The moment magic and higher deities were confirmed and graced society with their presence you knew humanity was doomed. That a stone had been set rolling which would cascade down the mountainside of existence and strike the world in the head. Maybe not in your lifetime, or the lifetime of the generation after yours, but the world will be turned into a barren wasteland soon enough, while those responsible will just shrug their shoulders and move on to another people, time, or existence. Intent on doing nothing different and assuming that the grains in the metaphorical sandbox were the issue, not anything they did with their own hands…or tentacles.
What do you do then? Knowing that the timeframe for ‘The End’ has gone from something north of forty octillion years or whatever, to something that’s potentially well within only a few lifetimes? Some people would probably give up and either kill themselves, or revert to a hedonistic lifestyle and hope to be so coked up that by the time it comes they can be blissfully unaware of this…deific singularity.
Despite how it may seem, you kind of respect those that chose to go that way. At least it showcases an understanding of the situation.
The ones that churn your stomach are the deniers. The sycophants. The worshippers. They’re everywhere, all across the world, and like mold on old bread they’ve taken over the whole damn thing. Praising those ten women as if they’re the reason that crime’s practically been eliminated, that miracle cures for disease have been discovered, that the world is so peaceful you could stand on the corner of a busy street with a rifle slung over your shoulder, glaring daggers at the arena one of them is gonna perform one of her concerts at, without a single pedestrian even batting an eye.
No, you fools! It’s you! All of you! Humanity is responsible for those achievements, not them!
You remember shouting that at a bar once, back when you still tried to recruit people to your cause, back when you thought that maybe there were others that still had fire. Oh well, you’ll just have to make the undesirable truth the undeniable truth instead.
The traffic light turns red and you’re able to cross the street in the direction of the arena, and still, not a soul seems to even notice your existence as you bound across the plaza. You briefly consider just strolling through the main entrance, but even if the docile behavior of everybody is extended to the security you don’t want to be seen too clearly. Pulling the black surgical mask up properly over your nose, you change directions to quickly walk around to one of the side doors, normally reserved for staff. If your scoping out the place for the last week holds true, there should be an arena staff member taking his smoke break about now, concert or not.
Instead, you just find the door propped open with a brick, and no smoker in sight. Even better, it means you don’t have to use your kind of weak social skills to weasel your way into the building. Though, it is kind of odd. Nobody that you’ve seen has held it open like that before. Nevertheless, you quickly slide in, leaving the door open in case somebody comes around. Now in the bowels of the arena, you don’t see anybody here either, the only sign of life is the muffled sound of your target’s ‘rap’, which really is actually just a sign of death…in multiple ways. Are even the staff enthralled by her? You just don’t get it. Picking up the pace, you quickly use a stairway meant for maintenance crews to get to the upper floor, which briefly allows you to get a glimpse of the performance.
“Maido maido kamidanomi!~ Menzai sen wa sonna yatsu ni!~”
…There she is. Calliope Mori. The Grim Reaper’s first apprentice, apparently. If that’s true, I imagine her teacher’s fairly disappointed in her, reduced to wildly gesticulating on a stage as she performs for people who’d gather no matter what she’s doing. Those people are all huddled so close to the stage that they’re practically standing on top of one another and the entire upper floors around you are empty, save for what seems to be a scattered few more focused on photographing the scene. Really you find such a scene degrading. Initially, you were gonna go all the way up to the rafters, but the sight of the abandoned press box offering a clear line of sight proves too enticing for you to resist.
The screams and cheers of the mad herd deafen your footsteps as you hurriedly walk around the upper rim of the bowl shaped building. Your heart pounds in your chest, your hands are clammy, your breath is rapid despite yourself. Even though there has been zero resistance to this point, it still feels as if you’re walking into a minefield.
What if it’s a trap? What if somebody found out? What if you’ve been monitored for a while? It-It’s been too easy, you really should-
Standing across from the pink-haired woman brings your thoughts to a halt. The rest of the world bleeds away, leaving you and Mori in a black void taking up the several hundred feet distance. You bring up a shaky, gloved hand and hold it out as if she’s a tiny figurine awkwardly dancing in your palm. Then you clench your fist, as if she’d shatter in your grip, but alas the world just comes back into focus as the weight of your rifle becomes more apparent once you unslung it from your shoulder and hold it in your hands.
