2018-10-13 - Submersed...
| Title: Submersed... | |
|---|---|
| Summary: Mikoto watches over the thing which was Sayaka, and considers her own fate. | |
| Who: | |
| Where: Haneda Airport | |
| OOC - IC Date: 2018-10-13 - 2015-05-20 | |
<SoundTracker> Lamb - 'Til The Clouds Clear https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3QdnNSFlQ_k
The Shepherds have ever held to the adage, 'at any cost'. They gained the power to fight - at any cost. They would save the world itself - at any cost. And perhaps they did bad things, unforgivable things, but they stood together... at any cost.
Because they could not save humanity without a few sacrifices.
But there are so many monsters in this world.
Endo said it should have been them who died instead.
How many amongst their number would agree - for the sake of the world?
What is the line which separates a maiden of apocalypse from dark and unspeakable power? How much suffering is too much? What is permissible, and what must be stopped?
What is the meaning of an unblinking eye?
Something she should have defended - against the girls and boy who fought it?
Mikoto had done so well not to think about it... until the reckoning came, and they learnt the truth. But there are monsters inside them, and the thoughts come again. It has been two years. She has, regrettably, gotten better at thinking.
She watches the wend about the sinkhole, in her vigil, and a sick feeling settles over the edges of her heart. She cannot deny the might she brings to bear. She has heard the others speak uncertainty, insist Homura is wrong or misinformed. She knows they are wrong. She knows there is darkness in their hearts. She knows this is the truth: that thing was once Sayaka.
It is what lurks within Eri, within Homura, within Kimiko, within Kyouko.
She knows it is true, because her heart is jagged black glass.
It's not so strange, she thinks back to her words, as a hand reaches into her shirt and pulls out a glowing-hot obsidian bead. A thumb trails over it, absently, and its warm light [reflects] in golden eyes just a shade too bright. It's not so strange for scary things to be inside girls.
Hotaru has something scary inside of her, and for the good of humanity she must be stopped.
Eri has something scary inside of her, and for the good of humanity...
Mikoto has something scary inside of her, and...
But Mikoto Minagi works exactly as intended. This is what her Lord Brother wanted her to be. In all the cruelty of her destruction, she is perfect. And she cannot, must not stop.
She wonders - so briefly - if perhaps Endo Naoki is right, because she is afraid.
It lasts for no more than an instant.
She cannot question him, after all.
She must survive.
She resettles her bead against her chest, underneath the cloth, and thinks perhaps it is fine to be a hypocrite, another lesson Mai Tokiha does not realise she has taught her over the two years they have spent together. Hotaru's death is important to Setsuna, and so she will die. Eri's life is important to Mikoto, and so she will live. Mikoto is not permitted to die on her own terms, and so she will remain as well.
Choosing which flowers bloom and which are torn up - isn't that the essence of gardening Eri Shimanouchi has taught her?
Choosing which monsters die, and which rampage on...
They will not feel the same, Mikoto knows, and the realisation sickens her anew. The Shepherds - those loyal, loving people who have always been kind to her - will save the world from any threat, at any cost.
And she is alone.
She thinks, desperation tinging the thoughts, that perhaps it is nothing. Perhaps there is a good explanation for her destruction. Perhaps if she just spoke with them, they could figure out some reason for it. Perhaps if she reached out, they would be able to work it out together. Perhaps -
- but she felt her power lancing through the child in her arms. It was unforgiving and overwhelming and menacing and there was nothing to it but hate.
And Mai and Eri have taught her for so long how unfair the world is. She wanted it to be fair so badly, to be able to make things right. That nascent hope was one more little thing stolen from under cover of night to be her own, standing apart from those she loved. It was one more little piece of herself she sheltered from the influences pressing against her.
One more little thing stripped away, because Mikoto's wants and Mikoto's hopes and Mikoto's beliefs are as nothing in the shadows they cast.
If the world were fair, perhaps there would be some heroic reason why she was like this.
It isn't.
"I'm scared," Mikoto tells the thing which was once Sayaka, because it is a secret something which knows only hatred and hunger will keep. "... I wanna forget, but I can't."
Just as she told Soular, her Lord Brother is the most important person in the world.
And she acts in his name.
And she acts with this power.
And thinking about it hurts, so much, and she wants so badly for him to be here, to tell her what it means, to tell her what to do.
She was never designed to answer these questions.
She was never supposed to get attached.
