15strangers | FINAL WEEK

Entry tags:

FINAL WEEK

FINAL WEEK

[Four weeks. Nine survivors.

Everything is...very quiet now. Like, surprisingly so. The lack of Marie's voice is both refreshing and strange after three weeks. But, she is gone, and even if Bottson updates the profiles to reflect that, yes, you still lost someone, you are finally free.

But are you really? There's still a lot of questions that need to be answered. For one thing, were they really inside someone's body? If so, what does it mean for the universe? Who, exactly, is Ivy, and why is her death so important? And--who is really in charge of this?

Whatever the answers are, there are still floors left to explore, with no warning as to what might be on them. It's best to rest and prepare before you do anything more, especially with one of your number still injured. There is still time left, after all, and you'll all want to be ready for whatever might be next.

There are nine strangers in this place.]

SUNDAY | MONDAY | TUESDAY | WEDNESDAY

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

[Both of his brothers are here. Both of them - one asking forgiveness, the other forgiving him. If it were anyone else, Nagisa could've brushed away his tears and deflected concern, but he can't hide from them.

He's known for a while now that there would come a time he'd have to talk to them about his training as an assassin. He'd thought it could come up on its own, but...but getting the book back changed that. All this time he's been longing for Korosensei's advice, questioning what his teacher would want him to do even while knowing there was no way even he could have predicted this situation. Now that he has sensei's words and encouragement and...and everything he'd left for his students, now that Nagisa has made his choice, it's almost too much to bear.]

I- I didn't want to bother Tealeaf-san, so.... I... [He knew he probably wouldn't be able to read the book without crying. It's been over a month now, and they'd all accepted the fact of it beforehand, but Korosensei's death was still too recent. The wound is too fresh.] I could have chosen somewhere else.

Or maybe you wanted to be found, at least by someone you trust.

[Yurick glances at Jonathan when he says that. He won't take any of that for himself, not when he still feels he doesn't deserve it.]

I'm not really much of a good listener, but if you need to talk....

I'm not that great of a talker, but I can try if you need that, too.

[He holds Yurick's gaze until he glances away again, and keeps his eyes trained on the mage.]

It's okay you came here instead of staying in bed... I mean, that makes three of us.

[His voice is soft, fond, trying for reassuring. Hopefully he doesn't miss and hit patronizing. He just wants Nagisa to be well, to be okay, to be able to grow up and look back on this as something horrible that happened a long time ago. He wants Yurick to let them trust him again, he wants things to go back to how they were before Marie nearly broke his brain.

He also knows full well he can't have these wants, and the ache is almost more than he can bear.]

Edited 2018-08-16 05:53 (UTC)

...Sensei wrote this book. [So. Maybe that explains some of what's finally cracked the dam.] During the last week of his life, when he was trapped all alone on our mountain, he...wrote twenty-eight of these. One for each of us. Personalized and customized, tailored specifically to our strengths, weaknesses, desires, personalities...

[Korosensei knew each and every one of his students inside and out, after all. Better than they knew themselves it sometimes seemed. He was truly the world's greatest teacher. Able to really see his students for who their were and tailor his teaching style to what worked best for each of them. And he, himself, never stopped learning, never stopped finding new ways to teach them better. "Jump as many times as you like"....

There's no one to catch them anymore. No one to catch him.]

All the guidance and advice he knew he wouldn't live to give us.

[How many of them go through life with no safety net, no one to catch them? It's part of life, sad and terrible as it is, and all they can do is continue to struggle or die. But maybe it's a little easier with people who care by your side, even when they drift in and out of a person's life.]

He left a mark on you, a good one. Sometimes it's all we get. Sometimes it's more than others get. You're allowed to feel the pain and even cry, we won't mock you for it.

You're allowed to grieve.

[His voice is like it would be when reading a prayer, soft but strong. It's taken one of the craziest months of his life to realize those words can - no, not just can, they should apply to anyone, even to him.

"You'll understand when you're old enough."
"I don't want to understand! He's dead, what's even there to understand?!"

"There must have been a reason. You have to understand...."
"Maybe so... but... I can't even use the power I'm meant to use!"

He's even more powerless here. He's had to find other kinds of strength, he's had to learn to control the anger that kept him going for so long. One moment of true clarity, at Nagisa's hands, had let him see how far he'd fallen. Just because he was well outside a state of grace didn't mean he needed to make it worse and take it out on everyone else. Getting killed in the middle of a reckless rage would serve nothing - and hadn't he had to learn that more than once in these few weeks? He's angry again, now, but not in that aimless way he was before he got here. He's not even angry at Marie - what use is hating the dead, after all? He can't even really hate his own father, now, after all this useless death.

