2022-11-19: Dreamless
- Log: 2022-11-19: Dreamless
- Cast: Akane Shinjo (ft. Alexis Kerib)
- Where: Tsutsujidai
- Date: 0096-11-19
- Summary: The aftermath of 2022-11-19: Musou ~DREAM~ and 2022-11-20: Musou ~UNRIVALED~.
- CW: suicide attempt
I never really reached any of them. They're all abandoning me.
Oh, sure, they could say whatever they wanted about it, but any such distinctions would be pointless shortly, as far as Akane was concerned.
Ultimately, this was best. She'd overcomplicated everything. The offer she made was never fair, never honest.
It was nice to go back to the way it was at the start, just for a little bit, though. To tell herself that she really could care for people, given the chance -- given a smaller world.
... that had never really been it, though. 'I wanted a nice dream, for everyone'? Another lie on the pile of tedious self-justification. All she'd wanted was to separate Gridman from himself and his friends so she could crush him.
(Her head shouldn't be throbbing.)
Another kaiju on the pile, then. Another unexpressed feeling pulled out of her chest. Another cruel desire, no matter how much she dressed it up in the chance at a happy school life.
"... what do I do now?" she asks the rain. Any tears she might shed have a legion of twins to hide among.
('They kinda... exist to do their one thing, where they want something, and then...')
That unfulfilled want brings her to the top of the construction crane's safety railing. She feels the rail sitting in the space in her shoes just before the heels.
Her subjects would return, one by one, to the people who loved them. Back to a world that was never hers -- and most importantly, away from her.
How long would it take them to forget this city? A year? Three?
It would be easiest if they got a head start. Now, as their loved ones would be most certain to hold them closest, after nearly losing them.
All it would take is the smallest shift of her body weight for them to start --
forgetting
Her body is already righting itself by the next time she thinks at all. The impact never comes, as she goes from upside down to right side up in an instant -- her world simply rejects the notion that it could end, and so she stands, swaying, upright.
Akane finds herself the victim of a cruel practical joke by her world. The momentary swaying turns into a vicious, angry slam of her shoulder into chain-link fence, desperation setting in. Is she even allowed to feel pain, anymore?
Kaiju, in the end, are creatures of unfulfilled want. If what a kaiju wants is to die, then...
... Akane stalks off into the fog, hoping it can numb her the way it used to.
Akane returns home, head tilted downward. The garbage seems higher than ever before.
"Ah, Aka --"
Akane hurls herself down a second time. It proves more obliging at four feet than four hundred. A trash bag obscures her vision fully.
"Ope." Alexis offers no further comment, allowing Akane to lie there as long as she pleases.