15strangers | WEEK 4

WEEK 4

[A third of those of you who came here are now dead.

Its a sobering thought as everyone wakes up the next day to find their profiles updated once more, with Rosie and Naoya now added to the list of the discarded. There's an entire empty room, in terms of humans - Rocky, Murray, Elly, and a a strangely new and realistic robot bird are still there, somehow. Someone will need to take care of them now that their owners are gone.

Just like last week, no one has regained their memories, but their powers have evolved. Also like last week, a new floor has opened for those remaining to explore. It's...definitely different from the previous ones, to be sure. Emptier, more militaristic. And very, very large.

Maybe that's where the transport will arrive? Whatever the case, Marie's claim about the universe - if she's telling the truth - means there's less than two weeks left before the universe's destruction. If anyone has not yet thought of a way out that doesn't involve killing, the time to figure something out may be running out for everyone.

Meanwhile, even despite the lack of Naoya to hack the computers, the random computers belting out shittyfluting has, if anything, increased in their frequency. Which is definitely odd, since no one else has tried to hack into the computers...right?

There are ten strangers in this place.]

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You have to take care of yourself.

[There's....a lot of concerning things about what C just said.]

I understand avoiding sleeping if you don't have to... [But people do have to, Jonathan.] Eating is different, though.

Well, my actual body... it's not like this. It doesn't really have all this...

[ He waves a hand. ]

Meat. Not anymore. I can move things, of course, but I have to will that change. It's different. Being in a human body like this, it's... annoying. I never needed to worry about any of these things before. I would take vessels for temporary lengths of time, sure, but it wasn't the same as this.

[He...still doesn't really get what C is trying to say he is. There's a lot about C he doesn't really understand. But that's fine too - there was a lot about Korosensei he didn't really understand.]

So....you're out of the habit of eating, because you not only don't need to, you also don't really have a means to. Is that right? [It sounds like he's...incorporeal, or something???] Even if it's inconvenient, it's not a bad thing to relearn, right?

[Because....it helps understand others. Or...he will have words once he wraps his head around it.]

[ Well, that coupled with old bad habits, really... ]

I... suppose not. I just never found it particularly important. Taking care of others is more important to me.

You said you....possess a vessel or something once, right?

[Presumably that means the body that isn't C's is someone else.]

Would it help to think of it as taking care of whoever you're possessing? [Assuming that really is someone and not like, some kind of spare flesh suit or something.] If he's human, he'd still need to eat, right? Even sensei needed to eat.

... Well, yes, that's true, but...

[ He just looks down. There's a really... melancholy expression on his face. ]

There is no soul cube in this body. It was always destined to die.

Soul...cube?

[That expression, though... It must be someone important to C. But it's still...something feels off.]

Everyone dies. Even... [Even Korosensei.] Does that really make it okay to...to not eat, while you're him?

[ He frowns. He might be ignoring that second bit to answer this, possibly. ]

Soul cubes are... they're what contain the data of a person. Without a soul cube, a person is just a hollow sack of meat, endlessly completing sidequests and being puppeteered forever. It's a sad existence. Just imagine it, going on opening up chests and doing whatever until you wear out... no spark. No hint of life. Without a soul cube, that's what someone can become.

That is the state this vessel is in. It lacks a soul cube. It seems alive, and it acts alive, but it has no spark.

[ He pauses. ]

I remember enough to remember that... there's a reason for it. People aren't just born that way. No one is born without a soul cube, after all. It can be removed by force, but that's not what happened here.

[That.....hits something close to home. A little too close. It sounds like a metaphor, though with how C acts it easily could be literal. Nagisa hopes it's literal.]

Can he.... Can someone get a soul cube back, if they lose theirs....?

[It feels like a delicate subject.]

Most people, no. Once it's forcibly removed, the soul cube cannot be reunited with its host. The only one capable of doing something like that would probably be me. But not in this state. In my actual Heavenly Host. As I am now, I'm not capable of fixing such a thing. I'm just as human as you. That is why the process of The Trial is such an awful prospect.

[ He's quiet, for a moment. ]

... Not to be confused with the trials here, of course. Those are different. Someone dies, but I am certain the dead's soul cubes are still intact. It is why I believe we can save them.

I don't think I know the ins and outs of what you're describing, but does...does that mean you could, if we could change whatever is stopping people from using whatever powers they had before?

[Saving them. Saving the dead. Can such a thing really be done? He thinks back to the first motive. Bringing back someone lost. It still weighs heavily on him.]

Commander-san made it sound like that could extend to people who didn't die here.

... Possibly, yes. It'd depend on what state their soul cubes were in.

[ He's done it before, though. ]

Her nattering is probably an outlier. When she means reviving someone, she probably means using some machine or something.

If there's anything I can do to help, then...

[He wants to. He doubts there's anything he can do, he's only human - and a particularly small and weak one, at that - but maybe....wanting to is something.]

But how could a machine revive someone who isn't here?

WEEK 4

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