Nine and a fifth pounds unloaded, fifty and a half inches long, the rifle is far beyond unwieldy. It’s also legitimately a century older than you, going off the date stamped into the receiver. The best tool for the job? Maybe not. It’s Rough, rushed, imperfect all around but lasting way longer than it had any right to. But this is going to be more a statement than anything, so you’re not particularly miffed about the efficiency of your firearm. You just hope today is as world changing as this rifle was in its time, because this downright ancient piece of history serves as a good analogy for everyone to ever hold it.
You hear that, God-pretenders? We have merits enough to last in spite of our rough edges and we certainly don’t need things like you deciding our courses for us! We can handle ourselves just fine!
You twist the bolt open, balancing the rifle by its stock on your thigh while your other hand reaches into your pocket. Withdrawing the three bullets you hand-loaded for this occasion and stare at the jagged, scratched message on their otherwise gleaming brass cases.
‘DEATH TO DEATH’
You smile to yourself as you use the large rimmed bottom of the portly round to push the lifter down and slide the bullet into the magazine, then the second, then the third. You give the bolt a sharp tug rearwards to pull the lifter back up before closing the bolt, then opening it once again with the same sharp force to properly put one of the rounds onto the lifter, before closing it once again to leave it properly chambered. Definitely inelegant, but to you the repeated motions and the sounds of the bolt being properly put in battery make it blissful.
Eat your heart out, Woody Guthrie, wait ‘till you see what this machine can do.
Your hand comes off the bolt handle slowly, like you’ve just armed a nuclear warhead. Looking down at your shaking fingers, you clench them into a fist before tightly grabbing the Lebel rifle and bringing it up to your shoulder. Your support hand slowly slides backwards until you find where the bulk of the rifle’s weight hangs, and turn your body such that your elbow rests on your hip to hold the gun's mass while keeping your arms still. There you stand, waiting, staring down your sights until the woman’s rapid and uncoordinated movements come to an end.
The pink head of hair is the size of a fingernail as your sights slowly follow it. Eventually, she finishes the song and takes a moment, somehow out of breath. You let out an even exhale as Mori takes a big inhale, your index finger curling around the trigger as her entire hand curls around the microphone and brings it up to her mouth.
“Pheww~. I…I just wanna thank y’all for coming out tonight! Your boy’s had a rough few-”
BANG!
…
…
Everything goes silent, your ears barely ringing from the gunshot, even though it should have been near deafening. It’s not just noise that’s stopped, Everything has. The muzzle flash still hangs in the air and for a brief moment your heart lurches, thinking that somehow either of the two who deal with time had come at the very last moment. And yet, you can still move. You crane your head to peek past the frozen flash and see it.
Calliope Mori. Frozen just like everything else. Her face is a look of happiness, or at least, the part that’s intact is. The entire left side of her head is floating in the air, dozens of tiny pieces hanging suspended. There’s no blood, no bone, no brain. Her head isn’t even breaking apart like how you figure a normal head would, she’s shattering….like porcelain. Like somebody took a photo of an old figurine the moment it was dropped and hit the ground.
Makes sense that they're hollow, you suppose.
A blink, and everything’s moving again. Her body lurches back, twisting and collapsing onto the stage as the pieces of her head tumble down to follow. There’s gasps from the crowd but they then also go silent, and if it weren't for the ambience of the arena and flashing lights, you would think time had stopped again. After what feels like minutes, but likely was only around ten seconds a tall brunette woman with sunglasses on bounds onto the stage. She stops just beside the Apprentice Reaper's corpse, staring down at it dumbfounded before looking out to the audience, and up to where you're standing. You don’t flinch, merely stare down at her while pulling the bolt back once more, letting the spent casing eject out onto the ground but not tripping the lifter to chamber another, the hot brass letting out small plinks as it bounces off the solid floor. You apathetically sling the rifle back over your shoulder after closing the bolt on an empty chamber, no safety for this old thing.
It doesn’t seem like that woman can actually see you as she slowly turns back to Mori’s motionless body, crouching down and slowly extending a shaky hand. Her gloved hand barely brushes against her pale collarbone before suddenly retracting like she was a hot piece of metal. You can’t hear her, nor read her lips, but the word almost cuts through the air and burrows into the mind of everyone in the arena.
