jigokulogs | [OPEN] The end of the storm

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[OPEN] The end of the storm

Who ⬤ The team members and ANYONE!
What ⬤ The mission was a success! Time to face the music from friends and family.
When ⬤ Just after the tower expedition
Where ⬤ Outside Kaigo no Bou, probably moving around
Content Warnings ⬤ References to violence and horror imagery

All at once, the rains cease.

The damage remains, both to the city and to her inhabitants, but reality reasserts itself, and the ill wind that's blown through Jigoku-cho has—for now—come to an end.

Emergency services have borne away the injured, including the Daitengu and the freed Enma, leaving a gaggle of people emerging into the night.

[This is an OPEN IC MINGLE. Go forth and icly rubberneck or speculate or collect your friends back home to get some rest or yell at said friends for taking risks without telling them they were chosen for this mission out of some misguided attempt to get them to not worry. Who would do something so stupid, anyway.]

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[The whole time, as events wind down after the shadowy being says its parting words—"They cannot save you"—picking up the pieces in the wreckage of the Enma's sanctum, trying to formally shake hands with Billy and Hu Tao and instead getting caught in a tight-but-not-unwelcome hug from Cain, then the long, long ride down the restored elevator... the whole thing begins to take an unreal sheen. By the time they hit the lobby, the only thing stopping Minato from falling asleep on his feet are the nagging bruises all over from being thrown across the room.]

[Well. That and the glimpse of the being's face. Its smile is going to be haunting his dreams for some time. He doesn't want to think about that part.]

[There's another whirlwind of activity as they hit ground level. Faction leaders are hustled away by medical staff, Toraguma is yelling about something but Minato has gotten to a point where Toraguma yelling can bleed safely into comforting background noise. He's going to sit at a bench in the lobby, cradling the camera in his lap like a cat, and for the first time since midnight, catch his breath.]

[ It had taken him a bit to get down to Kaigo no Bou, and even longer to work out what the safest distance to wait was- Tama was far from the only person who had thought to do this, but he certainly had looked the most chaotic. He'd crammed the colorful bobbypins he'd bought in to his hair to pin back his unruly, frizzing bangs, he hadn't even grabbed a hakama and felt underdressed as a result, but he'd snagged their umbrella, and was rapidly worrying the prayer beads wrapped in triplicate around his bony wrist-

And then, the sky...cleared. Really cleared, completely and totally, making him peer curiously out from under his umbrella at the sky like he'd never seen it before. It was all anyone could do, bursting in to Kaigo right then, not just the worried well-wishers but the Enma's agents as well, people bustling about and carrying away the wounded (the wounded?) and he felt a little lost, still feverish but forcibly keeping himself grounded through sheer stubbornness. Seeing Minakami sitting down, rumpled but alive, exhausted but alive, it's impossible to not rush over instantly. There were many people he'd been worried about entering this nightmare tower, but it stood to reason that his best friend would take precedent in all things, surely. So, what was it...yell at said friends for taking risks without telling them they were chosen for this mission out of some misguided attempt to get them to not worry? Why, don't mind if he does! ]

M...Minakami. [ Well. Yelling had been the plan. The thing keeping him warm and alive and present in the moment, an increasingly-difficult task given he was slightly woozy on his feet. But he smiled, a little shakily, instead of losing his temper, or sulking, or throwing a manic tantrum. ] Sorry, I'm not good at waiting, I guess...

[The increased sounds of activity, both in the lobby and spilling in from the exterior doors, wash over him unmoving. It can all wait til later. Or... it could. He's not sure how he knows to wake up from his half-doze, even before Tama calls his name, the sounds of his approach should be fully drowned out by everything else, but he looks up.]

[His friend's there: hair in disarray, half-dressed, face flushed and eyes bright from a fever -- but they're alert and present. It's a far cry from how Minakami saw him last, or more accurately didn't. It's a good thing he's sitting down; that last awful week where he was going through the motions at the Arena, trying to do what he could without dwelling on what he heard during that phonecall. It had nearly all been brought to the surface again, when he'd seen an apparition of that man's face in the bird's remains, but he'd had to push past it. But now, weak with relief and out of immediate danger...]

Tamamori? [That comes out sounding more lost than he wants.] How did you get here?

Honestly, it was kind of a blur. [ Haha. Get it. Because he has a fever and also I haven't threaded that part out yet.

