15strangers | WEE͠K ̸́4͝

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[The blight is all-consuming.

Within days dozens are confirmed infected, and you and your unexpected new scientist friend find yourselves trying to work on a cure. If not a cure, a stopgap of some kind. Anything to prevent this thing from destroying everything. It's hard work. It's not going very well. Really, it feels like with every step forward, you're taking ten steps back. Discouraging is an understatement, to say the least.

A week passes, and the death toll rises. It's really starting to look bleak. You constantly second-guess yourself, and even get into a fistfight with your new ally one night. It's getting to the point where you are working on fumes.

Then, unexpectedly, you get a phone call. It's been a long night, and the sun is beginning to rise above the mountains, when it happens.

You and the scientist are not the only ones looking for a cure. In fact, there are at least a dozen others-and they think they may be close to a breakthrough.

But-and you can't believe you're hearing this, after all of the failure you'd experienced throughout this blight-they need your help.]

---

[To say that the end of last week sucked would be an understatement. To say that no one knows what this week will bring is not even in question. Yet even as you wake, you feel a cloud lift from your mind, as one of the truths you've been living with since the beginning has suddenly changed.]

[But is it possible to abide by this new truth? The Hosts, and IT beyond, seem intent on making that impossible. And the rat...well. Obviously the rat's not an ally. Let's not kid ourselves.

There's only one way to find out if more deaths can truly be prevented-and that's to keep going, and hoping that the new floor that has opened up will offer something in the way of an opportunity.

In the meantime.

There are 11 strangers left in this place.]

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Fair enough. Either way it should be really entertaining.

[ Oh he'd definitely noticed. Kinda hard not to. He's kind of with her on the 'let's see how uncomfortable we can make our hosts' mindset. ]

I can only assume that fan is something of yours from home, then?

It is, but the glitter emitting was something from the Base. There were machines that had you play a game and if you could beat the high score you'd get a prize of an item from home. The real version is a capable weapon both as a blade and with magical attacks while being beautifully crafted and suited for a lady.

Interesting. A bladed fan capable of having more than one use, huh? It definitely suits you.

[ A sigh follows that and he seems to consider something for a moment or two. ]

...I've been meaning to ask you something though, Vita. If you don't mind me doing so, that is.

That's fine. Let us go ahead and talk as we walk away before either of our hosts return.

Good idea. Wouldn't want them to possibly find us at the scene of the crime or anything.

[ He grinned at that, turning on his heel so he could head away from there with her in tow. Hesitating briefly before he finally continues with what he'd wanted to say. ]

I've been meaning to ask this for a little while now. Did you ever dislike me at all, simply for being Akira and Kurama's friend?

[And of course she'll come with him.]

If I did, you wouldn't have needed to ask. I'm the sort to speak my mind openly and I'd have told you by now. I mean, I'm sure everyone here also knows I dislike King and Hiyori by now.

With you, it helps that I had other ways to form an opinion before we even met. I'd heard much about you from Nagisa. I can trust that Nagisa wouldn't like someone so much if that person wasn't worth me giving a chance. It also helped that you didn't try to further escalate the situation like Kurama did.

Also to be clear, I do agree that Akira isn't a bad person normally. I can't trust him in a place like this.

[ For the most part he's generally quiet as he listened, though nodding a little in quiet agreement when she'd mentioned her dislike of Hiyori and King. Indeed that was kind of hard to ignore, what with the plushies incident last week and all.

Honestly it's hard to not smile a little afterwards, seeming to take in everything with something of a thoughtfulness to his expression. ]

To be honest? I never really did have a reason to ever escalate the situation, as I was just Akira's best friend but not his boyfriend, like Kurama was. This whole general 'you have to distrust everyone' thing here didn't help anything, either.

[ He shrugged his shoulders, laughing a little even as he felt a bit more at ease now. ]

Yeah, I get that. As said before, it's made us all a bit more on edge and considering he didn't get as long between the game we went through before this one? He wasn't exactly doing great when we first arrived, either. [ Karma sighed at that, frowning a bit before his smile returned. ] It's true, though. About Nagisa. He really wouldn't have held back if he didn't think much of me and would have warned ya if I really was a bad person or anything.

Truly, I appreciated that you didn't just judge me poorly without really understanding the situation. I was upset, but I was also trying to be a decent person and not tell everyone what sort of monster he was to me. I'm not upset about the fact that he killed me, I'm upset because it was a horrible way to die and then my death ended up being meaningless because he confessed so quickly. On top of that, he only killed because his memories were tampered with.

That's why I can't trust him in a place like this. He's too easily manipulated and he can become a more terrible person than even some of the coldest most brutal killers I know of. You even know one of them, Loewe used to be quite the skilled assassin.

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