FINAL CONFRONTATION.

[foundationmods]

The Winchester House looms before you, the barrier that kept everything in - the time stop that Dog placed over the area - now thin as a single pane of transparent glass, Solomon still clearly outside the house frozen in the same position he was on the tapes.

The minutes tick by - and the barrier slowly gets thinner and thinner, close to falling.

You have seen everything - the events of the past. You have also come up with your own ideas of what to do from here - how to save your fellow 6350's lost to the curse, and defeat the Curse itself.

There is no one left alive in the house.

But, at the end of all of this...

There will be a wrong righted.

Comments

[white_camellia]

There do not seem to be any perfect options, however. Even if we seal it away, it will be a sentient being trapped alone. Its morality will only become more warped in that situation.

[deadanimemom]

It's still a child. There has to be something else we can do, some way we can purify it.

[white_camellia]

The problem is that if its core nature is that of a curse, purifying it may kill it anyways.

[deadanimemom]

Then we don't purify it. It's a sentient being, it can learn and change. Just because it's destructive at its core doesn't mean it deserves to die!

[white_camellia]

I do not disagree. That being said, I do not know if we have an alternative.

[deadanimemom]

Someone should at least try something. [She can't, trapped in this container as she is.]

[accessorytomurder]

...Yuri-san...

[She doesn’t want to say it, but—]

Are you that willing to pin your hopes on another poisoned apple? You have.... you have really kind ideals, but you aren’t allowed to forgive what happens to other people, only yourself. This thing has hurt... so many people, for so long. You don’t get to erase that to ease your own heart.

[deadanimemom]

[Another poisoned apple, says Yachi, and that cuts right into her.

Every word out of the girl's mouth stings.]

It's a child, and it never had a chance. We don't get to decide that it doesn't get to survive, just because it didn't know any better.

[accessorytomurder]

It’s been killing people for eighty years. It melted everyone outside we came with! They screamed, and they suffered, and that made it happy.

[That made it stronger.]

...If it had gotten the man you love brutally murdered, would you still be desperately arguing? You’re... Yuri-san, you care so much. To... to the point that it’s almost hard to say you actually care about anyone at all. After everything you saw happen in there... just because it acts or sounds like a child instead of an obvious monster, we should just forgive it?

[Dazai’s weight in her lap, as he fell still... Sho struggling to give her the kindness of a painless end... Rosa, trying to drive her out, vicious but unwilling to kill her...]

...Yuri-San... how many people are dead because of your kindnesses, where you come from?

[deadanimemom]

I understand that you're angry right now. [Yachi is angry with the curse, angry with Yuri, angry with all of this. Yuri isn't. She's looking at this and seeing a child who doesn't understand yet how to live in this world, a demon who needs to be handled carefully until it stops viewing human lives as playthings.]

But you wouldn't have that man you loved if at some point someone didn't give him a second chance, despite the pain he caused.

[accessorytomurder]

I'm not mad. I'm just... I'm sad, and hurting, and—a-and really disappointed that we don't matter to you, this much.

[Her voice is small, now.]

...you'e... just like the Foundation, aren't you? Gambling with lives for your own satisfaction. ...as many as it takes.

[deadanimemom]

[Yachi is so far off the mark that there's no way to counter it, a view so wrong that it's unrecognizable when compared to the person Yuri knows herself to be.]

Of course you matter to me. But I can't just stand here and support killing something just because it never had the chance to understand anything other than suffering. We're closer to reaching it now than anyone before us has been, there has to be some way to get through to it now that it isn't in pain.

[accessorytomurder]

...Yuri-san. You do... understand, right? That life is always going t-to include losses, just the same as wins? That... that you can do everything right, that you can be kind, that you c-can be diligent, that you can be good... and it just... I-it won't be rewarded. That can happen. The world doesn't promise happy endings to anyone or anything, just for being born. Just for doing their best. Just... for trying.

[It happens, in big and little ways, every single day.]

Unless you have a plan and an idea that's actionable... um, I... I-I think you should save your breath, rather than just spit in other people's fresh wounds and blame them for not trying hard for something that has only hurt them.

[deadanimemom]

That's not something I need to be told. [That's something Yuri never needed to learn. That's the sort of thing that's always been carved into her bones.]

And I'm not blaming you, or anyone else. But I'm not approving of your choice either.

[accessorytomurder]

You don't have to approve of it. Just... please stop trying to convince us to forgive and preserve something that brutally murdered most of us without... without remorse or hesitation. If you ever cared about us, please, just... stop.

[deadanimemom]

[She doesn't say it killed me too. She doesn't say I suffered more than you can ever imagine.

She just goes quiet, and doesn't say anything.]

[white_camellia]

It is the "something" that is the problem. If we are attempting to purify it, that is what is already being done. If it is sealing it off so it does no more damage... That was the situation as it was before we arrived, a method that was already failing before we arrived. The issue is finding a method that both allows it to live, yet prevents it from killing more people. Unless we can provide an alternative...

[Please, say you have an idea we can try.]

[deadanimemom]

[She's been dead for weeks, struggling to hold on to her concept of self despite the dragging pull of the curse. She doesn't have an idea, or an alternative, or anything other than the desire to help.]

There has to be a way to contain it without hurting it. They've had time to work on it, someone must have thought of something!

[white_camellia]

We cannot materialize a containment method out of thin air. In the first place, this entire situation is because the current method of containing it failed. We have no method of containing it, and if we let it go free, more people will be killed by it and this situation will only happen again to others. I understand your reasoning, but it is a matter of practicality... Unless you intend to tell all of the people that died that their deaths were acceptable because it was a child that killed them deaths, the most we can do is try to find another way.

To be honest, I do not see any other way, myself.

[deadanimemom]

I know we're too late, and there probably isn't another way, but... [But it's been suffering for so long. It's never known anything else, never known how to care or be kind. And it's finally free, finally has a chance to experience something other than pain and they're just hurting it more and more.]

[white_camellia]

...But fate is cruel. Even right now, people are suffering and dying through no fault of their own. Whether we like it or not, sometimes things are simply... too dangerous to live. That is how it worked in my own world, as well. Perhaps one day, Witches could be saved in my world, but until then... All we can do is our utmost to minimize the damage they do. Even if they too are victims, it is inevitable, unless we can oppose fate itself.

[deadanimemom]

[Oppose fate itself. That's certainly a way to say it, to put Yuri's own tenacious determination to chase after any possible happy ending into words that sound more heroic than foolish.]

[white_camellia]

Make no mistake, this is not a condemnation. To a magical girl, the thing known as "fate" is our worst enemy. From beginning to end, our lives are set up according to the plans of another... It is quite detectable, to be honest. But that does not change the situation. It is true we cannot save the curse this time.

But, that does not mean this is over. We must ensure that the next time something like this is born, this situation can be avoided.