Dead…
You laugh for the first time in years as you turn and head back the way you came to the exit, this time with a much more pronounced spring in your step while your heart beats like it’s trying to rip out of your chest. Before you know it, the adrenaline in your body kicks you into a run as your loud footfalls echo through the tight concrete corridors. Bursting through the propped open exit door you throw your arms out wide and spin around, laughing and cheering like you’ve just been released from a lifetime in prison.
The sun is just setting now, covering the city in a pink-orange glow while the cool vespertine air blows through the streets. In the distance, heavy dark clouds are rolling in, signifying the start of a storm later tonight that certainly wasn’t on the weather forecast. You should probably head home lest you be caught in that.
Don’t wanna get sick while you have so much work left to do.
Butterflies flutter about in your stomach, and after you adjust the sling of your rifle you head towards the direction of your home.
Amelia leans against the concrete wall, looking out from the heated arena vestibule to the rain soaked city on the other side of the glass. The bright lights from inside make everything outside appear much darker, leaving only the flashing blue and red lights of the police cruisers stationed outside the main entrance to properly illuminate the officers as well as the citizens on the other side of the yellow tape, both holding vigil against the elements as a heavy rain pours down. It’s as if the earth has opened up and weeps alongside them. Which isn’t that far from the truth, Fauna is likely crying as much as anyone.
“Detective Watson?” She hears a familiar man’s voice from behind her.
She turns to stare at the chief of police, who has his navy blue hat clutched against his chest, the portly man trying to show respect for the somber situation. After a moment, he bows his head and speaks.
“Forensics has finished photographing and securing any evidence, you can take a look now.”
Amelia nods without saying anything, and the chief takes it as his cue to leave, walking out the main doors to order his officers to at least try and appear busy. Letting out a shuddering breath, her hands unconsciously drift to the pockets of her beige overcoat to grasp the metal pocket watch she always holds on to in difficult moments. The familiar, always warm to the touch timepiece serves a great anchor for her, certain visits to the more…tumultuous timelines often meant taking the time, pun not intended, to bask in the solace and foundation that the watch brought.
Except her hands find nothing but lint, as they have for the past three days.
At first, she thought it was Smol Ame being her usual troublesome self, but that little gremlin was apparently taking a break from her usual attempts at causing havoc, opting to instead build a few terrariums in the timeframe she could have taken it. Yes, misplacing the watch is a big deal, but Amelia was confident enough in her abilities as an investigator to figure that she’d be able to recover it before anything bad happened, and without having to prostrate herself before Kronii of all people for aid in finding it.
Yet here she is, walking through the back halls of the arena, towards the place where one of her friends now lies dead. The worst has happened and the watch isn’t anywhere to be found.
She rounds the corner, a floating purple blob bumping into her face before she can even realize it’s there. Taking a step back, Amelia notices the half-dozen takodachis float around aimlessly like squids in the ocean. Ina sits against the wall, her knees brought up to her chest and sandwiching the mysterious sentient book she always carries along with her. The one she collided with spins towards its master, twirling end over end before settling next to the priestess’s ear. Amelia doesn’t hear a sound, but apparently the thing alerts Ina to her presence as the waif girl looks up towards her friend, her expression clearly downtrodden.
“Ame…you’re finally here.” For a moment, it seems as if Ina’s upset that Amelia didn’t show up sooner, but it’s gone when she looks towards the metal door that’s the entrance to the backstage area proper.
“Sorry, I…” Amelia trails off. Deflecting about traffic or pedestrians seems…insulting, even if the throngs of people flocking to the arena once news spread did make getting here hard.
Ina just waves her hand, seemingly understanding what goes unspoken.
“It’s okay. E-Everyone’s on the stage…I couldn’t…” Ina gulps, trying to withhold the emotions welling up in her throat. “...Too much to be there, with C-Calli just…”
She lets out a shaky breath before rubbing her eyes with her gloved hands, her floating companions seem to sense her feelings as they gently move to crowd her. She buries her face in the head of the largest one while the one that Amelia bumped into nuzzles against the crook of her neck. The normally unflappable and serene priestess cracking makes the detective's stomach feel like it’s made of lead, and she takes a deep breath before moving through the door.
It takes all of her willpower not to slam it back shut when she hears Kiara’s wailing.
