(no subject)

[centile]

Who: Mob, Viktor and others
What: december log catchall for my characters
When: december and potentially beyond
Where: around the trench

Content Warnings: in thread headers

Comments

mob and jun | winter mourning

[centile]

[at some point mob ends up coming to see jun. he has a thermos with him, hot chocolate he'll offer jun a cup of and say it's a thanks for having him over. he's looking forward to seeing the book on sea creatures jun mentioned, just having a somewhat normal day in general.

it's nice not to be alone. he doesn't enjoy when the house he stays at is empty and echoing, miss makima out and her dogs quiet.

so a totally normal day, except at some point the trench decides enough of that. maybe it's a delayed reaction to touching one of the wreaths, maybe it's just one of those days. regardless as he's sitting down with jun mob suddenly sees something that's very much not his own memory. what does he see?]

cw: genocide, child death

[icanhearscreams]

[To be fair, Jun is putting the finishing touches on a winter mourning when Mob comes over. He wants to be festive! And also he has a lot to mourn for.]

[When the other comes inside, Jun offers to hang up his jacket and goes back to the kitchen and finishes putting the final touches on his project. When he does, it starts glowing, and then -]

Jun is sitting in a white void with a few adults and a bunch of floating chairs, looking out at a city. He closes his eyes and then opens them, watching as the lasers fly out from where he's standing. It's clear he's been here for some time, given how tired and shaky he looks.

"Jun, are you all ri -" One of the adults starts talking, but Jun cuts him off. "I'm fine. I have to keep going." The man goes back over to the others, including the blond-haired man who's standing near a camera. "Is he really fine?" "No, but he has to do this." "I can't believe he has to kill everyone." A strange creature floats over towards them. Even though his expression doesn't change, he looks annoyed.

"Will you idiots stop talking about it? He can hear you, you know. And so can I." They bow their heads and nod slightly. "I suppose you're right. He must feel bad enough. We're at - how long?" "Thirty nine hours, forty-two minutes." They turn and watch as another set of lasers flies out of the robot, as it's been doing about once per second. Everything is quiet, even as Jun clutches his head. The city around them is decimated by laser marks, people lying dead in the street. Cars are crashed, fires are raging, and it looks like a disaster hit it.

Jun keeps firing and firing, the moments stretching on longer and longer until -

"... I... killed the enemy pilot." Jun stands up, entire body shaking. "Everyone is sa -" He pitches forward and the adults rush over to catch him. "Jun? Jun!"

[The real Jun is just watching this all quietly, occasionally glancing at Mob to see his reaction. It's... weird, to see it from an outside perspective. And the end...]

[As it fades, he sighs and shakes his head.]

I'm... sorry you had to see that. I imagine you have questions.

[centile]

[this isn't the first memory he's been tugged into, so after a moment of disorientation he manages to figure out what probably just happened. not in the memory itself of course, that was bizarre. kill everyone?

he blinks once, then twice. glances over to jun who looks the same basic age as that memory.]

It's okay. This happens a lot here I think. [he settles on after a moment.] If you don't want to talk about it we don't have to.

[but yeah, he definitely has questions, that's clear in how his brow furrows just a little, still trying to piece together a lot of the very sinister implication.]

[icanhearscreams]

No, I've... noticed that it does that. You might as well ask what's on your mind.

[Does he want to talk about it? Not really. But letting someone speculate is just going to cause further questions.]

[centile]

[that permission has mob going quiet, taking the time to think over what he saw. there's an easy one to start with, or so he hopes.]

Who were those people with you?

[icanhearscreams]

Two of them were from the army.

[Yes, his Japan has a formal army. It's slightly Different.]

The other one was... the father of one of the other pilots. He's a journalist. I wanted him to record the whole battle so people knew what we were really fighting... and what we were fighting for.

[centile]

What were you fighting for?

[he's having a hard time wrapping his head around jun having to fight at all. he was a kid, a really smart kid but still. it didn't make any sense to him at all.]

I don't... really understand why you were fighting with an army. Don't they have adults for that?

[icanhearscreams]

... So it was part of some sick 'game'. We entered a contract with the robot we were piloting. We didn't know what was going on at first... but we were fighting other versions of Earth. The loser's version is destroyed.

