deadline gemini

the world will die alone, the frail will fall below. dangan ronpa multimuse

[hakggyo-blog]

   “I’m only meaning to be polite, is all.”

   lie one marked down on the calendar, a new page free from a neat row of crossed out dates and circled deadlines; he writes over them and scribbles in the header, mindless loops and drops that mask over what was written.

   “I’ve been raised to– to be concerned about other people and their well-being, and I was wanting to know if you needed any help.. My sibling and I, we live not too far from here, and it wouldn’t be any trouble if you were looking for somewhere— anywhere, to stay.” with a foot stepping over the other, natural fidgeting tied in with a meek appearance; he smiles, gently and with a dip of his head. “You probably don’t need my offer, especially– especially when it’’s coming from a complete stranger, but it’s only fair to ask.”

[hakanamu-blog]

“And I never said you weren’t.”

There’s enough tells in his singsong words that lets them assume everything they’re not, enough that tells them he’s got something tucked up the sleeve back at his place but not enough to tell if it’s a hand or a knife – the slip of silver at the heel of the stairs, and they keep their eyes, eyes on him, head hung and weighing the options. They don’t run any risk, feel no worry at the back of their throat, to the tip of their tongue. Forces and concepts and just the patterns they’re willing to test, they say.

“You running with anyone? Gangs, so many of them. Cults, too, but never thought them any more different. Suppose it depends. No strings attached, correct? Your place or mine, but I haven’t a mind to bring you to the dorms, heard it was a killing ground now. Yes. Answer is yes.”

“Onodera, Itsuki. How did they say your name in rollcall?”

[shitakiri-blog]

“- and then the alarms went off, so we’re stuck in your space until they’re totally sure it wasn’t a gas leak! It’s pretty cool to get to see you training, though. It’s so different! How do you do that thing, with the thing, where you spin it around like that?”

[hakanamu-blog]

“Oh my God, I hope you’re all okay, though! Nobody’s, like, hurt, right? I mean, at least you aren’t hurt! You wouldn’t get to be here. Well, it depends on what you wanna spin exactly, but they’re all similar - it has to be weighted at the bottom and the top so you can get the momentum going! I like spinning sabre best, but I grew up on baton.”

[hakggyo-blog]

   it’s a crawling sensation, figdeting under the skin and crawling up his spine– joined by the hip becomes a one man show, what considers themself to be his other half left to sleep in a sinking bed in the back of his thoughts. he’s left bare and without a shell, a shy step forward with first meetings tucked under his breath.

   “You–,” pause, step, breathe, repeat. “–are lost, aren’t you? I-I don’t mean to pry, I’m, I’m only stepping out for fresh air, and, you look like you’re wandering aimlessly, and—”

[hakanamu-blog]

It’s loose wrists and fingers tapping glass that shattered long ago, morse beats on stale air. Their neck pops when they cant for him, a gaze that sits shellshocked in the throne of their skull, settled well deep into the curve of the sockets. They find him well enough, cheap bangles they’ve kept tight around their wrists rolling together when they pivot on their heel.

“Bit by bit,” they confess, dry and forlorn, but wishing for nothing and wanting even less. “Haven’t seen a soul worth talking to by ways of walking. You’re red around the eyes, and you don’t look like you have the heart left in you to cry. Lost, very lost, but I’ve wandered to worse.” Tap, pause, tap pause tap, tap, drumming the air without meaning. Maybe he knows. Maybe he’s on his last legs. 

“Pry. Go on, pry.”

[shitakiri-blog]

“Yeah.”

(she’s not sympathetic, never has been, used to have her wits and her laughter always just below the surface to make up for it - see where that got her, see where the jokes took her to and left her to die, when she’s never been sympathetic and she can’t even remember the way it felt to laugh the way she knows she must have laughed before that school came into their worlds)

“I’m in charge, of our group. Nobody else wanted to be, and I have - I have things I need to apologize for. It’s a small team. There’s me, Aika Tsuhinde, and a couple of newbies I don’t remember. Hashi-something. We’re not a large group. They give us jobs to do with other survivors, one on one stuff. I’ve been heading the Monokuma kids. You seen them? It’s horrible.”