Tama wasted very little time in shuffling over to the bench, flopping down next to Minakami with some confusing mix of exhaustion and energy, stretching his legs out. Maybe it was secretly good he hadn't wore his hakama actually, given it would have just gotten bloodied up and surely the washing machines back at the apartments were going to become exhausted tsukougami by the end of the month alone, and... ]

Uehara-san sent me a message, and helped me get here. [ Sorry, Kamui of the present, for tattling on your tattling. But the loop is now complete. ] If you went, went back to the start of the blood...d'you think it'd be when it started falling, or when it was first made? [ He's trying hard not to lean too close, partly to keep his feelings at bay as well as some attempted consideration for both of them being a little out of sorts, but it's painfully obvious he doesn't want to. ] Maybe...it fell down here from Yomi. I don't imagine the Enma and Yomo-tsu Okami would get along.

[He glances over at Tama as he sits down, about to say something, but the closer look at the state he's in makes the words briefly die in his throat. Instead he looks down at the ground -- Tama's shoes, in better condition than any other clothes his friend owned, as usual, and his now-permanently-stained geta.]

Is that so? [The terse conversation he'd had with Kamui felt like forever ago. He'd deliberated on whether to ask the man at all, it felt like too much of a burden on a near-stranger. Still, he can't feel too upset at Kamui for telling Tama, not when his friend's presence now feels like a lifeline. At the same time, he sinks in his seat a little.] I'm sorry... all I do is apologize, isn't it?

[He's quiet at the seeming non-sequitur about the blood rain. The memory of the basement room in the Suizenji's inn with its endless shelves of ceramic jars, not sake but stored rainwater, neatly dated and marked. He doesn't want to ask why going back was on Tama's mind; he can guess.] No, I suppose not. Royalty of rival territories rarely do. Then again... maybe petitioning her for aid in this could have helped. Who can say?

...ah, I see you found them. [He hadn't missed the rattle of beads when Tama sat down.] I hope they helped.

...you don't even need to apologize, this time. I looked online. It wasn't like you signed up or anything. [

] You got asked to do it because you're always...you always want to help. [ He shakes his head, still half-smiling. ] That's always what happens, isn't it? [ Helping by getting out of Tama's life for good. Helping by not rocking the boat with Kawase and his downward spiral. Yes, at the point that Minakami was at it had become running away, but...only someone without a guilty heart could cast aspersions about that. He'd pushed away first. ]

...how many times have you had to tell me about us? [ It almost sounds like an idle thought, as he runs his thumb over the prayer beads, but of course it's the reverse. A shocking confirmation he hadn't forgotten what they'd said across the phone, that he'd held on to the information instead of discarding everything they'd said under such dire circumstances. ] There must have been hundreds of times I didn't believe you, or listen to you. A hundred more where I did, but I was still a useless, stubborn idiot. [ His smile is stranger when he picks his head up, tilting it at Minakami. ] You got your arm cut off once, y'know. It was terrifying...but you were trying so hard to help. [ He finally lets himself bump his shoulder in to Mina's arm, as his head turns to look back out at the room. ] My head's too full of stuff I don't want you to see. The future, because of him. But I should have trusted you more, because we're the same.

[He doesn't raise his head.]

My mother used to tell me, how my father changed after I was born. He'd work too long, he'd take too much on himself, he'd push himself to do things he wouldn't before. She said he calmed down after a few years, that it was like he was re-learning what was 'allowed'. [Allowed without a spirit watching through his eyes.] ...I'm taking longer than him to learn, aren't I?

[Ah. Minakami wasn't sure which outcome he was more afraid of: This, or coming back to find that his confession had been lost in the week of delirium. He's too fatigued to go to pieces over this again, not after that genuine moment of thinking he was about to die. Instead he shifts the camera onto the other side of the bench (where his sword is sitting next to one of the Hihi'irokane daggers, cocooned in about four or five layers of fabric). There's too many people still rushing around in and out of the building to actually reach for Tama's hand, but he leans sideways into him, as well.]

... Not that many. [That didn't mean anything, given the scale of time. ] I didn't want to tell you. Even if you believed it -- I don't want this to be because you thought you didn't have a choice. [As it is, for the last couple of years, he'd been sure Tama had made his choice clear.] ...I wish... you wouldn't say that about yourself. Every time I've known you-- [even if it wasn't for long] --my life was better for it.

[At the mention of that injury from some unknown timeline, he reflexively moves to grab his own arm, the same one that had gotten bloodied while fighting smugglers.]

Is the future so frightening?

[ The future was...

Without the nightmares to bleed the truth of his fears in to reality, he lets his mind unfurl and catastrophize as it wants to. The memories don't bleed out in to reality, the edges are too cleanly defined after so long of feeling at the mercy of the world, but the way he's staring off in to space makes it easy to know he's not quite there on the bench. ]

You don't seem to mind not having a choice, yourself. [ There's a little whine to that, like he's taking it personally that Mina would be so eager to burden himself. ] If you want me to be nicer to Tamamori, then you need to be nicer to Minakami. That's the [ A hesitation, nearly a full stop, and he swallows to push through it. ] only way I can keep trying to improve. [ His voice lowers, uncomfortable and a little shy, despite the unknowable years between them. ] I didn't save you so you could be sorry. Saving you was making my choice. And I won't accept anything less.