But she presses on, nodding to a somber Fauna who sits daintily on the steps up to the stage with a despondent Gura’s head in her lap, the Atlanteans scarred tail occasionally flicking back and forth. Swallowing the lump in her throat, she brushes past the duo and behind Sana’s back as the tanned woman tersely converses with Kronii at the top of the small staircase. A glance up towards the large screens hanging from the middle of the ceiling, she spots Bae and IRyS hugging each other in the rafters while staring down at the grim crime scene.
Kiara presses her tear stained face to Mori’s still stomach, weeping. As for the Reaper…
She lies twisted, prone in a position that wouldn’t be very comfortable if she were alive. Her head’s split apart like a broken egg, shards of it scattered across the black stage floor. Amelia decides not to try and pry Kiara away, the phoenix surely wouldn’t budge, and instead carefully tiptoes around the scene. She crouches down next to the scattered shards of Mori’s head, and hesitantly prods one of the larger ones with an extended finger. Amelia feels the heat being leached from the tip of her finger and jerks her hand back.
Right…she’s still just a human.
She looks around, the small yellow placards denoting the places of evidence that the Forensics Department deemed noteworthy, and Amelia’s gaze travels upwards, through the empty arena to the opposite end, where the press box’s lights remain bright and active.
Must be where the shooter, the killer, took his chance. A litany of thoughts and ideas cross her mind. The time they did it, the weapon used, who they were, what she’ll do once gets her hands on that rotten son of a-
“Watson.”
Kronii’s deep voice cuts through the dark cloud brewing in her mind, and the Time Warden’s hand comes down on her shoulder. She snaps around to look into the deep blue eyes that for once don’t hold a look of arrogance or derision, just the morose stare of an apologetic woman.
“I…” Kronii stops, carefully considering her next words. “I’m…sorry.”
It’s not much, but for someone like Kronii it may as well be a tear-stricken speech. Amelia pats the hand on her shoulder, nodding.
“Thanks, Kronii.”
The Council member still holds her shoulder.
“No, I mean…” Kronii sighs, looking around. “I-I know you tried to stop this. Can’t be easy to stare it down.”
Tried to-
At Amelia’s confused expression, the dark-haired woman becomes just as confused.
“I-I felt your watch go off, Watson. You-”
Amelia’s face contorts and she suddenly can’t bear to meet Kronii’s gaze, instead turning to stare at her feet while her stomach sinks even further down her torso.
“Watson.”
The detective feels like a little kid being confronted by her parents after breaking a window, only infinitely more severe and dire.
“I lost it, Kronii.”
The hand on her shoulder squeezes so tightly Amelia thinks she might rip the limb out of it’s socket
“YOU-” Kronii cuts her own exclamation off from the otherwise quiet room, and the dread Amelia feels knowing that the fault in Mori’s death lies somewhere near her intensifies.
She lets go of Amelia’s shoulder and takes a big step back, shakily bringing up her hands to rub her own face. Hot, bitter tears sting the blondes' eyes, and she does her best to choke them down as Kronii takes a moment to center herself. The deity lets out a shaky breath, one that turns into a bitter laugh.
“Okay. Okay. That’s…it’s whatever. It’s fine. Not a big deal or anything.” The taller woman’s sarcasm does not go unnoticed. “Not a big deal at all!”
“Kronii-” Ame’s attempt at trying to placate her obviously upset friend are interrupted when she turns to look back at the detective with an expression that looks a fair bit more nervous.
“Just-” Kronii holds her hands out, like she’s telling her to wait. “Just tell me you’ve at least seen Mumei recently. You have, right?”
Mumei? What does Mumei have to do with this?
“W-What? I…I haven’t heard from Mumei in like a month.”
Kronii goes still. Staring past Ame out to the arena’s seats borderline catatonically.
In a blink, she’s suddenly hunched over, a whirlwind blowing out and around her that ruffles the curtains and gets the attention of everyone else. If Amelia had to guess, Kronii stopped time to flail her sharpened clock hands around in a fit of rage and didn’t want anyone else to see. Everyone, sans Kiara and Ina, quickly come over to investigate. At their prodding, Kronii looks up, her eyes wide with manic terror as she laughs again and informs them of everything.
Mumei has gone missing. Amelia’s watch has been stolen. Somebody has murdered Mori.
It’s obvious on everyone's face that they fear for the Guardian of Civlization’s safety, as well as their own. Someone, something out there has killed a friend, done who knows what to another, and is in possession of one of the most dangerous weapons around…
…and no-one knows a single damn thing about them.
“All the leaves are brown!~ All the leaves are brown!~ And the sky is gray!~ And the sky is gray!~”
You sing loudly as you walk out of the bathroom, toweling off your hair after your shower. You nearly sprinted the entire way home, so you worked up quite a sweat from the center of the city to the relatively quiet suburbs. Your cat seems to be in tune with your good mood, rubbing against your leg and nearly tripping you as you make your way to the living room. Though, you already gave him treats in celebration of your work tonight, so there isn't much he can do to get another if that’s what he’s trying. The large, black furred part-Maine Coon quickly bounds his way over to the window sill adjacent to your front door, his amber eyes staring placidly through the glass out into the dark and rainy outside world.
Odd, not normally the spot he likes to sit.
Figuring he’ll take the often empty armchair later, you recline on the couch and blindly fumble for the remote to your T.V for a few moments before grasping it and pointing it at the so-called ‘black mirror’ and hitting the power button. Instantly, the screen lights up and displays a random news channel, one that had been talking about Calliope Mori’s concert before you had left. In a way it still is, just more so about its abrupt finale than her performance.
“-uly tragic events here at the Event Centre, with thousands already coming to pay their respects to Calliope Mori. Amelia Watson was seen entering the building not an hour ago, leaving just Nanashi Mumei left to-”
You change the channel to another news station, this time displaying a portly man with a bushy mustache and a tired looking asian woman as co-anchors behind their desk.
“-just don’t see how something like this could happen! How has Death herself died!?”
“Perhaps Myth or Council will make a statement in the coming days, but as it stands now Ron I…I just don’t know.”
You change the channel to a third news station, this one conducting interviews in the rain with a few of the crowd who showed up to the arena.
First, a sobbing teenage woman and her much more composed boyfriend or brother or something.
“I-I-I…OHHH MORIIIIIIIIII! WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA-”
The man quickly buries her face into his shoulder, muffling her cries and trying to keep himself.
“Yeah, it’s…rough. I don’t get it though. Like, isn’t she supposed to be a god or something? Aren’t they all!? I don’t know anymore…”
Cut.
“Clearly something weird’s going on. I don’t know if they’ve been hiding how many people like them they are AND how benevolent they are, or if they’re not as godlike as we thought or what. But, either way, I’m not excited for the future…”
Cut.
“IT’S ALL A GOT DANG CONSPIRACY! MAWRI WENT INTA HIDIN’ TO GET THE JUMP ON THE IMMORTAL ADRENOCHROME PEDDLIN’ RICH ELITE TO FINALLY GIVE THEM WHAT THEY DESERVE! DEATH! DEATH! DEATHDEATHDEATH-”
Click.
A wide smile breaks across your face at the men’s seeming crisis of faith as you turn your television off. That! That right there! That's what you want! It works! Oh, you could sing and dance and cheer all over again. You cast a look over to your left, where a large cork board taking up nearly the entire wall rests. On it, countless pages, notes, and pieces of red string tied around thumbtacks to denote connections you’ve made. Years of observation and work rest on that board, and the results of your work are apparent, and the world is already feeling its effects.
You push yourself off your old and comfortable couch, crossing your living room to get a better look at the board as you have done countless times before. For the first time though, you reach to the top of it and pluck off a bright red marker resting on its frame and pull the cap off with your teeth. You drag the felt tip back-and-forth across the image of the now lost Reaper, covering Mori’s vibrant pinkish-red eyes in horizontal lines of crimson ink before drawing a large ‘X’ over the annoyingly cheeky grin the image you picked out for the board had.
The second the marker leaves the picture, something gets your cat's attention, causing him to let out a growl like the neighbor's dog had wound up on your porch again. Turning around, you see he’s definitely pissed off at something, as his tail is bushy and sweeping back and forth angrily while his hackles are raised. Your eyes glance to the small table with a drawer by your front door, where you know a pistol sits inside. Whatever he sees in the dark, you can’t from across the room and slowly walk across the room towards where he is.
“What’s the matter, Freddie?” You ask, as if your faithful feline companion could just say it.
He does growl again though, and your steps turn much more cautious while you approach the window. You still can’t make out a single thing in the darkness, not even the banister of your porch. Leaning forward, your nose is inches from the glass and yet you there still isn’t anything that would-
A sudden flash of lightning, and you realize you’re face to face with someone. A woman, pressing her forehead against the glass, dull gold eyes peering into your house and possibly your very soul. You’ve seen this woman before, and your cat was right to be pissed.