(she pulls her badge out easily, the plastic casing university-grade in that it’s cheap and easy to make in batches, the card inside black and white and chipped already despite its disuse - it’s new enough to be out of place in this new city with the dust infecting everything and the stains never washing out but it’s nothing like the real shining glory of the foundation’s figureheads and masterminds)

“They don’t know where else to put us. You’ll meet everyone else, people who pride themselves on never hurting their friends because they were lucky enough to go straight from their last office job to this one, and that’s pretty shitty. But we’re doing good things. Better than we’d have the opportunity to anywhere else.”

[hakanamu-blog]

There’s something in him that tells him, this is awful, this is the new world and it is awful, but he’s too used to the horror she’s weaving on her words, the way she drifts from the conversation and tells her tale but doesn’t tell it to him – the way she goes hollow and reminds him of all that’s happened. What gun’s been shot, what window’s been smashed, and he should be horrified because he knows he’d feel the fear in his gut and up his throat if it was anything like before, but it isn’t, and though he can change the tone of his voice and twist his mouth into a smile, he can’t feel the revelation that something is wrong. He knows it, and he doesn’t need to remind himself with every hostage, every mutual killing.

His head is up, snapped back like a rubber band on two fingers, when she says the right name. Like an acolyte in training, he waits for her to finish speaking, finding the right note in his own words to spin the conversation back up itself.

“I – that doesn’t sound bad at all. Really! It’s – it’s a system. I like it. It’s the kind of stuff we need now, more than ever. Every outpost we keep, or take back, that’s one step closer to fixing the situation, right? The city, at least. Like those kids – yeah, I’ve heard of them, but haven’t seen what they do. I don’t have any names, is what I mean. Aren’t they, like, really young, too? Elementary age? That’s – that’s awful. But, hold on – ”

And it’s the silver lining of getting a gun pulled on him, of hearing of batons and thinking of using his to brain Kageyama when he went for the knife, when he can feel his lips split and the blood in them pulse when he does so, a sort of relief to hear a name he can enjoy.

“Aika-chan’s alive?! Thank God, I thought she was – no, I didn’t think she was dead, but I didn’t know if she was okay or not – I’m glad, oh my God, that’s one worry taken care of! And she’s with you guys?! That’s awesome! Great! Where is she?”

[hakanamu-blog]

“ -- as a second language? I struggled through English enough that my mother sought tutoring! How did you pick Japanese up so quickly?”

Folded hands on two knees and tucked away far enough where the sun cuts down the tile it casts upon but keeps them in muted shadow - her voice is clean, like running water, like working powerlines, and she feels clear enough that the hair pinned to her scalp feels normal, like they aren’t stealing moments with survivors to keep conversation.

“I admire those who take on second languages. It was expected of me to learn English, but I often felt as if I’d do anything to get out of those dreary classes.”

[shitakiri-blog]

“… I’m sorry. They give us batons, but I.”

“Case thirty-three. The hotel games. One of the special executions involved the survivors, once the killer had been voted on, beating him to death with objects provided. Small world, huh?”

(she swallows like she’s going to vomit, rakes her hand back through her hair for the texture of it alone and swallows again - there’s no way for him to know if she lies, but she can’t bring herself to say it in direct words yet, can’t do more than mutter the half-facts that aika had coroborrated for her and hope he won’t spot the gaps)

(and hope somebody finally does, and they’ll put her on trial)

“You can come in whenever you like. We have drop-ins at a lot of the old bank sites. The vaults are good for us. You’d just tell them more than they have on file, if you know any more, and then they ask you if you want to help them. It’s pretty low-pressure. There’s a lot of people like you on the squad.”

[hakanamu-blog]

“That sounds – awful, and way too familiar.”

He doesn’t know hotels, but he knows open gyms and halls with drums at the wall, kicked over and open, whatever could keep steady against endless fire and bullet rain. Cruel irony, but she’s sympathetic, even when her tongue moves over words she can’t set, like shoulders. He won’t call her on it, believing it a memory.