The adults... were willing, but we couldn't break the contract that we had formed.

[centile]

What- who made you do that?

[mob doesn't emote much. typically his face is blank, some find unpleasantly so. here some genuine horror manages to crack through his expression, in the thin line of his mouth and the furrow to his brow.]

[icanhearscreams]

... The last fight each world has to do is basically the 'tutorial' for whatever version of Earth is going to get the robot next. He lied to us - said it was a game he was making. He didn't... tell us we would die after piloting. He didn't say that our world would be destroyed if we didn't fight. He didn't let on that he was even from another world.

He lied to us a lot. We're... we were just kids. We were supposed to be on a special science school trip. We didn't know anything.

[centile]

[mob goes very quiet listening to all that, the faint frown still in place. that is... so cruel. he thought the trench was kind of a lot, that's worse.

and jun was dead in his world, so.] That's how you died?

[another pause.] I'm sorry he did that to you.

[icanhearscreams]

It is. ... There were plenty of others who died before me, so I knew what was coming, but still...

[centile]

Are any of them here too? [he can hope, more second chances at life would be nice.]

[icanhearscreams]

No, they aren't. My adopted little sister was involved too... she was only ten. I keep hoping at least some of them will wash up on shore, even the ones I didn't get along with.

But no luck so far.

[centile]

[oof, that hurts him to hear. he has a little brother himself, jun's age at that. imagining this situation-

no. better not to. he looks down at his hand a moment before looking up to offer pretty much the only thing he can,] If you wanted company going down to check the shore sometimes I'd go with you.

[icanhearscreams]

I...

[Would they even want to see him? He's not sure. But he recognizes the gesture for what it is.]

... Thanks. I've been looking, but... I don't know if most of them should... most of them deserve a rest. Not... a place that's going to drag their histories up over and over. Some of them were a lot worse off than me.

[Even if their battles were different, maybe less brutal... he pieced together enough information on most of the other kids to know what they were dealing with.]

[centile]

Hm... [a moment and mob says,] In my world when people aren't ready to move on they usually become spirits. Sometimes it's bad but sometimes they just want a little more time before they rest, even if they don't realize it yet.

I guess I mean maybe it'll be the same here. If they aren't ready to rest maybe those are the ones who might come. Everyone here seems pretty full of life like that.

[icanhearscreams]

Maybe. I don't think I was ready to move on at all. I remember being... calm but terrified, if that makes sense? I'd just started to do the right thing, and then...

[Well. Yeah.]

I don't... no matter what you prepare for, facing total oblivion is... terrifying.

[centile]

That makes sense. Sometimes you just have to accept something is going to happen, even if you don't want it to.

[a pause.] I've seen a lot of spirits. Most of them don't handle having faced that sort of thing well. I think you should be proud of how well you did, and still are.

[icanhearscreams]

I... thanks.

[He wants to deflect the praise, but at this point... yeah, he'll just take it.]

I... knew what I had to do. I knew the price for it. But if she could believe in our world even after all I did to her... it was a world worth saving.

[centile]

[he isn't sure who 'she' is, though there was one girl mentioned before...] Your sister, you mean?

[icanhearscreams]

Yes. Though there was another girl, from the previous world... she came along and... ended up dying for my world, too.

Both of them... didn't need to die. Neither of them did.

[centile]

[mob nods in easy agreement there, going quiet a moment as he lets a lot of this information settle in his head. how... terrible, just all of it. cruel in the sort of way mogami tried to insist the world was.]

What were they like? [another pause and he says,] If you want to talk about them.

[icanhearscreams]

Kana - my sister - she was... kind. Young, but very mature for her age. Brave and selfless and always putting others above herself. I thought she was stupid but... she was smart. Just... in a different way than me.

Machi was kind too, but she teased people. She was a good person even if she was a pain sometimes. She... was the first person who liked me, I'm pretty sure. She liked all of us, I guess... but she liked me. I just... wish I hadn't been a coward who fumbled about it until it was too late.

[centile]

My master says being young is about fumbling and making mistakes. It's supposed to be when it's safe to do that.

[unless assholes start world ending robot shit. he takes a moment just to imagine the pair though.] I wish I saw a memory of them instead, I would have liked to see them.