Nanashi Fucking Mumei…
You immediately bolt to the side, running to your front door, pausing only to rip open the drawer and pull your pistol out of it. Yanking the door open, you flick the pistol’s safety off and turn left, raising it up and preparing to take aim at the ‘Guardian of Civilization’. Without the interior light blocking your view, you can see the porch well enough to make out her shape…
If she was there. But she has suddenly disappeared.
“Oh hi!” Her soft voice comes from behind you and is surprisingly clear over the thunderstorm, prompting you to whirl around to face her.
She stands relatively casually, the only odd thing about her stance being that her left hand is behind her back, while the other is up in a pleasant and cheerful wave, leaving the dagger tied around her waist with a blue cord far away from being a practical weapon for her to reach for. Her rather unassuming size and demeanor belies her station, not that it matters as if Mori was anything to go by.
Not giving her a response, you merely squeeze the trigger of your antique pistol the instant the barrel is leveled at her pretty face.
Click!
W-what?
You rapidly cycle the slide on your own, praying that it was just a dud, but your stomach sinks as the slide stays locked back.
No…NO! You checked it just before you left for the arena! It was loaded! You know it was, how in the-
“Hehee~.” Mumei’s sweet giggle is blood curdling to you. “Wow…an FN 1903, huh? Must be a fan of the classics!”
She pulls her hand from behind her back, revealing a handful of 9mm Browning Long that she casually tosses back to you. You catch a few of the seven, quickly dropping one of them through the ejection port and into the chamber of your pistol, letting the rest fall to the ground. You try to pull out the magazine as quickly as you can, because this old pistol for some reason doesn’t have a simpler way to release the slide. Still, you’ve practiced drills for something like this before, so it’s not an unfamiliar process, if still a little slow. The pistol is loaded and you bring it up where Mumei’s still standing expectantly, like you’re not rushing to blow her brains out.
BANG!
Like earlier today when you delivered Calliope Mori her destiny, the world stops as soon as the gun fires. The rain freezes in the air, the sound of heavy downpour onto the roof of your patio silences as does the loud bark of your pistol firing, and the deceptively large muzzle flash hangs in the air. What’s different is that even you yourself are frozen this time, unable to even move your eyes as the figure in front of you calmly steps to the side and out of the way of the bullet that was a hair's-breadth away from striking her in the center of her forehead.
“Right! Right, right, right, right...” The Guardian mumbles, tugging down the hood of her cloak and then pulling her ponytail properly out of the hole in the hood it’s designed to fit through. “I totally forgot!”
Mumei walks around to your side, leaving your direct field of view and turning into a vague multi-colored shape in the corner of your eye. Then she extends your arm and dangles something directly in front of your nose. Something you and damn near half the world would recognize. A gold enamel pocket watch, unmoving but still letting out an audible clicking noise in the otherwise oppressive silence.
What the hell is she doing with Amelia Watson’s pocket watch?
“I’m on your side!”
…
…
…
…WHAT!?
Mumei lurches back, retracting her arm and moving around while gesticulating outside your line of sight.
“I know! I know how that sounds…BUT!” Mumei spins around, you think. “I get it. I tried to explain it to them, that we really should not get so involved - intertwined with mere mortals but they just-...they just wouldn’t listen!”
That last part had a bit of something approaching real, genuine anger in it.
“SO, I made the choice. The hard choice.” Mumei circles around behind you, appearing now on your right side.
She ducks your gun arm, taking a big step back so her head is right next to the cloud of fire and gunsmoke. Then, Mumei pulls your arm down, and takes a moment to wrap the chain of Watson’s pocket watch around her own hand before grabbing yours that’s tightly clasping the grip of your classic pistol.
“The right choice.”
Time unfreezes, and the one side of the brown haired-girl’s face scrunches up as the muzzle flash expands and the bullet resumes course, flying down the street and probably burying itself in the yard of someone a block down the way. The gunshot will probably be confused with a crack of thunder, and you remain still as Mumei makes an exaggerated motion of shaking your hand.
“Put her there, friend!” Mumei smiles. “...Whaddaya say?”
“...Do you really expect me to believe that?”
