Week 5 - After The Massacre

[dolleyed]

[ Silence has settled in the resort, but the lack of auditory input hardly seems to matter when there is an overwhelming stench of death hanging in the air of the third floor. Burned flesh, the iron stench of blood, burned hair... guts and decay. All everywhere.

No staff appears to clean the mess. There's only yourselves now and the remnants of what used to be your friends. ]

Comments

[dolleyed]

[ There's... a lot of things that need to be said between them and Kohaku doesn't know how to say or compute any of them. So instead he'll just nod seriously. ]

That'll help a lot. I'll clean it off for you after.

[ As awkward as matters are now, he doesn't really need Aoi to be any more inconvenienced. ]

[latebluemer]

[It's over, and there's an endless, endless amount of things to do.

Maybe it will never be over, and they'll be trapped in this Resort as it dies, or worse. Who knows. She's running very much on autopilot now; everything is overloaded after Speedrun Massacre 2.0: The Resortvengeance, and thoughts will connect later when something different happens. Her eyes are dry, if red as hell, and she's moving with a careful sort of mechanical movement that only pauses if she realizes she can't get around a corpse without stepping over it.

...

She starts moving the corpses out of the way and up to the D-board, using her whip to shift them.]

It's all right. I know how to clean things here.

[dolleyed]

... you don't need to be doing this at all.

[ Watching her like this, so determined yet so fragile... Well, it's making Kohaku understand exactly what he's always seen in her and why he's followed her this far along the way. She's not from a world like his, she's not known the same kind of hardships, but regardless of anything thrown in her way, she'll get up and find meaning.

Even if her meaning might not be compatible with Kohaku's anymore, he can still see this strength. See it, admire its brightness, and yet also notice how close to snapping it all seems.

He'll place a hand on her shoulder. ]

Go rest. I've seen more bodies than I could ever count, let me handle this.

[latebluemer]

... I think we owe it to them. To do this properly.

[She's always been someone whose world is very, very small.

The amount of people who mean something to her have always been counted on a single hand. Others exist, and insofar as society dictates she should concern herself with them she does. The number of survivors here is still more people than she's been truly connected to her whole life. The number of people here is much, much more than she's been used to dealing with.

Living with, laughing with, sharing memories with, willingly or no.

It should feel less like limbs and bits and pieces of herself have been cut off, now that they've sent so many away. This is still more than she's ever had. She could always go on, as long as she had someone. Even one person. But...]

I was... talking to Inaba-san about setting up a shrine.

[At this rate, it won't be a New Year's shrine.]

[dolleyed]

There's nothing proper about hauling bodies to burn in a pile, but it's the best we can do.

[ So if it can't be done properly at all, then Aoi really shouldn't need to be doing it. But he's not going to argue further than this. She can make her own choices. The out has been given, not taking it is her own responsibility. ]

Shrine's... definitely more proper.

[ He thinks it over in silence for a second, then nods to himself. ]

... yeah, sounds good. There's already enough people out there who don't get real graves. Why make the numbers grow?

[latebluemer]

[She'll maybe take half an out -- she's going to help load the D-board, but then at the very least it doesn't need her instruction beyond sending it directly to the courtyard. She's stubborn, but she's also chasing something else now; a way to at least make this something more than a body burning.

Because he's right: most of the dead here haven't had a chance at a real grave. If their ghosts are around, it kind of makes it even worse. Maybe not everyone is Japanese, but...]

We can only do the best we can with what we have. [it's half to herself] I'll read up on it, once we're out of here. There's materials in the library, and I think we can get some things from storage. I hope.

[There's just slightly more life in her face, but that's not hard at this point. She's going to keep going until she stops, at some point.

She can't stop right now.]

[dolleyed]

[ And just like that, it's easy to follow her lead again. The rift from the trial hasn't closed yet and Kohaku certainly won't be looking to her first for important decisions now... but this? Yeah, he'll help out. He likes keeping busy. It wards off the claustrophobic feeling that the Resort is causing. ]

We can keep the ashes in urns - or whatever we can find that passes for urns.

[ It's a pointless waste of space, but then again, there's nothing they need that space for and it's a nice gesture.

Kohaku doesn't like people dying unceremoniously, their bodies forgotten. He's used to it, but that's a different thing. "Why do some people get funeral rites and others don't?" is something he has asked himself when he was younger. A bit of that bitterness on class divide still exists in him.

But this? It isn't about class. It's about people who sacrificed themselves so they could go on. Kohaku might not have thought this smart, but there is no reason to dishonor them either, when they have room for the alternative. ]