Difference between revisions of "2016-08-17 - Faces"

Latest revision as of 22:11, 12 August 2017

Even as her footfalls sound softly against the sidewalk, Mami Tomoe isn't really present. Oh, her appearance is as it should be; her casual clothes are exactly as carefully-picked as always, her hair done up in drills ever-so-carefully, the signs of fatigue from not sleeping since last night entirely concealed.

...But she's not really /there/. Her soul gem brightens with the presence of her prey, and Mami feels herself notice it at a distance. Even as the morning sunlight cuts trough the chill air, Mami is not in a dark alley between two buildings in Shibuya, but in a cramped warehouse, filled with boxes that make a maze, that draw out hope until it stretches painfully, and she sees...

The point where she has to attack might as well be the same as the chair holding a younger girl, still unconscious. Mami shakes her head, and it's just a wall again. Her steps are soft forward again.

--

Gunfire roars again, across the storybook landscape as Mami sets her wall of rifles to their work, each bullet crashing through another small Familiar. But Mami isn't here, either. She watches carefully for reprisal, is completely aware of each part of her environment, but her heart is in a cramped warehouse, filled with boxes that make a maze, that draw out hope until it stretches painfully. And each Familiar has the face of a man in sunglasses. Can she even tell them apart?

Mami's breath catches. ...She fires again, for good measure.

--

Mami is falling through the air, her gigantic gun dissipating back into the same ribbons of light from which it was conjured, now that it's been fired and the Witch she faced is fading away almost to nothing. Witches never talk; it's something Mami is used to. But almost, almost she hears this one.

Or she hears someone talking over it. "You have a wonderful talent for death, Mami-chan." That's what the interloper tells her.

Mami hits the ground, lands in a crouch, and falls. "Stop it. ...Stop it!"

Wrapping her arms around herself, Mami doesn't watch as the landscape around her fades. Now she is not in a storybook. She's in an alley, narrow and dirty and empty, her knees touching cold concrete. "They deserved it. And the... they would have hurt her. Hurt everyone."

She is not in a cramped warehouse, filled with boxes that make a maze, that draw out hope until it stretches painfully. She feels as if she isn't anywhere. But around her are memories, stretching back what feels like so long.

It isn't the first time people have died because of her. It won't be the last.

"It's... not like I need to remember, when it's people like /them/. Not like..."

But Mami knows, as she closes her eyes, that she will.

She remembers every face.