WEEK 2

[strangerpeople]

WEEK 2

[A week has passed. There's been no body, no investigation, no trial. No deaths. Congratulations!

Now the question is, will it last? At the moment, the Commander seems content with forcing people to do petty and mean-spirited errands in return for a mere shower. On the one hand, it's just for showers. On the other hand, what if the demands start to get more extreme? Would caving in encourage her? Is anyone willing to try and find out?

Honesty, with all the strange dates and information floating around from what's been uncovered, the only one in this place who's probably not worried as the time slips into its next movement is Sir Riprazor McRockfang. That's right, he's a sir. A grumpy sir, yes, but still a sir. No one's going to mess with him, regardless of what his true origins may be. And if they do, beware - he bites. Omnom. Good luck, everyone.


There are fifteen strangers - and one alligator - in this place.]

SUNDAY | MONDAY | TUESDAY | WEDNESDAY | THURSDAY

Comments

[theserpentsmiles]

[For once, Nagisa is caught off guard. He'd been so lost in the memory he stopped paying attention to his surroundings. Sensei would admonish him. He's quick to brush his tears away, but they don't stop, and his eyes are already red...]

Oh, hey. [He's not really feeling it, but he's trying. Have to keep it together.]

[backuphero]

[To hell with not much expression. He's a kid, and he's crying, and Jonathan doesn't feel much like a grown man at the moment either.]

I... I'm sorry. That you lost somebody and it hurts enough that the... that this hurts just as much. It's bad enough that -

[He stumbles a little bit, but falls back against the wall as he'd intended, sliding down it to sit on the floor with his legs bent in front of him. He looks up at Nagisa with weary horror.]

I mean, Christ, you're what, sixteen? This just isn't... there's no use saying "this isn't right" when we all know it, but it's not, and it's horrible to use people's pain like this. I'm sorry.

[theserpentsmiles]

[Nagisa cracks. He can't....hold it together. Not with Jonathan giving in and Kayano still smiling up at him from the page.]

Fifteen. [He's used to correcting people who think he's younger, so that's a nice change, but....]

...I... If it had been sensei, I'd be alright, but... [Kayano shouldn't have died. he should've- should've been able to do something, anything, anything at all. Should have moved faster, planned better, done something.] Kayano-chan died- she was killed-- it couldn't have been more than two hours before I fell asleep. And then I woke up here.

[The wound is still fresh. He's been grieving this entire time - but hiding it.]

[backuphero]

[Jonathan can't keep the shock off his face. He's bad at guessing ages, sure, but Nagisa is fifteen? Fifteen, and he'd seen a friend killed in front of him scant hours before waking up here, and yet he'd still managed to keep himself together, kept smiling. Fifteen. Honestly a kid, younger than - younger than his partner, even.]

Jesus....

[And "Sensei"... that's "professor", or something, right? But that's a question for some other time, one that gets left unsaid for now.

He doesn't have any idea if hugs are a thing in (his) current Japan, let alone future Japan, but... God damn it. He doesn't trust himself to stand steadily right now. It's been a hell of a day. So instead of standing up, he's just going to straighten out his legs and raise one arm...]

Hey, c'mere. Don't have a handkerchief to offer or anything, but....

[theserpentsmiles]

[The memory of the Reaper in his monstrous new form just....punching a hole right through her... It's enough that Nagisa wants to scream forever. He won't, though. He hasn't graduated yet. It's not over.

He can grieve when it's over.

...but....a little break is alright. No one masters a skill in one go, and like studying, if you don't pace yourself, you break at the worst possible moment. So he accepts the offer - not quite the hug, he's not all that tactile a person, but he sits next to Jonathan and lets himself cry.]

[backuphero]

[It's not forcing the issue if Jonathan just does gently settle his arm around Nagisa's shoulders, is it? He's not going to yank him close or something, but... it feels wrong to just sit there while he weeps, not offering anything.

Damn it all. Damn it all to hell. His own eyes are burning like he ought to be crying, but he can't... that's nothing new, though. Not when he's confronted with other people's suffering and can't change a bit of it. There's nothing you can do about things that have already happened, and when it's anything else, he's fine with that. When it's something that leaves somebody grieving, though....

He sighs, softly, and leans his head back against the wall, letting his eyes fall closed. He sits silent for a while. Then... it's very quiet, as though he doesn't realize he's doing it (and, well, he doesn't), but he's definitely humming something. It's an old tune he heard as a little kid. Once upon a time, he didn't hate the man whose resurrection Marie had offered him; once upon a time, that melody had meant he was safe. Once upon a time, he could just be quietly sad like this without exhausting himself first. Thinking about his father still makes him angry, but right now, that anger is swallowed up by the frustrated, heartsick kind that seems to be drowning him now that he's heard what Nagisa went through even before this corner of hell.]

[theserpentsmiles]

[They're being goaded and coerced into killing one another here, and he's already watched one companion die before so much as arriving. Nagisa is doing his best not to crumple the picture - for all he knows, the few physical mementos Class E has will be the only things left of her at all. If even that. He wouldn't be that surprised if the government tried to confiscate everything thanks to her connection to it all...

It's several long, long minutes later when, at least for the moment, he runs out of tears. It's cathartic... All of them, even Karma, had cried after killing Korosensei, but the effect was mitigated when Nagisa woke up here instead of in the classroom. And he didn't get anything from Marie that told him whether or not his surviving classmates were safe...but he also doesn't know how she could have known about Kayano, if they are.]

It happened so fast... I should have been able to do something.

[backuphero]

That's the kind of thinking that makes ghosts out of regrets. Literally.