“‘Like me,’ so, people you pick up and offer placement? Doesn’t sound too bad, if I’ll be with others.” It’s the quiet that gets him, when there’s no background cry or rapid fire, even at high noon and low eve, even when he’s straining to hear it. He keeps remembering the word, four letters, cult. That’s information for the underside of his tongue, for secrets they can’t pick from him until he’s dead. 

“Are you more important? Or, uh, I mean, are you actual, real, official Foundation type? I haven’t met anyone wearing a badge that wasn’t working a food bank. I haven’t gotten to talk to a lot.”

[shitakiri-blog]

“Game seventeen, Aimachi case. You’re wanted for interrogation one and conscription three - you can put your hands down. I’m not going to shoot you. The Foundation wants you to tell them about what happened and help us to stop it from happening again. You’re free to decide the terms of your approach. The offer’s on the table. Sorry for -”

(she puts the gun back into its holster, shrugging with her spare shoulder)

“- that. We’ve been swamped in hostiles ever since the Burning Cult started back up. I’m Yukimura. Pippin Yukimura. It’s a weird name, I know.”

[hakanamu-blog]

He takes three breaths before he’s certain he’ll lose them when the wrists pulls back down or she puts her sharp elbows against him if he moves incorrectly – the edge to her voice sounds clear, and he doesn’t feel better, but there’s a part of him that’s banking on her being true to her word. He brings his hands down, to rest them on his shoulders, cupping the curve of his neck.

“Okay, I – fuck, no, I hear you, I got you, I just – nobody’s pulled a gun on me since, uh, since that. The church.” Kneading the knots that catch when he lets the word pass, looking at her shoes before he can find the strength to keep his chin up. “Let me take a breather. You can – you can ask me questions. I’m okay with that. My name’s Jiro, I – no, I told you that already. Do I have to go anywhere?”

[shitakiri-blog]

“I’m lost.”

They don’t shy away from it, don’t duck their head and admit it as an aside. Their voice is still low, still careful, still dull at the edges. The city streets don’t match up to their map, to their memories. He could be a threat, but the possibility still hasn’t had the chance to beat itself into Toshi’s shoulders - bow their posture, unwrite their stance into something that understands the danger. He is steady, sure of himself. Familiar in theory if not in person.

“There was a fight. I had to run. I need… The factories, on the east side of town. I don’t know where anyone is.”

Another skitter, another glance, another moment put between them as clean as ice water.

“It’s important I get there. We’re running out of clean water.”

[hakanamu-blog]

When the words of the innocent –

– a word that means nothing anymore, mind rolling a mile a minute like clockwork and cogs and steam powered engines, putting each face into presumed crimes to commit, creating his new top wanted list –

when the words of the innocent find him and he has no choice but to breathe in their requests, is when Ma’at and her hands break through the shell casing of his heart and rebalance the scales, the true purpose of justice finding him for a moment in time and blessing him with an old light he had kept close in his chest, the new and old doctrines written in the covers of each law textbook he had read like they were bed time stories. Thin like the New Testament. One of the factories on that side of town went up two weeks ago, and he was there for it. But it’s not the one they’re looking for, so there’s no news to break, no shell to crack.

“If you’re lost, ain’t it in poor choice to keep runnin’ for them?” He asks, speaking the most words he’s spoken in four days. The cords in his throat pull, taunt like piano wire, every slurred word still cut on the same diamond tongue he’s always had. Crisp and clear in meaning. “Where’s yer scoutin’ party? Don’ tell me they the ones in tha’ fight.” 

But there’s comprehension behind his glasses, clear like his mind, the path set – his shoulders don’t lax and two fingers stay looped in the belt loop that’s closest to the knife hidden on his person ( out of bullets since last week. there’s a cache somewhere, he just has to find it ), but there’s a willingness to cooperate.

“’Least you goin’ the right way. Gotta ways to go, though. Are youse gonna follow, or you gonna wait for directions to remem’mer?”

[shitakiri-blog]

“Wait.”

Quiet. Almost too quiet. They scramble over the gate with slow movements, weak wrists shivering as they pull their body over the iron and collapse down on the other side, the gun in their backpack slamming down between their pointed shoulderblades and winding them momentarily. They push their hair out of their face and finally meet his eyes for a saltwater moment, gaze skittering down to his pressed collar seconds later.