He's furious at a world not his own. He's furious that the same people who would tell children they were acceptable losses would trap someone like Nagisa's teacher in such a way. "They weren't going to let him live, even though... even though we found out he didn't have to die." Those words chilled him when he heard them, and now they serve to fuel a tempering forge. His anger blazes, but he controls it, now. He has to use it to make his words clear, and so he will. A man who cared so much about his students that he'd leave them with volumes of help, every last thing he knew about them, and every thing he thought they'd need once he was gone....]

It's... that book, that's what a... [father, he almost said father, God...] that's what someone who takes care of you when you're young is supposed to leave you with. Maybe not as a book, not as something you can hold in your hands, but if they trapped him like that... you were right, he didn't get a choice, so he had to. No parent wants to outlive their children, and no teacher who's really good at it wants to see their students fail. During the trial, you... you said something about being good for one thing only, but... he believed in you.

So do we. That's why we're both here. We're getting down to the wire, things might still get worse from here, but... if you stumble, we'll catch you and pull you back up. I promise.

[The only problem with grieving is that it takes his focus off of other things - more important things, like survival. Like getting everyone out of here safely. 'Graduation' - it both has and hasn't happened yet. He can't lose focus until everything is over.

That's not what has him shaken this badly. No, it's something he found in the book - something that clashed with the choice he made. And he knows it must have something to do with the memories he's still missing, because...because there must have been something Korosensei knew that Nagisa now doesn't.

He isn't strong like Karma, fast like Kimura, agile like Okano, tough like Terasaka, skilled like Kanzaki, dedicated like Nakamura, creative like Sugaya, charming like Yada, precise like Chiba. He isn't a leader like Kataoka, a doctor like Takebayashi, a homemaker like Hara, a detective like Fuwa. He isn't skilled with hardware like Itona, software like Ritsu, cameras like Okajima, editing like Mimura, motorcycles like Yoshida, books like Hazama, strategy like Isogai, chemicals like Okuda, mobility like Hayami, baseball like Sugino, family business like Muramatsu. He doesn't attract fortune like Kurahashi, or attention like Maehara. He isn't brilliant like Kayano.

Nagisa is observant enough to pick out his target's weaknesses. He's methodical enough to carefully research everything he may be able to use to his advantage. He's patient enough to watch and wait for the right moment to strike. He's quiet, polite, and unassuming enough to avoid suspicion or detection. He's quick enough to escape. He's careful enough to carry out complex plans. He has enough bloodlust to paralyze his target, a clear enough head to calmly and simply execute them, and the ability to shrug off his own bloodlust like an old jacket after. Every skill and trait build him into something very specific, unlike any of his classmates. Nagisa has talent, he knows that now - but it's a talent for assassination.

For better or worse, Nagisa is an assassin.]

Sensei wanted us to lay down our knives and guns after graduating - after killing him. Wanted us to follow our own paths and leave assassination behind. And everyone else-- [Kayano.] --almost everyone else - could do that. But....the choice I made during the trial isn't something I can take back.

[And now he opens the book - skims past a photo and skips some pages until finally leaving it open. The page he's turned to has advice for Nagisa's future - advice for his career path. Advice for becoming a teacher.]

[Others had made that suggestion to Yurick once Lazulis and the Gurak were no longer at war: to return to Lazulis Castle and set aside the mercenary for the mantle of a teacher. The mage children in residence could learn much from him. But something he can't recall, something twisting unpleasantly in his guts like a knife, leaves him chilled and sickened at the thought. It's not the teaching or the children that upsets him, it's something else about being there in that castle.

If only Marie had given him that memory. But would it leave him paralyzed and useless to the group?]

... is this something you want, Nagisa? Your teacher wanted you to have a future, but the shape it takes is, in the end, your choice and no other's. And if it's not something you can do in your world, if you need to escape....

[Yurick takes a deep breath.]

Maybe you can return with Jonathan. Or me.

Or both of us. God knows we've got space in the house, back home, and I've brought home worse strays before.

[He isn't sure where this strength is coming from. A few weeks ago, he would have been so furious at the entire situation that he'd have done nothing but shout and make it worse. Now he's calm. He's sad, sure, both saddened and coldly enraged that someone who loved his supposedly-hopeless charges enough to write them tomes of guidance for the future in his dying days would be ripped away from them for no reason, but underneath it all... Jonathan feels, strangely, as though he can feel the ground under his feet, as though he's no longer falling aimlessly.

This is what his grandfather was really like, from all he's read, from all he's heard from the man's friends as he's grown up. Not fearless, not bloodhungry, but steady above all else. Unusual, in the Belmonts' line. It's something Jonathan hopes he can hang on to.

He knows he shouldn't be able to read that text Nagisa's left sitting there for them to see. The translation whatever-it-is is truly powerful. For an instant he sees Japanese, and then - neatly lettered English. And oh, God, what a punch to the gut those words are. He's spent weeks learning of Class E and Korosensei piece by piece, and the picture he has is almost as strange as that photo was - full of love, but also something almost no one who just saw one image would understand.]

