15strangers | (no subject)

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[The blight would not stop.

The world's leading experts have been trying to find a cure, to no avail. Th blight keeps changing, keeps foiling all attempts at being fully understood. It's almost sentient, or at least more sentient than any disease that's been encountered before. People fear the disease jumping from what's left of the grapes into other plants, into animals, or even humans.

You can only watch as entire economies and ecosystems collapse. You can only bury your head in your hands as your own business comes to its end. The destruction of the clusters of grapes has not simply destroyed the wine industry, either-other businesses are being destroyed by the plague. Food, transport, retail, nothing is untouched.

You look on your own vineyard, its yield almost entirely blackened and dead.

This can't keep going on.

-

A week has passed since everyone's arrival. No one has died, yet. But surely no one is holding their breath to see if they would survive this unscathed. They are veterans of the game, and they must know that whoever it is that is in charge demands their pound of flesh. The question is when it will happen.

It is the second week, after all-and when the second week of the game comes, death is not far behind. Not even when you wake up, feeling something different in your mind as you remember the truths you originally woke up with, deep in your mind. You feel...lighter, somehow, when you realize there is a change.

Even so, there are 15 strangers left in this place.]

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

[~~He was half tempted to throw that hat in the furnace~~

King’s just trying to carry out what objects he still has, from two very different books to what he’s pretty sure is the Phantom of the Opera’s mask, to a journal he didn’t bother to read yet. He’s just lucky so many of them are wearable...

He stops as Akira talks, turning to him. Lisa, who’s walking by his side, also stops to look at him.]

Oh, sure.

[He’ll offer the book to him. Well, try to anyway, with how much he’s holding...]

[ He looks at Lisa, his expression softening a little before he smiles, and then he nods with gratitude and takes said journal.

After flipping through it, he lets out a sigh... ]

Yeah... This is it, all right...

[ Just dragging a hand over his face. ]

It's not empty this time, but definitely not the one I kept while in the Mall... Guess they're trying to toy with me over this, too.

[ Sorry, King, he needs a moment. His hands are actually trembling a tiny bit as he looks at one of the pages in particular. ]

[Carp, he’s seriously got to stop upsetting people by doing random things. This is a disturbing pattern.

He sets the various things down and puts a paw on Akira’s leg, trying to be comforting.]

Hey. It’s okay. You’re not the only one they’re toying with, so you don’t have to be alone on this.

[He’s trying to be soothing, and Lisa’s brushing up against Akira’s legs, so hopefully the both of them can get through to him?]

[ It doesn't take long, at least. He takes a slow breath and nods as he closes the journal. ]

Yeah... Sorry.

[ He manages a small smile, though it's definitely not his most successful attempt. ]

This journal was part of my probation. For... "punching" a very politically powerful man I never actually laid a hand on.

[ So, somebody has experience with wrongful accusations, lol. ]

It’s okay.

[He tries to be soothing as he says that part.

The next part...let’s just say he’s trying very hard to repress an annoyed sigh.]

Let me guess, you said something he didn’t like, and he decided to abuse his power to get revenge on an actual teenager?

[He sounds like he wouldn’t be surprised if he got in one go.]

[ He's quiet for a few seconds. ]

He was trying to force a woman into the car with him. She very clearly didn't want anything to do with him, so I rushed over to try stopping him. He was drunk, lost his balance, hit his head... The woman was blackmailed into silence, too, of course.

[ And he just... gives a grim smile as he shrugs. ]

So, that's how I became a criminal overnight, bound to writing in a journal every day and watching my every step.

Of course...

[He shakes his head, pinching the area between his eyes. There’s an extra bit of annoyance in his tone, and Akira might remember one of his dislikes if he read the profiles;

Dislikes: People With Too Much Power]

Well, if you want my advice on what to do with it, burn the thing and blow the ashes into the guy’s face. Show him what you think of his punishment.

[That’s what he’d do, anyway.]

[ He does remember! And there's actually a quiet laugh at the last bit there. ]

I actually... kind of wanna keep it. Mainly to go over and see how everything matches up.

[ Which might feel like a pretty specific thing to want to do. But, after that, there's a pause. ]

Besides, Shido suffered for all his crimes, in the end. He fell from the top pretty hard and lost everything he'd spent years working for. Left to feel the weight of his sins...

Alright. Your choice.

[He won’t force him into burning it if he doesn’t want to.

He does get a small smirk hearing that the guy’s suffering now.]

Good to see karma did it’s job...the concept, not the one here.

So how’d he get found out?

[Please tell him, he is very ready for some tea to be spilled!]

[ There's a small smile. ]

Know what a phantom thief is?

[He has to think for a second, but he does come up with an answer.]

That's like a thief that's more public about what they do, right?

Yeah... That's... basically what my friends and I were. We just stole... the bad parts from within a person. We had... power over cognition, and we could use our power to manipulate how someone sees the world.

[ That's the easiest way he can think to put it. ]

We worked together to guide society onto a safer, happier path. Or... what a group of teenagers believed was a safer, happier path, at least. We stopped criminals, though, and forced all of them to confess their crimes to the public. And we only went after people we made a unanimous vote on.

[ He fidgets with some of his bangs for a moment. ]

Heh... We called it stealing hearts.

[ After another couple of seconds, he manages a dim smile. ]

Anyway, we used our powers to get Shido to confess the same way we got the others to. And... not long after him, we completed our final mission, putting an end to the unnatural distortions that were plaguing our society.

[…sorry if it takes him a second to process this, Akira, but this is...not unbelievable, but new.]

So you basically managed to get a bunch of criminals to admit to their own crimes by using some magic psychology type stuff? Or am I misunderstanding this?

[ He nods. ]

That's... almost literally it.

Finally got a guess right.

[~~It's about time~~]

Well, nice to hear that you managed to get justice yourself, and without even letting anyone know it was you. I'm not really one for magic most of the time, but it's good that it helped you and your friends out.

[Magic helps sometimes!]

[ There's a bit of a pause... ]

... Actually, I did step forward in the end. Spent some time locked up. [ after another pause, and said quietly: ] My... friends were pretty upset that I turned myself in without even telling them I was going to do it.

...okay, going to have to ask how you did that, though. Unless magic like that is a normal thing where your from, I think the worst that could happen when admitting that stuff would be getting put in the nut house.

[He won’t ask why he did turn himself in. Not yet, anyway.]

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TW: talk of threat of sexual assault

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