Killers and victims, killers and victims. Three of your own have fallen prey to murderous intent last week. Your numbers keep shrinking. Azura has fallen prey to Franciscus in the same night that Olympia betrayed her friend Millium and killed Cian who wound up in the crossfire. At this rate, is there anyone you can trust?
The townspeople's anger burns hotter than ever. Wherever they go, must they live in fear of stumbling on a corpse? They can't live like this. More than ever, the visitors are being shown that they are
unwelcome.
Walking outdoors, cold looks are the norm. Shouted profanity isn't unexpected. Barely anybody is willing to still hold a conversation with any visitors.
Even within the motel, there is no feeling of safety any longer. Not only have two people died in this very place, no, now the townspeople also lost their fear of coming inside. While they don't enter private rooms, the daring among them vent their hatred of you by vandalizing the common rooms.
Cartesio has become a menacing place.
In the lobby of the motel there's a few more brochures, and
the maps have been updated once again. Don't mind that some of them have been damaged in one of the attacks on the motel.
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cartesianism2018-11-04 01:52 am
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So, there’s a knock on the door, and she speaks.]
Dazai? It’s Natalie. Can I come in?
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The door is open.
[...inside he’s laying on top of the bed. It’s still made— he’s just there laying at the ceiling.]
...still in one piece? Sorry I couldn’t give you as much time as I’d hoped...
[Yet he still doesn’t look at her. Just... at the ceiling.]
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Still in one piece. Thanks for doing that. You gave us plenty of time, and I bet she didn’t make it easy.
[Haha!!]
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...I never got to see her. By the time I was meant to perform my duty she was already dead. So I was asked to execute her murderer instead.
[Natalie has probably seen enough of his better days and worse days to know that though he says the words, there’s no life in them.]
But at least I was still able to give you the time you needed to get out safely.
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What? Who - Dazai, who killed her?
[She's taking note of everything else, the dull way he talks and the stiff way he moves, but that can wait.]
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The culprit was Oda Sakunosuke. It seems he made quick work of her during the night. The Sergeant never even bothered to mention it to me.
[Oh yeah, surely that’s. Mmmmmmfine. It’s mmfine.]
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They didn't even find anything she would consider useful. After a moment, her words come out in a rush.]
You didn't have to... If we knew, we would never have asked you to do that!
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Oh Nattie.
[He shakes his head.]
I didn't do anything unnecessary. There is more than one way to draw out a sentence. But I'm sure it was a much less entertaining spectacle than the Sergeant anticipated. What I would have done to her, I simply could not have done to her replacement.
[Dazai doesn't want any mistakes. Neither her nor Keith bore any guilt here. The Sergeant, Olympia, Dazai... and Oda himself, were responsible for this mess, and only them.]
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Why would he... She was going to die either way, so why would he—?
[Through the confusion and shock, there's some anger breaking through - for Dazai, not for herself.]
You shouldn't have had to do that. That's not... That's fucked up!
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Odasaku knew the consequences and he did it anyway.
[Somehow this is even more painful the second time.]
...this is the second time... he’s faced this kind of loss. He simply... couldn’t find... something to live for when it was done.
[To say it just... makes him feel more lost right now.]
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[It's simple, but heartfelt. She can't imagine that, not at all.]
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When he came here, he’d already thrown away his life, his dreams, his future... And even when he got them back, he was never able to accept that he deserved those things. When... he came to see me yesterday, he tried to tell me that he wouldn’t live when this was all over— that the Sergeant told him that.
But I knew he was lying.
He just... didn’t want to burden me with more regrets... or the guilt he knew I’d place on myself knowing there could have been another way.
...it was pointless. I knew him better than anyone. Because I... loved him.
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[It's said plainly, but with enough conviction to be clear that her opinion on that won't be changing. Still, though, her voice grows softer as she goes on.]
You didn't deserve that. Are you, um... [There isn't a delicate way to put this that she can find.] You're not going to do anything, right...?
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If the rest of you are going to continue to fight then it's not right for me to leave you to that alone.
[There are... still people he cares about that much at least.]
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...You know there isn't a time for something like that, right?
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[He chuckles, but there's no real humor to it.]
Even I would have trouble doing that.
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[She doesn't know what she's saying, exactly, but it concentrates into the desperation in her voice.]
Just - please.
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My life has always been guided by those who would give me direction. With no desires to call my own, whether it was under Mori's wing in the Port Mafia... or by Odasaku's insistence that helping people was ever so slightly more beautiful, in the Armed Detective Agency... I've let myself go where these people who influenced me would have my life take me.
[Two very different lives and neither by his own choice. And who now is there left to tell him where he should stand?]
...tell me Natalie. What do you think I should do? If this life isn't meant to end... where do I go?
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No pressure, she nearly says, but even a shaky and stressed joke would be misplaced here. Whatever pressure she feels doesn't matter, besides; as the seconds tick by, she thinks the most important thing is to say something, not to meet that question with silence. Still...]
I don't... [Mm.] I think you should... I mean, it shouldn't be up to me, but if it were up to me, I...
[There are a thousand answers she could give, but in the end, what seems most responsible to her is:]
I can't - answer that for you. But, he made you happy, didn't he? So... Other things can, too, and maybe you can look for those?
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...for a brief time, I was happy.
[He can't deny it more than he can deny that he lives and breathes.]
But finding another such miracle isn't so likely.
[It's a lot of honesty, for someone who usually filters nearly everything he says about himself. In more than one way he's gotten a bit soft here. Several people were responsible for the guard he's let down-- even if right now, it's more that he's too tired to put it back up and recreate that effort at the moment.]
But there's still time to think about these things. We have more pressing matters to get through together first, hmm?
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While normally she would recoil, she barely reacts to the touch; she just studies his face for a moment more.]
No, we can... We can think about it now. I can listen.
[While she retraces the words she's spoken to find some that might actually help him, words that she's sure exist somewhere.]