Nobody's good for just one thing, Nagisa. Seems to me he was someone who could see that. Everything you've said of him, the way everyone looked together in that photograph, quick as I saw it... nobody is good for only one thing. You're more than one choice, you're... you're made of choices, you're made out of possibilities. Being a teacher... that means seeing those possibilities in other people, doesn't it? So... he believed you had more than one possible future. You don't have to settle just yet. Not... not in a place like this!

It... Sensei said if I chose the path of an assassin, he'd support my decision. There must be something I've forgotten, if this book says something else.

[And it does. It so plainly does. But - a teacher is about as far from an assassin as someone can get, never mind that the two have been inextricably linked for Nagisa for the last year. An assassin is someone who takes futures away. A teacher is someone who helps build them. Korosensei hadn't been both - he'd deliberately changed himself.

He'd chosen weakness.]

This must be what sensei wanted for me, but....but I don't know what I want. I never have. [He knows he's told different things to the both of them. Jonathan has learned more about Class E. But he looks at Yurick.] I...told you. About my mom. She never let me make my own choices, let alone have my own dreams...

An assassin is all I could think of becoming, when I was asked. [And Nagisa knows. He knows it's not a path you can just...step off of at any time. Graduation might be the only chance for Class E. And after everything that's happened in this place...what options are there, for him?] ...There's a title... 'The Reaper' is the name given to the greatest assassin in the world. The Reaper I met was sensei's first student - our senpai - and he- he killed Kayano-chan. But he's dead now, and I think that title belongs to me, now. Because I killed sensei.

[Nagisa...doesn't know what to do. Maybe it's because of the weeks spent here, where all he's been able to focus on is survival, that the future just seems like one big blank. Maybe it's the missing pieces of his memory. Maybe this is just what graduating and becoming an adult means. Whatever it is... The only time Nagisa ever felt more small and helpless was when Kayano's body hit the ground.]

[Stars, he's so far out of his depth here. He has the compassion, terribly rusty as it is, but not the words. They've never been his tools unless they were on a page or reaching his ears from a mentor's lips, and now when he needs them he finds himself lacking.]

I only wish I could say more to reassure you, but it's never been my way. Life didn't teach me about comfort. All I can offer is what I am.

[He hesitates, then draws the smaller boy into a tentative embrace.]

I'm flawed, but... I'm your brother all the same. And you have my shoulder and a place to go if you need them. No one in my world would judge you for either path laid out before you, assassin or teacher.

[They look so fragile huddled together like that. He's through with fighting off "weak" emotions, through with worrying how something might look to some unknown observer. Besides, it's late, and Marie's dead, even if her robots are still lurking somewhere. There is no one who would mock him now, nor any of them. Thinking through this has let him hesitate enough. As best he can, Jonathan holds on to these two who have become his brothers, and swallows hard to try and clear the knot of emotions from his throat.

It'd've been too much to try to talk around it.]

I can string words together real pretty when it's for someone else's sake. Speaking for myself... not so much. And it's selfish, so...

[He takes a few shaky breaths, trying to find that calm again. It's not quite a success, but when he speaks, his voice still sounds like it did.]

Whatever path you take - whatever path you both take, I won't judge you for it. Just... [don't leave me behind! don't go where I can't follow! don't be like my father, don't go! don't go, don't leave me!]

Just don't hem yourself in. Please.

Even if I become a teacher.... I don't know that I can stop being an assassin. Not anymore.

[Not after this place. Nagisa has seen multiple violent deaths now, and while he's not the type to be so deeply affected he carries them with him everywhere...it changes a person. Hardens a person. He feels like walls are rising, blocking his view of the sky.

On the mountain, killing and taking a life weren't the same thing until the very end. Not until Shiro and the Reaper threw their humanity away, along with Class E's innocence.]

It's strange, isn't it? A whole year of training, of killing and being threatened, but it's a few weeks away that change everything.

[He knows this isn't what sensei wanted. He can see it. His face would be black as pitch, tentacles reaching for the throat of whoever is responsible. He'd be ready to protect Nagisa, whisk him away to safety at twenty times the speed of sound.

He clings to the both of them. He knows he's the youngest, smallest, weakest - and that's part of why he's fought to keep it together. One less thing for his family to worry about. Especially with how bad the both of them were taking things....they needed someone to lean on. It feels like its own kind of failure to need them like this now, to have not held out for them until the end.]

Wherever you two go - I'll be right there with you too. Alright? [Even if not physically. They have his support, always.] I... I'll support you as best I can, so 'jump as many times as you like'.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

FINAL WEEK

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject