can_has_vodka | For can_has_vodka: Twenty-Eighth Vision [video+spam]

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For can_has_vodka: Twenty-Eighth Vision [video+spam]

[GODDAMN THAT IS A BIG CHICKEN.]

[Sir Bertie Rooster peers down at the camera from where he's towering over its wielder, tilting his head back and forth as he considers his now tiny Mom. Arkady for her part giggles threadily at his confusion, then squeaks,]

Well! Clearly there's only one way to handle this situation!

[There is a faint flash of purple light, and Bertie suddenly calms, and settles down into a roost. The image blurs as Arkady hooks her communicator to her belt, runs over and proceeds to climb the chicken-mountain with little grunts. Once settled gripping his ruff, she gets out the communicator again and shows the view from the rooster's back.]

Onward, my chikken!

[And off he goes, walking out the door (which had been fortunately ajar) and wandering out into the hallway, occasionally letting out a rumbly cluck.]

Touko dear? Are you all right? I'm coming to check on you.

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[And for the second time in five minutes, what is even going on here. She knows Monobear could - back at school at least - pop up wherever he wanted, but this woman isn't a robot so far as she knows, even if she seems like one of Hagakure's "greys". She just stares for a moment, and unlike with Toto, she won't lower herself to better talk.]

So it doesn't matter what I do. People disappear at random.

[She's heard people asking around about Natasha, among a couple other rumors. Nobody wanting to sit with you at lunch means you learn how to listen, and here for once it's about things she really needs to know.]

If no one's getting hurt, I don't see why you care.

Of course it matters what you do. The whole matter of disappearing people...well, it's sad, but if you don't give up, and you start to learn, that's far less likely to happen.

[Bertie wanders over, following sprinkled cookie crumbs.]

Well first off, situations like this aren't all giggles. Second, you're my first priority on the Barge and so I must make myself available. And third, I would care anyway. Though I understand you're not really used to that.

[She narrows her eyes at the little fairy and the chicken, which she tries to nudge away with her foot before it even nears her. This isn't going to end up like how she and Naegi did, where she told him secrets before he'd earned them. She just has to keep Arkady away long enough to make a break for it.]

It isn't sad. Most people want to get out of this prison. Even your kind, none of them are happy here.

[Bertie responds to the nudging by fluffing up and grumbling chickenishly. No poke me with foot! He doesn't budge.]

I'm afraid that you still don't understand. Until the Admiral restores you to life, you can only leave for a few days, and that is if we dock at Port. The people who disappear....

...well, they disappear into death. They're gone. They don't go home. They don't go anywhere.

The only way to leave for good is to convince the Admiral to restore you to life. And no one can convince or force him to do that before he considers it time.

Whatever's happening here isn't really death. Everyone just gets back up like nothing happened a couple days later. It's the same as what put me here.

If I was dead, I wouldn't know anything, or I'd be somewhere a lot worse.

God, you can be really dense sometimes. Yes, while you're under the Barge's influence you get right back up. But back home, right now, you are a corpse. You are dead. Only the Admiral's power sustains you, and if he decides to stop, that's it. You're gone. Even if you found a way to leave before he restores you, all you will be able to do in the outside world is rot.

[She sighs and shakes her head.] Maybe you wouldn't be acting this ridiculous if you remembered everything clearly. Maybe I should start there. With what you've been forced to forget.

[Everyone's been insisting you die to get here, but Touko knows she couldn't have. She remembers the dead girl in the garden, but after that, nothing. For weeks, the suspicion's been building, and Arkady clearly knows enough to give her the answer. So when she speaks, she's bitter, but thinking it through.]

Did she get me into trouble I don't know anything about? She had to have, and you know all about it.

Tell me what you know. Do what you say your job is.

Yes, she did. There is a lot you are missing. It isn't all Syo's fault, what you're missing, either. Let me just warn you right now.

If you want, I can let you read your file. It has your history in it. But what would really work is restoring your memories entirely so you can see, feel and understand for yourself.

Oh Touko, I may get angry at you but I feel terrible about what you have gone through. If you do get back your memories I wish we could do it a bit at a time. It is your mind and your decision, but I worry.

[She shakes her head, nose wrinkled in disdain. She remembers the fake suicide note Monobear shared around after the Ogre killed herself. For all she knows, the Admiral might use the gaps in her mind to stir her up in the same way.] I don't trust anything this place would let me read.

But what else can I do? Let you inside my head?

I understand. He's really not very good at understanding feelings or how easily people can be hurt. I think he's too alien.

Technically you could come inside my head and have a look from there. It might be more comfortable for you.

[The chicken peers up at her and boks. Hey, I'm here too!]

[That climbing into heads is a real possibility, rather than the subject of a sarcastic retort, is part of what Syo knows, not Touko. The idea makes her skin crawl a little bit, but it isn't her head, is it? Maybe she should find out what kind of madness this is. She slouches to the floor, leaning against the wall with one of her hands out listlessly. Bertie might take it as an invitation even if it isn't.]

I'm sure there's plenty of room in there. [The malice is almost a reflex rather than intended.]

[Arkady scoffs slightly. The girl can be so childish sometimes. But she doesn't rise to the bait.]

I suppose we'll see.

[The room goes white for a moment, and then turns into what looks like a hippie crash pad with various baskets lining the walls. In the baskets are various chaotic stacks of papers which rustle and rearrange themselves occasionally. A large old fashioned television gives static and quiet white noise. On the couch facing it Arkady sits, pair of chickens on lap, glowing faintly purple.]

Here we are. We can look at your memories from here.

[She's slouched against a basket now and tilts her head backwards, trying to get up, only for a wrinkled sheet to fall back on her face. She looks at it before she can help it, but can't read a word. What this means, she doesn't know, but isn't too sure about it.]

What is this?

The inside of my mind! I figured we could watch your memories on the telly.

[The sheet forms a cheery purple smiley face with a cartoon chicken next to it.]

[She crumples the paper back up and tosses it into the basket, but slides forward a few feet to get a better look at the television.]

If it's what I know, how does it get in your head?

You're assuming that there is no connection between people. [The screen flickers white for a moment, then reveals several human outlines standing on a flat plane. A network of faintly purple energy interconnects them.]

Not only do I know from your file, but I can use the connection between us to communicate and know things. Right now you could do the same with me, if you so chose. Go ahead, if you want.

[She's skeptical, it's clear, and shrugs, not trying to communicate anything except that she doesn't get how this works.]

Don't believe my file. [She accidentally sends.]

The file is just paper. It has some useful facts and such, but in the end it's you and your restored memories and your potential to be great that I believe in.

[Arkady smiles comfortingly.]

Right, so...is there anywhere you'd prefer to look at first?

[This telepathy stuff is creepy. Playing with the occult's fun when it's just a game, but she doesn't want to get into it now that it's real.]

What got me here?

[Arkady considers the setup, wanting to give Touko a sense of control over the situation. She concentrates...and a purple television remote appears in her hand. She hands it over to her Inmate.]

It's on Channel Twenty. Here's the pause button if it gets too much.

[Touko gives the remote a skeptical look before switching channels, but Channel 20 is a view of the hallway of a school she knows well, the camera bobbing in what seems to her to be a clear imitation of someone running along as fast as they can. If it wasn't clear enough what this was supposed to be, the station identifier in the corner is an 8-bit portrait of a girl with glasses and braids that swing as she runs, the same girl as was on her door before she smashed it. There's a date and timer above it: the day she arrived at Hope's Peak.

She turns the sound up to hear the girl breathing hard and grumbling about how of course she was late on her first day, and bites her tongue, knowing what's coming next. Instead of her blacking out when she smacks into the pillar, though, a boy in white who's shouting at her for running helps her up and pushes her through a set of double doors. There are hundreds of people inside - mostly her age - and on the stage, a middle-aged man has started to drone about the flower of the new generation gathered here today.

Touko hits the pause button and turns to Arkady, still trying to look skeptical.]

It's like a dream. It's all made up of things I've seen before, people I know. What you see and what you've read all blend together to create dreams based on your subconscious fears and desires. That's all this is.

[That's what she wants to be true.]

You're terribly smart and imaginative, and I...it's a logical conclusion to draw. I'm not asking you to just swallow anything presented to you. Just look at the evidence, and make up your own mind.

[Arkady looks at the hall monitor and her eyes twinkle just a bit.]

[Touko shrugs with an irritated noise and starts to play the video again. The headmaster's speech is still on, but the other Touko is glancing up and down her row for anyone who might look interesting. She murmurs names as she starts to tick her fallen classmates off one by one, clearly not interested in any of them.]

Asahina, Kirigiri, that creep Yamada... Byakuya-sama should be here, where is he... Kuwata, Maizono... that's ironic enough... Ikusaba...

[One of these things is not like the others, and she stops.]

The girl with the black hair. Next to that trashy-looking couple. I've never seen her before, but I know her.

[Arkady leans forward and studies the girl in question.]

This is where it will start to get uncomfortable, I'm afraid. This girl...who does she look like to you? Look carefully.

[Her heart sinks, and one of the papers at the top of the basket shows a purple sadface.]

[Touko leans in closer and squints over her glasses.] If I had to grasp at a resemblance, she looks slightly like Enoshima, but that isn't her.

[Junko's arm is actually draped over the other girl's shoulder, like "aren't we best friends already", but the girl Touko's pointing out, a lean, straight-postured girl with a black bob, seems tense.]

But I gave her a name I shouldn't have. All any of us knew about "Mukuro Ikusaba" was to watch out for whoever they were. And I've seen her face, but...

[Before Touko can fill anything in, or Arkady can answer, the television starts to fast-forward, no matter how hard Touko slams the buttons to make it stop. After a moment, she gives up, and her eyes are transfixed to the screen.

How long it lasted, she'll never be able to say afterward, but when it stops, she's walking out of somewhere and Junko and the other girl are lingering in the hallway, hailing her over to them with Junko's exaggerated wave and a jerk of the other girl's head. "Toooouko-chan, are you staying?" Junko greets her. "You don't really want to go back out there, do you?"

"We have to wait," the other girl interjects.

But what Touko herself has to say surprises the her that's watching. "What else would I have done when the headmaster asked me? We have to stay here. Aren't we all any of us have left?"

On the side of the screen with her and Arkady, the parts that flashed forward are coming together.]

I never understood how those two were friends. [She looks down into her knees as the conversation plays out, Junko teasing the other two girls about how serious they were.] They were friends. We were all together every day for a year, in the same room. I had a window seat in that classroom, and it was the first time I'd gotten a view like that...

But none of this happened.

For can_has_vodka: Twenty-Eighth Vision [video+spam]

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