[ He could let it rest there, and indeed he quietly soaked in the shoulder contact instead of continuing right away- even if the turning of the wheel felt visible in the distance for him, it didn't mean he could recall those lives enough to really know if Minakami was telling the truth. If Tama had brought Minakami more headaches and pain, maybe he could believe that...there was a reason that they kept finding one another, despite it. Maybe he really could be worth that much to someone. ]

[That lack of answer, coupled with the distant look on Tama's face, is all the answer he needs. It's enough for him to wonder if this place is a strange blessing. How urgent Tama had been, about getting all three of them out of the capital... How much time did they have, if they made it back? Was there even any time at all?]

...why would I mind? I made my choice a long time ago. [All the way into prehistory.]

[He's not sure he's ready yet to talk about it, in fact all he wanted was to bury it away, but he has to:] When we found what was keeping the Enma imprisoned... everyone was working together, for a chance to drive it out. [He glances over at the dagger, remembering his heart stop as he saw it freeze in midair.] It nearly didn't work. Then the-- it looked at me, and I knew it was going to... If Knightley-san hadn't intervened...

[He looks back down at his lap.] I remember thinking, I was going to let you down, and -- I just wanted to see you and Kawase and everyone back home again. When we left the office, I started wondering if... any of the other "me"'s who went through with it, if they had thoughts like that too. [He digs his fingers into his arm again, then lets go.] ...so, I don't know how much I can promise, but I'll try.

[ At first, he's simply alarmed- and he is, visibly and without trying to hold back, even if his mind is worried that expressing it so nakedly will make Minakami less likely to be honest with him in the future -but eventually it softens to a dull, vacant horror. He'd never thought about...no, he had. Too many times he'd wanted to ask Minakami why he'd done it, when their fates had turned so twisted and sick, but. Never had he let himself dwell on...those last moments. ] S-s-someone told me- he tried to, to tell me about how it works- how time travel works, and... [ Trying to soften his own glance in to the precipice isn't working. Hanging was a harsh way to die, wasn't it? One could hope it was quick, but certainly there were stories of criminals being executed who's neck didn't snap, who struggled in vain and suffocated instead. For the body to end up in the river meant that the force must have been...

No, he couldn't do it like he used to. Not even by thinking about the stories he'd read, the accounts in the paper. He was thinking about Minakami's body. The possibility that any incarnation of him had felt...pain, or even regret like that...he needs it to be impossible, because it's too heartbreaking otherwise. But, he can't say it- all of Professor's talks about time travel unraveled too completely when a certain lingering shadow from the future was taken in to account. ]

...if something had happened to you, I was going in the river anyway. If the hashihime helped or not. [ He's ashamed to admit it. Ashamed to even imply such a thing to Minakami, someone who he's all but cried on for similiar things more than once, but his forced stillness as they sit there on the bench is quickly turning to a slight tremble. He could blame the fever for the moment of weakness, make up some other way to interpret that sentence, but...if Minakami had almost...] Even if you go somewhere far away, and it seems like I can't follow you...I'll still try to find my way back to you.

Edited 2022-06-26 07:33 (UTC)

[The air feels heavy around him. The activity around them -- the murmur of conversation, the rumble of motorcars, the steady dripping of "rainwater" from the eaves, the emergency crew carrying a constant stream of the imprisoned staff outside... it narrows down to just this: Tama shaking like a leaf beside him, and his words echoing in the air.]

[The fight at their apartment filters into his mind: Tamamori leveraging his own safety to convince him to escape the military's attention, once their contracts were over and they were back in the capital. He'd hoped it was just a threat made in duress, because... because the alternative was this.]

[He pulls Tama into a hug without even thinking about it, face buried in his shoulder. Forget his aches and pains, or the people around them, or some of Tama's hairclips poking into his own scalp.]

You can't. [His voice is almost muffled, and not just because he's talking into Tama's shirt collar.] If you did-- only-- only one of us would come back-- if we did at all. [He knew that in his bones. He'd thought of that fact enough over the previous year, after all.] You won't have to.

