⚠: Would they seek revenge against someone who's harmed them or the people they care about?
“I believe in proportional response, and I don’t believe in murder,” she said, and then hedged. “Well, okay, if I tell someone who I know would end a person over a particular offense that they committed that offense, and am truthful, I am facilitating their death, but I am not directly responsible for it. Maybe it’s an arbitrary line, but it’s one that matters to me.”
There was a pause, and Rommie looked down at her hands. “If I didn’t hold to this conviction, though… well, a lot of people would’ve hurt a lot less last autumn. I had the power to end a single life, and not doing so condemned countless others to die. I… don’t know how to process that.”
Once upon a time I said I wanted to see justice done though the heavens fall. And then the heavens fell.
I was ready to give up a lot to put an end to Nikolas Synclair and the nightmare that has hung over me and my love since that Gardener girl first disappeared. I was sure I was ready to give up whatever it took. I wasn’t expecting to give up Kotone. But here we are.
And now I’m alone. And in a matter of days the world will know Kotone Synclair.
The ink from the pen just trailed off the paper. Whatever else was going to be written when Rommie sat down to her diary couldn’t be.
A moon ago I had it in my power to have you killed, and I fell back. I am no killer, I told myself. I don’t do wet work. And then, at the Lover’s Stone, I tried to save your life. I wasn’t fast enough, I told myself. No one deserves to die the way you did, I said.
These are the ways I have failed the woman I love. By letting you survive.
She liked you. She wouldn’t want you to die. She is what saved you from me, and what made me try to save you from yourself. But as I’ve come to learn, my precious one is not always right. Sometimes she fails to see the darkness for want of the light.
Nikolas Synclair, I suffer no want for you. I see no light left. And shall we meet again, which if you continue the path you are on we absolutely will, I will watch you dissolve back into the hellish nothing that wrought you.
I hate you. Just as no soul shall ever know the love I hold for her, so too shall no soul ever know the hatred I have for you.
Death is a mercy, I shall instead burn the very heart out of you.
The entry was written in code, a complicated cipher Rommie hadn’t used since her days with the Brume Rats, appearing as gibberish of letters and numbers beneath the date. Below is the entry, decoded.
Never thought I’d be writing like this again. Pax, if you ever see this, at least you’ll know. Gabriel, Hector, Doyle... whoever found this, I really could use you right now. Shit’s spiraled and I’m not sure even I know what I’m doing at this point.
Kotone left me. That’s fine. I want her to know who she is anyway. But that started all this rolling. You guys never got to meet her, but you’d have thought her just another mark. Naive, cute, not particularly attached to anything. Perfect for easy pickings. I mean, she doesn’t have much, but she’s also not going to catch you when you’re taking it, so... but you’d have missed something special by casting her off like that. She’s like this delicate ripple on the ocean, she looks small and not threatening but she can grow into a wave, and wash away a lot of sins. That’s what she’s done for me. Who she is to me. And that, ironically, is why I’ve sinned bad enough to encode this for you guys.
For about the same reason you’d have robbed her and forgotten about her, she got herself mixed up in something. I should’ve seen it, but I was too busy trying to push her to live her life that I caught what the score was too late. Maybe this cushy job has made me soft. Or dumb. Maybe I’m a mark now too. But either way a son of a bitch named Nik Synclair got his talons in her. Name ring a bell? He’s been on all those fliers from Gridania.
If I’m dead or in gaol when you read this and he’s not - kill him. Kill him now.
I can’t say for sure if Nik killed that Gardener girl the Alliance is abuzz about, but I can say he’s the kind of creepy psychopath that absolutely could. Maelstrom has him pegged as the killer and, since they can’t prove it, wants to arrest Kotone for the crime. Maybe it’s to pressure him or I into cooperating more with their investigation, maybe they actually think Kotone did it, or maybe they just want someone hung and don’t much care as to who. My money is on the last bit. I can’t let that happen.
I got about a day of sleep - it was needed. I was on fumes after running around speaking to everyone and working different angles of the case. The next thing I’m doing, after writing this, is going to a place I called ‘creepy clandestine academy’ in a previous entry. You’ll find it in the Beds. Ninth Ward. Place’s called Shinoka. There’s a big guy I call Chief who I think is head of security? If I’m gone, the password’s Xel. That’s where I’m going to try and get Kotone to safety. The owner - or something - he has a thing for her. I’m sure he’ll protect her until the other moon falls if I say she’s in trouble. See to her. You’ve got my accounts, you know where the off-the-books money is. It’s hers.
There’s another matter of business. Nik himself. The idiot came to Elysium last ni on Lightningday night. I broke his face. Deserved, even if he didn’t kill Gardener. He got Kotone involved. He muddied her waters. Fucker even had sex with her if he’s to be believed. Stuck crazy in my girl. That ain’t right. He’s being held by a group called Black Lotus. They’re level with our kind. Drop my name with them and if it doesn’t work drop the name Kasumi. They’re holding him in very suitable accommodations for a shitstain like him.
I said I’d let him go if I can prove he didn’t do it. I meant it. But if I’m in gaol or dead, I can’t rightly prove that, can I? Have him dealt with.
I still don’t do wetwork. It’s not like that. But going on two days of no sleep and a whole lot of righteous anger, I almost killed him right on the lawn. I didn’t. Murder’s bad for business, even if it’s justified. But I know you never minded slitting a throat of someone who earned it, Pax. And Hector can break a neck faster than I can blink. To say nothing of the fact that Lotus has some nice slow ways to end a life. I trust you to clean up.
