[ Hm. No flinching from the bursting lightbulb. He doesn't quite like the shaky nerves and the voice deep inside of him asking that question. How badly does he want this? Lost in his thoughts, he only realizes too late that Molly has left to go hack at the wall now. Gojou follows after and places his hand on the axe's handle, right above Molly's. ]
I can do that, Molly. Try not to exert yourself.
[ YOU HAVE A GOLF CLUB STICKING OUT OF YOU. PLEASE. ]
[Limbo. The stage of stagnation. We have no hope, but we live in longing...]
[Douman shakes their head picking up the knife from the dresser and hefting it in hand. At the groan, even though Grace might be eager to take care of it, they just turn to launch a swift, hard hard into the side of whatever body is nearest.]
Oh, do shut up.
[They glance to Molly and Gojou.]
Do you think that will work? If the key to all this nonsense is with these friends who do not act like our friends...perhaps we should do something else with them.
[the feeling creeps over all of them, slow and steady and intense.
you want it. you want what you desire more than anything else. anybody else? they're nothing. they are in the way. they don't matter - what makes them more real than the ones on the floor? how do you know douman isn't biding their time? gojou? molly? grace? they have weapons. they could just be waiting for you to turn around.
it'd be easy to pick off the others. they're not expecting it. this whole place has just been illusions, right? you're the only thing you can trust. you have always been the only thing you can trust. if you don't stop them, what will happen to you? to the people who are relying on you at home?
yuel yelps, when she's kicked. curls up, tears leaking from her eyes. gu yun hasn't moved at all, not at all. his chest doesn't move, either. omi spits blood to the floor, watching gojou.
[ how does grace know any of them are real, really?
once the thought is there, it's hard to get it out of her head. what is real? what counts as a real person? she's acting on auto pilot when she loads the crossbow once again, but she doesn't point it to anyone. instead, she lowers her glove and looks at her number.
null. it means nothing, not even a zero. they never meant anything at all. passengers were real. numbers were real. but then there was hazel. hazel had a number. but hazel's number wasn't real. hazel was a null.
and grace is here for hazel.
she's not sure about gojou and douman, but she thinks-- she thinks molly was real. she heard him on the floor above, and. she wants molly to be real the same way she wants hazel to be real. gu yun isn't breathing, and omi came with douman, but yuel. she saw her earlier. that was her tail, right? when things were stalking her on her floor. molly heard her when she screamed, but yuel didn't respond even though she was right there. she licks her lips ]
They attacked us. And wouldn't stop.
[ it feels like a justification. but douman said it earlier, and she remembered all the times she threw a null to the wheels, too.
what makes someone real? what makes them a person? she doesn't know. she doesn't know.
she trains her crossbow to yuel. she's done worse things, really. she wonders, if she was on the train, what this would do to her number.
What-- [blood is filling his damn mouth again, and there's only a few seconds to actually react. grace's expression is darkening so quickly.] Are you talking--
[there’s no denying the feeling is powerful, what it’s asking - what it demands - but that vision of
Yasha,  tears drip down her cheeks, smile a dark grimace. there's a desperation in her eyes, a please. (Yasha, on her hands and knees, in the field of clover. `Have you found one?`)
He’s never been the only thing he could trust. Not once. There’s a glance at the bodies on the floor, in the moments while grace is contemplating, trying to figure out what’s illusion and what isn’t, they've all good reason to believe who is real and who isn't, but in the end
you have to do what it is in your nature to do.
The second Douman takes a kick at someone already down, the tone of their suggestion, the sound of the crossbow being loaded
Molly just snarls and spits blood in douman's face. Suggestion rejected. ]
[it's too late though. grace has already taken her shot.]
[ WELL. IT'S NOT LIKE HE CAN SAY ANYTHING MORE. Grace definitely shot at Yuel on the ground after Douman kicked her. Gojou doesn't even flinch when he hears it, but his eyes do widen at how quickly this escalated because a monk spoke in line with the voices inside their head. It's familiar to him, the words being spoken into his ear, too. Taking a deep breath, he closes his eyes to think this through. While Douman may have arrived with a single gun blazing, Grace and Molly haven't attacked him yet. Eventually, Douman also calmed down.
Biding their time or not, he has to have faith until they break it. He had to have faith in his students and peers at home, so he has to have it here. The extra bodies come as an afterthought. He was fortunate to only have been strangled a little bit compared to the rest. Blue eyes shift to Gu Yun, Omi, then Douman, though he makes sure to step between them and Molly in case they retaliate. ]
If you're going to kill him no matter what I say, then let me do it.
[ Him, meaning Omi since Gu Yun hasn't shown any movement. He isn't stupid. Douman has a gun and some more weapons now. If he wanted to prevent them from killing all of the people on the floor, it'd be with his life on the line. ]
[Ashiya Douman, eternal rival, made to be hated, stoking the flames. The jester who ridicules, calls for more bloodshed, asks people to lower themselves into corruption, depravity, and sin. Grace shoots Yuel, and there's a momentary glimmer in their dark eyes, a flash of red.]
[And then, they see literal red as Molly spits at their face.]
-Ngh! What, do you not like it, Mollymauk? [And they wipe their face off, leering.] Do you think I don't want to get out of here? Do we have any possibilities left? Are you going to bleed to death in this cold room, hmmm?
[But then Gojou steps forward, and Douman's face twists into a frown. They instantly bend down to grasp Omi by the scruff of his t-shirt, possessive.]
No. [It's indulgence week, folks, and Envy is in full play, here. They brandish the knife, threatening, though...their voice cracks, ever so slightly.] It's...it's my right. Not yours.
[grace shoots - the sound is defeaning, in the tiny room. yuel doesn't get the chance to make a sound - she looks up at grace, tears streaming down her face, and then.
nothing. a bullet in the brain. she crumples. and grace vanishes.
for mollymauk, the room fuzzes, and his strength leaves him. it's a familiar feeling, dying. quietly, in his head: don't you want to pretend a little longer? and then, right after: you made your decision.
douman grabs omi by the shirt, as gojou watches, and omi is silent, for a moment, eyes on the knife. and then, blindingly fast like a snake, omi's hand shoots forward. in the interest of not squicking both hei and myself out, i will not describe in loving detail the scalpel that omi plunges into douman's remaining eye. but that does happen.]
[he's been back to the wall for a moment or two now, and with the room starting to fuzz and the edges of his vision tunneling. dying is familiar, now, isn't it? it'd be so simple to just slip back into it. grave dirt and dreams of flowers. he sinks to the floor, hand still tight on the axe and struggling to get air in and out of his remaining working lung.
he isn't sure what happens with grace and yuel, he seems to miss the chaos of douman and omi and gojou's argument - more blood and pain playing out in this comedy of errors unfolding. are you going to bleed to death in this cold room? It'd certainly be easy. the last time he'd died had been so much quicker than this. none of the lingering doubts. this is worse. the voice in his head, telling him that he's made a decision.
he isn't sure it was the right one, is the thing. he's always been so fucking sure of himself, hasn't he. arrogant to the end. but he'd promised to fight. it'd be so simple to just stop breathing, because it fucking hurts to breathe. at least he knows - he'd be remembered. would she be angry, that he'd thrown it all away again? he'd promised to fight, to learn a little something from her too.
just breathing. refusing to let his eyes close. just a minute more, then. live with the decision.]
Edited (sorry there is nothing more embarrassing than editing two times dont look at me im so sorry) 2021-03-04 04:31 (UTC)
[ For a second, his pride bolsters in a way it shouldn't. It clouds over his worry for Molly and the situation, then blinds him from Grace's disappearance. Instead, his gaze is locked onto the two in front of him. If he had let his best friend die by someone's hand... If someone else aside from Omi had to execute Fukuda. How would he feel—what right do they have. What right does Douman have?
There is no sympathy when he sees them lose their last eye—they overstepped their boundaries. He doesn't care if they're an evil sorcerer from the Heian period, he's sure he's stronger than them. Most importantly: ]
He didn't choose you.
[ Gojou quickly grabs the knife in Douman's hand and stabs Omi's heart in the next second without hesitation. He feels nothing, just a familiar emptiness... It doesn't hit him until after the blow. The memories of Getou Suguru's smile, his laughter, and how he killed him—his one and only best friend—with his own hands in that alleyway. Is the wish, the dream, worth doing this again...?
Right. It's so no one ever needs to kill their loved ones, so that they don't need to consider killing at all, so they're not left in the cruel world. Broken.
[The shriek that Douman lets out is a piercing one, like the wail of a beast with its heart being ripped out by a hunter. Omi...Omi had attacked him, Omi had...]
[The world is plunged into darkness in an instant. Darkness is familiar. A close friend. But the words that come from Gojou disturb that comfort, like invaders bearing bloody swords, ready to slice them into pieces. Douman shakes, and lets out a loud wail, and this time, it isn't the wail of a beast, of a man-eater, of a monster.]
[Its just the miserable cry of a very miserable man.]
No...no no no no no no no no...no...
[They don't know where anything is. They don't know where Omi is. Everything hurts. Everything hurts. Why does it hurt? They shouldn't care. No, its more the gall of Gojou, the gall that this man has some power over Omi they don't...and...]
How could you...take him from me?! To spite me, is that it?! Because I can't have anything to myself, is that it??!!! I curse you!!! I CURSE YOU WITH EVERY FIBER OF MY BEING!!!
[Douman, still holding the knife, lashes out, stabbing, whether its Omi, whether its Gojou, they don't care. To live is to hurt others. That's the reality of Ashiya Douman.]
[And deep down, a voice seems to cry. Why...is their life filled with failures? Why, not once, why not a single time, can they succeed...?]
[Instead of Gojou, in the mind's eye, stands a brilliant figure, mischievous, smiling, warm, smart, wonderful, beautiful, loved by so many, loved by...loved by...hated by...hated by Douman immensely, being the symbol of everything they lost, everything they were pitied for.]
[Ashiya Douman sees Abe no Seimei laughing at him.]
[You can't become a Beast of Humanity because you don't understand love.]
but only for a second. it matches douman's in intensity, a wail of pain and betrayal, and then it's over. the lights flicker, and douman lashes out with the blade wildly, trying to catch anything. they hit omi once, and then gojou - with a neat shink, the blade swings down and into gojou's shoulder. not from the front, but a top down sort of swing. his arm instantly goes numb.
but the deed is done. omi is dead, and gojou - vanishes.
douman is left, for just a moment, crying - and then they vanish.
and then it's just molly. mollymauk tealeaf, dying, surrounded by bodies. he's alone.
empty. empty. empty.
-
all four of them are dumped out into the common room of the station, surrounded by eight glowing lights, in terrible condition! however, each of them have some items that they recovered: a silver pocket watch, a blue and pink jacket, a trampled rose, and a red halfmask. all weapons are gone, except for the golf club that is through mollymauk because i personally think that's hilarious, and also it's making sure that his blood stays inside blood.
grace has the crab hat, and douman has the samurai hat.]
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
no subject
I can do that, Molly. Try not to exert yourself.
[ YOU HAVE A GOLF CLUB STICKING OUT OF YOU. PLEASE. ]
no subject
[Limbo. The stage of stagnation. We have no hope, but we live in longing...]
[Douman shakes their head picking up the knife from the dresser and hefting it in hand. At the groan, even though Grace might be eager to take care of it, they just turn to launch a swift, hard hard into the side of whatever body is nearest.]
Oh, do shut up.
[They glance to Molly and Gojou.]
Do you think that will work? If the key to all this nonsense is with these friends who do not act like our friends...perhaps we should do something else with them.
[Like...you know, kill them?]
no subject
you want it. you want what you desire more than anything else. anybody else? they're nothing. they are in the way. they don't matter - what makes them more real than the ones on the floor? how do you know douman isn't biding their time? gojou? molly? grace? they have weapons. they could just be waiting for you to turn around.
it'd be easy to pick off the others. they're not expecting it. this whole place has just been illusions, right? you're the only thing you can trust. you have always been the only thing you can trust. if you don't stop them, what will happen to you? to the people who are relying on you at home?
yuel yelps, when she's kicked. curls up, tears leaking from her eyes. gu yun hasn't moved at all, not at all. his chest doesn't move, either. omi spits blood to the floor, watching gojou.
how do you know they're not the real ones?]
no subject
once the thought is there, it's hard to get it out of her head. what is real? what counts as a real person? she's acting on auto pilot when she loads the crossbow once again, but she doesn't point it to anyone. instead, she lowers her glove and looks at her number.
null. it means nothing, not even a zero. they never meant anything at all. passengers were real. numbers were real. but then there was hazel. hazel had a number. but hazel's number wasn't real. hazel was a null.
and grace is here for hazel.
she's not sure about gojou and douman, but she thinks-- she thinks molly was real. she heard him on the floor above, and. she wants molly to be real the same way she wants hazel to be real. gu yun isn't breathing, and omi came with douman, but yuel. she saw her earlier. that was her tail, right? when things were stalking her on her floor. molly heard her when she screamed, but yuel didn't respond even though she was right there. she licks her lips ]
They attacked us. And wouldn't stop.
[ it feels like a justification. but douman said it earlier, and she remembered all the times she threw a null to the wheels, too.
what makes someone real? what makes them a person? she doesn't know. she doesn't know.
she trains her crossbow to yuel. she's done worse things, really. she wonders, if she was on the train, what this would do to her number.
she shoots. ]
no subject
[there’s no denying the feeling is powerful, what it’s asking - what it demands - but that vision of
Yasha,  tears drip down her cheeks, smile a dark grimace. there's a desperation in her eyes, a please. (Yasha, on her hands and knees, in the field of clover. `Have you found one?`)
He’s never been the only thing he could trust. Not once. There’s a glance at the bodies on the floor, in the moments while grace is contemplating, trying to figure out what’s illusion and what isn’t, they've all good reason to believe who is real and who isn't, but in the end
you have to do what it is in your nature to do.
The second Douman takes a kick at someone already down, the tone of their suggestion, the sound of the crossbow being loaded
Molly just snarls and spits blood in douman's face. Suggestion rejected. ]
[it's too late though. grace has already taken her shot.]
no subject
Biding their time or not, he has to have faith until they break it. He had to have faith in his students and peers at home, so he has to have it here. The extra bodies come as an afterthought. He was fortunate to only have been strangled a little bit compared to the rest. Blue eyes shift to Gu Yun, Omi, then Douman, though he makes sure to step between them and Molly in case they retaliate. ]
If you're going to kill him no matter what I say, then let me do it.
[ Him, meaning Omi since Gu Yun hasn't shown any movement. He isn't stupid. Douman has a gun and some more weapons now. If he wanted to prevent them from killing all of the people on the floor, it'd be with his life on the line. ]
no subject
[Ashiya Douman, eternal rival, made to be hated, stoking the flames. The jester who ridicules, calls for more bloodshed, asks people to lower themselves into corruption, depravity, and sin. Grace shoots Yuel, and there's a momentary glimmer in their dark eyes, a flash of red.]
[And then, they see literal red as Molly spits at their face.]
-Ngh! What, do you not like it, Mollymauk? [And they wipe their face off, leering.] Do you think I don't want to get out of here? Do we have any possibilities left? Are you going to bleed to death in this cold room, hmmm?
[But then Gojou steps forward, and Douman's face twists into a frown. They instantly bend down to grasp Omi by the scruff of his t-shirt, possessive.]
No. [It's indulgence week, folks, and Envy is in full play, here. They brandish the knife, threatening, though...their voice cracks, ever so slightly.] It's...it's my right. Not yours.
cw: eyes
nothing. a bullet in the brain. she crumples. and grace vanishes.
for mollymauk, the room fuzzes, and his strength leaves him. it's a familiar feeling, dying. quietly, in his head: don't you want to pretend a little longer? and then, right after: you made your decision.
douman grabs omi by the shirt, as gojou watches, and omi is silent, for a moment, eyes on the knife. and then, blindingly fast like a snake, omi's hand shoots forward. in the interest of not squicking both hei and myself out, i will not describe in loving detail the scalpel that omi plunges into douman's remaining eye. but that does happen.]
no subject
he isn't sure what happens with grace and yuel, he seems to miss the chaos of douman and omi and gojou's argument - more blood and pain playing out in this comedy of errors unfolding. are you going to bleed to death in this cold room? It'd certainly be easy. the last time he'd died had been so much quicker than this. none of the lingering doubts. this is worse. the voice in his head, telling him that he's made a decision.
he isn't sure it was the right one, is the thing. he's always been so fucking sure of himself, hasn't he. arrogant to the end. but he'd promised to fight. it'd be so simple to just stop breathing, because it fucking hurts to breathe. at least he knows - he'd be remembered. would she be angry, that he'd thrown it all away again? he'd promised to fight, to learn a little something from her too.
just breathing. refusing to let his eyes close. just a minute more, then. live with the decision.]
no subject
There is no sympathy when he sees them lose their last eye—they overstepped their boundaries. He doesn't care if they're an evil sorcerer from the Heian period, he's sure he's stronger than them. Most importantly: ]
He didn't choose you.
[ Gojou quickly grabs the knife in Douman's hand and stabs Omi's heart in the next second without hesitation. He feels nothing, just a familiar emptiness... It doesn't hit him until after the blow. The memories of Getou Suguru's smile, his laughter, and how he killed him—his one and only best friend—with his own hands in that alleyway. Is the wish, the dream, worth doing this again...?
Right. It's so no one ever needs to kill their loved ones, so that they don't need to consider killing at all, so they're not left in the cruel world. Broken.
He thrusts the blade deeper into Omi. ]
... I'm sorry.
no subject
[The world is plunged into darkness in an instant. Darkness is familiar. A close friend. But the words that come from Gojou disturb that comfort, like invaders bearing bloody swords, ready to slice them into pieces. Douman shakes, and lets out a loud wail, and this time, it isn't the wail of a beast, of a man-eater, of a monster.]
[Its just the miserable cry of a very miserable man.]
No...no no no no no no no no...no...
[They don't know where anything is. They don't know where Omi is. Everything hurts. Everything hurts. Why does it hurt? They shouldn't care. No, its more the gall of Gojou, the gall that this man has some power over Omi they don't...and...]
How could you...take him from me?! To spite me, is that it?! Because I can't have anything to myself, is that it??!!! I curse you!!! I CURSE YOU WITH EVERY FIBER OF MY BEING!!!
[Douman, still holding the knife, lashes out, stabbing, whether its Omi, whether its Gojou, they don't care. To live is to hurt others. That's the reality of Ashiya Douman.]
[And deep down, a voice seems to cry. Why...is their life filled with failures? Why, not once, why not a single time, can they succeed...?]
[Instead of Gojou, in the mind's eye, stands a brilliant figure, mischievous, smiling, warm, smart, wonderful, beautiful, loved by so many, loved by...loved by...hated by...hated by Douman immensely, being the symbol of everything they lost, everything they were pitied for.]
[Ashiya Douman sees Abe no Seimei laughing at him.]
[You can't become a Beast of Humanity because you don't understand love.]
[Tears of blood streak down their face.]
no subject
but only for a second. it matches douman's in intensity, a wail of pain and betrayal, and then it's over. the lights flicker, and douman lashes out with the blade wildly, trying to catch anything. they hit omi once, and then gojou - with a neat shink, the blade swings down and into gojou's shoulder. not from the front, but a top down sort of swing. his arm instantly goes numb.
but the deed is done. omi is dead, and gojou - vanishes.
douman is left, for just a moment, crying - and then they vanish.
and then it's just molly. mollymauk tealeaf, dying, surrounded by bodies. he's alone.
empty. empty. empty.
-
all four of them are dumped out into the common room of the station, surrounded by eight glowing lights, in terrible condition! however, each of them have some items that they recovered: a silver pocket watch, a blue and pink jacket, a trampled rose, and a red halfmask. all weapons are gone, except for the golf club that is through mollymauk because i personally think that's hilarious, and also it's making sure that his blood stays inside blood.
grace has the crab hat, and douman has the samurai hat.]