[ There's a thousand and one stories he could make up to get out of this, symptoms to blame, personal quirks or even just generalized exhaustion- but he can't. If he can't be honest, then how can he expect Minakami to be open with him? It had to start from somewhere, even if he'd seen it fail so many other times. But this was the...furthest he'd ever gotten. The most direct he'd ever been about something this grotesque. It felt wrong, in a way, that he'd seen the worst in them, but had been able to keep himself covered. Tama already couldn't understand why Minakami would love him so much to keep going through multiple lifetimes, seeking him out- so it wasn't like he could find himself any uglier than he already did.

He sort of sits there, being hugged passively for a moment or two, before he can finally find the mental strength to weakly grip back. ] I won't, if you don't. Promising is hard, but...we can both try. [ That's the best they can hope for, right? Maybe it was the warmth making him drowzy, or the feeling of being the weight dragging Minakami down to the bottom of the river, but he tried to hug back tighter after a moment of pause. ] I'm sorry for saying it. I'm not feeling well...

Edited 2022-07-01 07:30 (UTC)

[He can hear his own words, the very same ones he'd said in the theatre, two months ago. 'I won't reincarnate anymore.' At that time, that solution had felt so simple, almost elegant. Cut off the cycle, pay back the blood on his hands, let his friends find a happier conclusion on their own. Hearing the same possibility come from Tamamori feels like a terrible cosmic joke. He regrets saying anything, but the experience, the near-escape sits on his mind, too immediate and big to not let out somehow. He can only hope talking about it hasn't ruined everything.]

Okay.

[He squeezes his eyes shut, hands fisted in Tama's clothes.]

...do you still remember, when "you" folded those cranes?

[He remembers the rest of that last morning: The first noise to break the silence had been pounding footsteps coming up the path. The physician had thrown open the front door and Mina had looked blankly up at the intrusion. The physician's expression was already settling into cold bitterness at being too late. But none of that is what Tama could know, if he consciously does at all.]

It wasn't only that. We lived together. You planted camellias like your grandmother. Once it snowed up to the eaves, and I had to climb out the window and nearly broke my leg on the ice, and you yelled at me for forever. [Talking about it is strange, all of this is strange. If the month-long nightmare is over, this conversation is taking a dreamlike feel.] ...Even if it wasn't forever, we were... we were happy. That's all I want.

[ At first, all he can think of is the strange, almost pained look Minakami had given him as a child, when he'd been stubbornly trying to fold flowers for his grandmother...but at the same time, his response is automatic, from impressions and memories once again kept behind the veil of lives. ] ...I was so happy that you stayed with me, even if it would have been easier to be apart. [ Surely that was a part of him that had never changed, the inability to stand his own loneliness- maybe it came from knowing that someone belonged at his side. A procession of lives, spent together...it was a fatally romantic kind of forever, wasn't it? ] Though, I have to wonder what your poor leg ever did to deserve all of this...I'm glad that you're always "you". Dependable, curious and caring...stronger than me. But it's not so bad, when I can support you too.

[ His movement is very literal, trying to cradle his own grip around Minakami to let him sink his weight in easier, but surely he's always been transparent in these sorts of matters. Honesty is hard, but lying is exhausting- and deep down, he prefers the truth only because he wants to be someone that others can be honest with. ] Being here with you now...it's worth everything that happened.

[Despite everything, he smiles a little, partly warmed at the words and partly in relief; it's a motion that Tama would probably feel rather than see.] Nobody asked me to go out the window or play with wooden swords at the top of the stairs... If that's "fate", it's fate made of choices we'd have made anyway, isn't it? Even when it's little things like that.

I said I wouldn't ask you about-- [He's about to say "the shopkeeper," but he's still haunted by the glimpse of that man's face in one of the monsters, when he'd been forced to draw steel on it. Even if it was only a nightmare -- if it had spoken in the same voice Minakami heard down the telephone, he thinks he'd have done worse than freeze.] --about the future, when it hurt you to think of it. But... if you believe me... when you're ready, I'm here to listen.

[He's still skittish about talking about the past, to be honest -- it feels like it's gone wrong more than right, the closer they've gotten to the present day. Some equation that's gone unbalanced somehow. It'd be too cut and dried to say that was why he'd given up on the idea -- but it'd be lying if he said that didn't factor. Still. He's glad he didn't, in the end.]

...me too. [He tilts his head sideways, gently butting Tama's head with his.] ...come on. Let's go home before the sun rises.

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[OPEN] The end of the storm

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i am going to dismantle you into individual atoms

this is the best threat ive ever recieved, i hope you know that

cw: suicide ment., also sorry in general to anyone trying to make head or tail of any of this

do you think people read this, i say suddenly staring in to the camera at the metaphorical audience

if so i'm Sorry Again But More

the coast is surely clear so time for more depression

you cannot hide

the vibes across these threads are chaos incarnate

look,