The woman’s eyes look down for a moment, as if she well and truly did, and her shoulder slump to match
“I guess not…” She stands straight up suddenly. “Though, lemme show you how I can help! Come on Animal!”
She lets go of your hand, moving through your front door and wandering into your living room. Freddie growls from where he’s moved to the flight of stairs directly across from the entrance to your home.
Did she just call you ‘Animal’? What the fuck’s that about?
As if on cue, there’s a rustle nearby and your head snaps up to the source of the noise. Two bright red pin pricks glow in the dark of the night, before a white-furred…thing jumps over the banister and bounds into your house, though your cat doesn’t hiss at whatever it was. Left with no other options, you nervously step into your own home and follow who you thought was gonna be another target some day.
She’s staring at your board, rubbing chin and letting out audible and exaggerated ‘Hmmms’ as she looks around. Whatever that ‘Animal’ is, it sits unmoving in the middle of your living room. Even completely still, you can’t quite figure out what the creature is, but if it listens to one of the members of Council it’s probably not something to be fucked with. Fearless as ever though, your own companion slides between your legs and gracefully strides over to it. Sniffing around, the old cat sniffs around its alabaster paws and sits opposite ‘Animal’ in a mirror of the beast's own posture. Trusting your pet not to get caught flat-footed, you walk past them to Mumei, still giving her a wide berth.
Her long brunette ponytail swings around as she spins to face you.
“Wow, you’re further along than I thought! That makes this so much easier.” She points to the board containing everything there is to know about her - or at least who you thought were - her friends. “There’s only a few things you missed!”
You stare down at the girl, who, if you didn’t know her station and place in the world, seemed incredibly naive.
“What’s stopping me from killing you right now?” You ask flatly, thinking of the myriad weapons you have in your house, to say nothing of the pistol in your hand which has a few loaded magazines in your bedroom.
Mumei lifts a finger, grinning and pointing at you in a ‘gotcha’ sort of way.
“Because you can’t!”
Your brow furrows.
“Time…Space…Nature…Chaos…those things will exist with or without those girls.” She elaborates, her eyes wide in an excited way. “...and Myth isn’t unkillable anyway, as you noticed.”
Her small face gains a brief look of realization.
“Except for Kiara, but…but I have a plan for her!” She turns around and takes a step closer to the cork board, closing in on the picture of herself hanging on it.
“I’m different!” Mumei declares, emphasizing her statement with a tapping of her own picture. “As long as a ‘Civilization’ exists, so do I! So, unless you can kill a few billion people…”
The odd woman rounds on you once more.
“You’re stuck with me! Heehee!~”
…Shit. But, that’s one of those things you had worried about in the back of your mind. There’s a lot of their intricacies that are still unknown to you, which opens the door to a metric fuckload of variables that your feeble human brain can’t begin to sort through. But, unless the woman in front of you is playing double agent, which you doubt, then she knows how to walk the minefield you’ve ran headlong into.
Should you trust her? Maybe not, but she obviously let you kill Mori, and has taken Watson’s watch, which is as far as you’re aware something the ‘detective’ would never part with willingly or use frivolously. That has to count for something
Freddie trills behind you, and you turn your head to see that whatever Animal is, he’s warmed up to it quickly, pushing himself up onto his hind legs to rub snouts with the thing. Well, even if you don’t trust her or the weird creature she’s brought with her, he trusts the intruders enough to relax around them, or just Animal at the very least.
Well, if he’s okay with them for the most part. You’ve always trusted his judgment even over your own. Still, maybe you should test Mumei a little more.
“Who should we start with now?” You ask warily.
Mumei raises a finger and quickly draws her dagger, turning and burying into the hanging picture of Tsukumo Sana.
“You’ve probably lost track of her for a while now, but…” Mumei’s free hand traces the curve of Sana’s jaw in the photograph. “I know how to get her attention.”
Well, that’s a good way to put her to the test, see if she’s telling the truth. You had lost Sana for the last little bit, the ‘Speaker of Space’ seemingly dropping off the face of the Earth, but if Mumei can get her well endowed friends attention, you’ll gladly have it.
Mumei stiffens, and turns back to you once more.
“Oh, I can’t believe I forgot my introduction!” She jams her hand out suddenly, offering a handshake to the arm not currently holding a firearm.
“I’m Nanashi Mumei. Wanna kill gods?”