then she's just...bitterly gritting her teeth and accepting what she'd been afraid of. Komeada might say otherwise, Subaru might still treat her well but...she knows she's good at convincing people. ]
I'm agreeing now, so don't be weird about it. "Miss Sara and Midori...They're hardly any different to me", right? You can say it.
[ She squares her shoulders and looks up at him. Go on. Do it. She can take it this time. It's what she wants to hear. ]
Sorry. [ She just feels like there's no other thing to do but apologize for not...doing it right. Whatever it is. ]
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[He can hear it too, in his own voice. Sure sounds like something he'd say. It's something he's thought. Is that... right, though.
He kind of hates that he has to actually make a call. Sieve through every interaction, like he's been doing over and over, try and pick it apart like string. Are they the same. He'd thought not, which he already knew but is still weird to actually think, and then this had happened, and now this is happening... this is the sort of thing he needs hours... days... weeks... months to stress about, not be put on the spot over. What is she even actually trying to achieve with this?
If nothing else, he's contrary. He clutches his head, and then flings his arms out.]
...I said it because I was being strangled, okay?? I called you Hiyori because I literally thought you were... because I wasn't getting any oxygen to my brain! Happy now? I don't know how many times you've been strangled, but I can tell you, it doesn't make you great at knowing what's going on!
[He still doesn't know what she was yelling about, it's all a haze in which vague impressions float like icebergs. Not as clean cut as the gaps in his memory, but distressingly, frustratingly, similar.]
Ack!
[His head and shoulders hunch into his scarf as he turns away a little, hacking. He's been getting better, even without access to the aspirin Ranger recommended, but that was... a little too much yelling even a week in.]
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[ She could repeat everything Midori said to her verbatim, when he had her pinned. Deceptive, sinister, bewitching, kind...just a torrent she couldn't push him off in time to avoid. How she could remember that Ranmaru had hesitated when she went down, and she'd lost sight of him after that. It must have been his intention for her to hear it all, you'll have to forgive Sara for her inexperience, Sou. She's never done this before. ]
...you didn't know?
[ Her voice is small. He won't say it. What is she supposed to feel about just being mistaken? It makes the whole pattern of his behavior fall apart. He hates her...but not in that way? Or he doesn't? Or...how did she mess it up? How can she fix it?
She doesn't have time for any of those thoughts, because when Sou coughs, she springs forward, hand already catching his sleeve.]
Sou!? Are you okay! Hold on...I'll go get a cup of water!
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You wh-
[It breaks off in a kind of heaving wheeze as he sucks air back in. He doesn't have much time for the implications she's dropped to finish processing, because she springs forward and he reflexively jerks back, jolts away in distance, his hand lifting the grabbed sleeve halfway in the air. There's a moment where they're still like that, a tableau with Shin's free shoulder and arm turned away, and then he shakes the sleeve to pull it out from her grip and towards him, breathing out.]
I'm. Fine. Won't stop you.
[It'd be a good opportunity for him to try and regain his composure and breath and think again after that espresso shot of adrenalin on top of hacking up a lung. Maybe hope she doesn't actually return.]
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Its quiet and simple to fill up a glass. Its only when Sara has the water running she can lean over the sink and rub at her eyes. Calm her own breathing, now that she's out of eye shot. She didn't...do anything wrong. She wasn't trying to hurt him, her body was hers to control. She'd just been worried...so it was fine that Shin had reacted like that but she hadn't meant anything by it. Hopefully he'd get that, Sara didn't know she wanted to explain.
From the corner of her eye she can catch her reflection in the kitchen appliences. She still looks a mess, even with Kaede's room to sleep, it still feels strange to see how haggard she looks. She can't help but try and fix her hair, splash some water on her face.
...Shin has been waiting too long, she should get back. Sara doesn't know what you need after being...attacked like that, but water had to help. She hadn't felt as poorly as Shin did. Her throat had hurt, a near present reminder that had left a mark for the rest of that floor...but it hadn't stopped her from shouting or running around. Clearly this was different ]
Here you go.
[ The water is presented, clear and cool in a simple plastic cup. She holds it far away from her, so Shin could grab it without having to touch her hands. ]
no subject
[He feels like he's being ripped in two, sitting with his elbows on the kotatsu and his head in his hands. Sara can catch him getting up from this position; he heard her footsteps as she came in.
He takes the cup, not really looking directly at her, just sort of holding it. The way she was holding it out sets up a weird fiery ache in his chest; half pain, half isn't-it-her-fault? One third that regret-embarrassment of having reacted at all. Was it some sort of fake-out? He'd like to think not. He'd like to think.]