[Wind would be better at this, probably, if he were here. He'd been somewhere around fifty when he died, he probably knew how to reassure people and soothe fresh grief. Jonathan sighs again, and looks over at Nagisa.]

I'm sorry. That was too harsh. And I don't mean you can't wish you'd been able to save her, I definitely don't. But... the worst part of being human is that we don't have the power to put right the past. I wish we did.

[He pauses, looking down at the picture, trying to find some way to bring up happier memories than a violent death.]

She was someone really, really special, wasn't she... stupid question, they wouldn't have done this if she wasn't. You okay enough to tell me about her?

[theserpentsmiles]

[If anyone could have.... Sensei.... But he's gone now, too. Any future miracles in his life, Nagisa will have to make happen himself. And he knows, he knows that's what sensei wanted for them - for the whole class to be able to move forward on their own with the tools to tackle any problem, so they'd never be crushed like they were when he came to the class ever again. To lay down their weapons, but never forget how to fight.

She died fighting. Fully human at that point, but almost - almost - able to keep up at that speed, even for just a moment... She really was always full of surprises. Nagisa nods.]

Kayano-chan... Kaede Kayano. That was a false name, a whole false identity she kept up for a year... She sat next to me in class, and she was the shortest girl like I'm the shortest boy. ...She was a brilliant actress, and could tell you everything in the world about pudding. She put my hair up like this. ....She....finally gave up on revenge, it's not fair that she was the only one who... [Why her? Why only her?]

[backuphero]

[Jonathan can't guess anymore what kind of world it was that Nagisa left behind. A kid having to live under a false identity to seek revenge, that's... it's almost too cruel to imagine, the kind of thing that'd happen to drive somebody to pull that off so young. And she'd seemingly stayed a kid through it, much like how until now Nagisa had kept on smiling....]

It's never fair. It never, ever is, especially when it's sudden. And she sounds like she was a great friend....

[He's trying to be comforting but this is so not something he's confident in. He can, at least, manage not to sound so uncertain as he feels.]

[theserpentsmiles]

[Just wait til you learn the story behind that revenge, and the details of Class E...]

She stuck to the background a lot, like me. But she was probably one of the most calculating....and she just seemed normal, despite everything. ....she and Kashihara-chan sometimes dragged me out on their shopping trips.

[backuphero]

I'm sure she was glad to have friends like you two, through everything. It sounds like you at least had a little bit of a normal life....

[theserpentsmiles]

I want to think so. And...yeah, we did. We all had our problems, you don't reach Class E without trouble, but for most of us they were the kinds of problems anyone might have.

[backuphero]

So you were all sent there to... get better, or...? Sorry, if that's too much, you don't need to tell me.

[theserpentsmiles]

[...He looks a little surprised - not very, because how could an outsider know? But a little, because that's so optimistic it hurts.]

No. They call it the "E as in end" class, because once you're in Class E, it's almost impossible to get out. It's where all the dropouts and delinquents go - all the people who have no shot at a bright future.

[backuphero]

[Something furious flashes in his eyes for a moment - but only a moment. Sometimes, he can rein it in, when there's someone else to worry about.]

That's... it's not right to do that to people.

[theserpentsmiles]

[It gets worse.]

It's not even about us.... It's more that we aren't allowed to succeed, because that would break Asano-san's perfect system. The worse things are for Class E, the harder the rest of the school will work to avoid joining Class E.

[backuphero]

That's... that's barbaric, not "perfect". I mean, it sounds like you all banded together anyway, but...

[Who would look at this kid and say he wasn't allowed to succeed? What the hell kind of bastard would do that?

But those are questions it's not appropriate to ask somebody grieving, so they stay unspoken.]

[theserpentsmiles]

That's why we've been rebelling. The systematic discrimination against Class E breaks down if we succeed anyway. That's what sensei taught us.

[Once you get a taste for fighting back against the chains that bind you, you don't stop until you've forced the world to recognize you.]

[backuphero]

That's why you said what you did about... [he pauses just for a moment, trying to remember exact words and settling on paraphrasing] a coup not stopping, isn't it? He taught you that, and you really learned it. You, and your friends.

[theserpentsmiles]

Right. [Class E has been throwing their own coup for a year now.... They have to push through and finish it. Because they'll be fighting an uphill battle for their entire lives, they can't ever afford to let up.]

When sensei came to the class, we were all so used to bring crushed underfoot that we didn't even imagine things could be different. Sensei made us change by force. If he hadn't...

[Nagisa doesn't like that particular thought.]

[backuphero]

So he saved you, huh?

[The other options for why that sentence trails off as it does are too depressing to contemplate.

He does squeeze Nagisa's shoulder gently, now, making a go at extending the offer of "you can lean on me if it'd help" without saying so in words.]

Well. Most of you. Sorry, that was... that was really thoughtless of me, more than usual even.

[theserpentsmiles]

[He accepts it this time, letting himself be small and weak. They all knew the end had to come, but... The mountain isn't their home anymore, graduation means setting out into the wider world. No teachers to guide them anymore. Somehow that part didn't fully sink in until the end.]

He saved her too - that was when she gave up on revenge. A few months ago.

[backuphero]

So she had a few months without that hanging over her head, with you, and with her other friends. It'd never be enough, but....

[It's better to live free for a little while than to die bound by hate, he doesn't say, because saying it would make him a total hypocrite... and there's no un-cruel way to phrase that, besides.]

[theserpentsmiles]

[He nods.]

She was probably the most amazing of us. Not a prodigy like Karma-kun, but... We never seemed to know everything she was capable of.