“I need your help.”

[hakanamu-blog]

His whole body moves when he hears the leaf blown whisper roll over his shoulder like an unwanted hand, wrenching him on his heel, body stepping back so his last step doesn’t bring him to the ground. There’s a lighter in his first pocket and a receipt in his other – no faces, just names, a new lead followed like the ropes from the ceiling, from the ledges, but they’re – not matching any of them. One word can be offered, spoken over his own gasoline lungs, and he’ll leave it to the feather and heart to determine what’s important.

“Speak.”

Too busy on his own terms, but an officer can halt his pursuit for the public. They have all their teeth. He’ll risk it.

[aikyogen-blog]

pdf era akazome nomura now with bonus murder weapon and scar decal

[aikyogen-blog]

[hakanamu-blog]

[kurasuu]

ugly dog husband

[teahousing]

      “ Excuse me, but do you have anything that would be useful for fire starting? I want to make a small one for the night and I can’t find anything I can properly use for it. If you help me, I’ll give you something nice! ”

[hakanamu-blog]

It feels like there’s a joke there. Something sick, like irony, or a bone snapping worse than it already should and protruding from the skin. He’s kept his smile tucked away for two years, and he’ll keep it that way, teeth steady and lips pulling back only to speak.

“Matches. Got some matches, willin’ to part ways fer whatever you’ve got, don’t look like much though.” He takes three steps closer, steady, the beat in his stride and the slow rise and fall of his skeletal form missing, and then he’s rooted in gunpowder once more. “Don’t look like much, though. You ain’t got a place, or are you the lone wolf type?”

[shitakiri-blog]

Uh-huh! Aika Tsuhinde, super high-school level ballet dancer! It’s okay that you don’t recognize me, because we definitely never spoke. I just remember you, because of the fire. Thank you for your kind thoughts! It wasn’t too bad, though. That was the third one we’d lost to fire. I think that’s why they thought it was planned, and not, um, just an accident. Did you ever catch that guy?

[hakanamu-blog]

Ballet, huh. Sounds nice. Somethin’ away from the cut of paper.

-- Third one just to fire? Y’cursed or somethin’? Hope you’re loaded. Were, loaded. I’unno what paper’s gonna do you good in this economy – got that one from a kid. I digress. We didn’, which pisses me off to this day. Bastard’s runnin’ ‘round settin’ each hovel alight, kickin’ out the worst’a scum, yet what’s left’a the force can’t do shit about it. Everyone’s too scattered, our best who survived tried to join the Foundation. Good thing they’re still runnin’, but nothin’ gonna get done if everyone’s dead and-or gone, huh?

Relief effort ain’t comin’. ‘Specially not in this part’a the city. There was a riot couple months back, and they tore the place apart. Hasn’t seen action from either faction, besides squads drivin’ through. Don’t mean to vent to a civvie, but I don’ think there’s much else to go offa, ‘less you wanna talk about killin’ yourself, or whatever cultists an’ nuke survivors do.

[chukaibutsu-deactivated20170405]

Hey! You there! Stop! I’ve smelled your smell before! I recognize it. You must have been wallowing in muck for a long time, have you been in a landfill? I won’t blame you when you say yes, they’re like thrift stores but for free. 

[hakanamu-blog]

Don’ you fuckin’ start, you walkin’ travesty, if yer gonna start spittin’ that game I’ll return it: you’re a dead girl walkin’, but where’s the shame in that, right, if y’own it. You got some business in the dirt here, or are y’gonna keep knocking bones together ‘til your satisfied? If you’re gonna stick around, find me a pen.

[kurasuu]

[hakanamu-blog]

[hakanamu-blog]

Thought I’d be three days dead in my own burnt complex ‘fore I see you again. Your hair changes but y’always got that round face to you. You’re the one I gotta play the honorific game with – I’d rather your brother, an’ he didn’t even go here.

Miya-somethin’, righ’? Y’look too decent to fit in. You Foundation? I got my own gig wit’em myself.