strangerpeople: (Default)
The Fifteen Strangers Mods ([personal profile] strangerpeople) wrote in [community profile] 15strangers2018-08-12 12:14 am

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
backuphero: (Default)

[personal profile] backuphero 2018-08-17 12:05 am (UTC)(link)
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!
theserpentsmiles: (This one goes to the castaways)

[personal profile] theserpentsmiles 2018-08-17 01:44 am (UTC)(link)
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.]
mementodagger: (be my anchor in a stormy sea)

[personal profile] mementodagger 2018-08-17 04:32 am (UTC)(link)
[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.
backuphero: (A legend - or I wish it was...)

[personal profile] backuphero 2018-08-17 05:07 pm (UTC)(link)
[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.
theserpentsmiles: (This one goes to the castaways)

[personal profile] theserpentsmiles 2018-08-17 07:53 pm (UTC)(link)
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'.