...Err, thanks.
...
[He takes a sip, despite the part of him conjuring up various visions of poison. She was gone weirdly long... He hates this so much, thinking this way so much. There's just a lot of ellipses before, finally.]
...So... he did the same to you, huh?
[What Ranmaru threw a chair to interrupt; he can put two and two together, when he wants to, when he isn't being blindsided by the unknown or unexpected. He could make a comment about learning a thing or two from the aforementioned, but... Shin's tired. It feels like it's gone into his bones.]
Ahaha, guess we've got more in common than I thought...
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[ There are a lot of ellipses. She pretends not to notice his position, likewise refusing to meet his eyes when he takes the cup, and steps back when she's done. The distance between them has only increased. Maybe she should go...the firey indignance she used for courage to get here feels sputtering and weak. ]
...
[ She doesn't respond to that for a long time. She looks at the ceiling instead, letting Sou have his water. ]
I didn't mean it as an excuse.
[ She doesn't want to use that to explain anything. She would rather forget THAT ever happened. She wanted to be honest with Sou, but mentioning what happened with Midori in that room felt like speaking poison back into existance. ]
Did he...do it a lot? When you were friends? [ How you could stay friends with someone like that is truely beyond her now. Sara could barely put up with a stalker. ]
no subject
...No idea. Ahaha.
[He can't help rub at his throat, dig his fingers in and tug. The movement of knitted wool across the skin is relievingly distinct, a little scratchy, air getting in to cool down.]
All I know is that it felt... familiar.
[Which, they both know what that means. It makes Shin feel sick to his core.]
He really didn't care for me at all, huh? Already knew that... The whole time I was just some kind of toy to him. [It's spat, previous events keeping him from letting his full ire into his voice, the kind of anger that has it's own bitter smile.] Just enough I couldn't know for sure... what he was really like. Or maybe I just didn't want to look...
[His eye slides towards her, birdlike and sharp.]
Makes me wonder what you'd do if you had that power, Sara.
[It's... not a condemnation, nor a comparison, not yet, just as Sara knowing what it's like isn't an excuse. Knowing it makes it make even less sense, even. But a hammer makes everything look like a nail, doesn't it? Sara already has two, what's one more? Would she do that, erase memory just to keep their friendship the exact way she liked it?]
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[ She's dead, remember? She tilts her head back to meet the birdlike glint in his eyes and stares. There's a smug glint as she says it, her own little victory in the depths. She can never be that person, she just didn't have the time to become anyone. She could never be anything, someone made sure of that. Maybe it was because she'd already done something worse then erase a few memories, but right now she didn't care. She's never been able to toy with Shin's thoughts, and if that means she can stand above his accusations for a second, she'll take it. ]
But...I'm not surprised to hear he was that awful. [ A hand through her hair, eyes turning away. ] I saw you get your revenge...I shouldn't have, but I did. He couldn't trick you again.
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Don't sell yourself short... it's not like it's impossible to learn here.
[It's murder school, after all. Even with their memories repeatedly wiped, Shin's still learnt magic. And that's leaving aside things like Helena's potions. Never been able to toy with his thoughts... well, maybe a little, if dropping distracting bombshells counts.]
Revenge, huh... What happened to 'I needed the wish from the contract to win'? Doesn't sound like I did much.
[Just stood back, and watched, because whoever lost, he won. He knows himself that much.]
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[ There is a prerequisite art skill that Sara would need to master first. She would like to be magical...damnit. ]
...? [ Well obviously she did most of the work as usual. Does the smug aura ever so slightly increase? Perhaps. ] You needed my help, duh.
...
But you didn't do nothing...come on. Even if you were plotting something, Gin's life was on the line at the end. You literally tried to wrestle Midori at one point.
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I- What?
[Hang on he needs to turn that around in his head so it will fit. He. Wrestled Midori. Tried to wrestle Midori. Okay. She could be lying but... surely a lie has to be believable?]
Can't imagine that ended well...
[She's not wrong about Gin's life, either... He wasn't lying, back up there on the roof. If it was her, Keiji, or Gin, he definitely would have picked Gin. Plotting something, huh...]
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[ There's warmth in that memory, despite the context. She'd been scared at the time but...looking back they'd really pulled together, even for just a moment. A little bit of solidarity that hadn't been lost. ]
I never thought I'd see you berating him into action... and er...it didn't. But you were fine?
[ Midori had a different target in that fight. Both Sou and Sara had come out okay, if only because Keiji was the one who took the fall. ]
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