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Ryuugamine Mikado (Shark) ([personal profile] digitalemperor) wrote2012-11-22 04:13 am
Entry tags:

Memory 20

Memory: Significant Negative - "That boy is merely human" Vorona and Anri fight while Mikado is blinded (Vol 6, chapter 5, part 8)
Game: Game (didn't play)
Game Master: Gingerbread Witch
Day: 192
Notes: Memories come in the form of four little breadcrumbs--well, pieces of bread anyway. They're about the size of your thumb and come inside a bag of your team color.

Four uses! 1/4 (Mouse and Kazuki both saw this in heart games)

- What is that?

Yet at the same time it was so completely different from what he had imagined - the object flew straight towards Anri and Mikado before the latter could even mentally prepare himself.

- A grena-…

The object was but meters away from him. Mikado felt more disoriented than ever -

But blinding whiteness took over his vision in the next second, blowing up his confusion along the way.

----

Vorona closed her eyes as the light threatened to blind her.

What she had thrown at Anri was a weakened flashbang. Unlike the type Slon had used in front of Shinra's apartment, this flashbang was almost noiseless. All it did was give off blinding light.

Vorona's helmet had a special safety light hood installed in it. But for Anri and Mikado, the flashbang would explode right in front of them, and even if they closed their eyes immediately they would still be temporarily blinded.

They would remain unable to see for longer than mere seconds, but it wouldn't be a very long while either.

Vorona was not about to let the brief window of opportunity go. To complete her mission of "Injure Sonohara Anri enough to make her unable to move for a while", she thrust her knife at the girl's abdomen.

But -

The girl with the katana reacted almost immediately and blocked her attack.

A metallic clang was heard. The girl proceeded to slide the blade and swing with force at Vorona's legs.

Vorona jumped and dodged the blow expertly. Assuming that any contact with the blade was likely to be dangerous, she leaped further backwards than necessary.

- She saw my attack?

The girl's aim was so accurate. Vorona looked at her face - and couldn't help but hold her breath.

Anri's eyes were bright red like they had been the previous night - or even brighter.

Her eyes were glowing.

That was enough to tell Vorona that the girl was something very different from humans.

Vorona looked at Anri and smiled calmly.

There were things she did not have any knowledge of in this world.

Was she human? Or was she something else?

To her, whose only goal in life was to see how strong or ephemeral human beings can be, these were all objects of interest - be it the monster girl with a human form or the Black Motorbike.

Seeing Mikado crouched on the ground, hands covering his eyes, Vorona said as she kept up her footwork:

"That boy, seems merely human. Pity, pity."

"…I won't forgive you if you do anything to him."

Anri narrowed her eyes and muttered. Vorona smiled and said:

"One question. Could you acknowledge an answer?"

"…?"

Anri stopped momentarily as she heard Vorona.

"Are you human? Monster? Which one?"

"…"

Vorona asked as she approached Anri. As soon as she was back in the attack range, she raised her knife again.

Anri blocked her knife and answered in her own way:

"…I am not human. I am not a monster, either."

It was hard to tell if Vorona had heard her or not. She stepped aside quickly and pressed a switch on the handle of her knife.

The blade sprung forward from the grip and flew towards Anri's abdomen like a bullet.

Anri, however, repeled it by twirling her body - and continued to answer Vorona's question:

"I'm…just a parasite."

----

Anri's vision was actually far from recovered.

The flashbang had blinded Anri, and she saw nothing but white - but inside her body, Saika detected everything.

A lovable human's heartbeat, breathing, footsteps and even the movements of the muscles.

Even the tiniest sounds made in the wind by the blade the human was wielding -

Saika was able to feel every sound that was coming from this human.

It was all because of her twisted love.

----

Vorona was not aware of Saika's existence, but she knew that Anri's katana was something unusual. She assumed that it would be futile to try to bend it. If she used a gun, she would risk not fulfilling the "Do not kill the target" requirement.

The seriousness of gun wounds tended to be greatly exaggerated in Japanese media.

If Anri made her katana disappear again, the entire situation would just look like an ordinary school girl getting shot by violent gangsters.

If the incident was publicized, it would be hard for her to ever find another job in Ikebukuro. In fact, it would become hard for her to even stay in this city.

- Yeah, right…

Vorona came up with an idea and decided to try it on Anri.

She leaped, took out another knife from her pouch and walked towards Mikado.

"…!"

Anri hastened to follow her - but Vorona didn't do anything to Mikado. Instead, she kept running as if to lure Anri somewhere, casting backward glances every now and then.

Anri's vision was dim. She ran after her opponent relying on Saika's perception of her surroundings.

Judging by the flashbang and the strange bullet knife, it was not a good idea to fight her at anything but a very short range.

That was what Saika's fighting experience told Anri, so she began to run after Vorona.

Part of the reason was also that she did not wish to get Mikado involved -

But that led her into even deeper chaos and commotion.

Because the place Vorona was heading for -

Happened to be the very spot where gangs of delinquents were fighting each other.

Everything suddenly fell quiet again on this side of the warehouse.

A boy groaned on the ground as fighting noises came from the other side of the warehouse and shouts came from the track field.

"…Uh…"

It was Mikado, who was still temporarily blinded by the flashbang.

But he still heard every word the attacker and Anri had said.

- "That boy, seems merely human. Pity, pity."

The syntax sounded weird, but Mikado understood very well that it was meant as a contemptuous remark towards him.

Just because he was a mere human.

Mikado was feeling shocked, but it was not because the reason had made no sense.

- A mere human.

Mikado felt shocked because someone else had just decided for him that he was "a mere human".

To be more exact, the fact that he felt shocked at being called a mere human was enough to shock him.

- What…am I?

- I'm just curious about unusual things.

- There's no need for me to become anything unusual myself…


In his confusion, Mikado remembered what Anri had said.

- "…I won't forgive you if you do anything to him."

- …

- I was the one being protected.

- I wanted to protect Sonohara-san, but it turned out to be the reverse…

- …But haven't I known from the very beginning?

- Sonohara-san beat those three men in a second…

- ...

- …No, what am I thinking about?

- That's not what I wanted to say.

- Eh?

- This is weird.

- What…what exactly…did I want to think about?


Mikado thought that his brain must have been fuddled again by the light.

He tried to reassure himself that it was the case. However, he was reminded of what Anri said just now.

- "I'm…just a parasite."

- ...What was she talking about?

- She had said the same thing when he had first met her.

- But she's no longer dependent on Harima-san or anyone else…


Black emotions surged in Mikado's heart yet again.

The last time they did, he was feeling contempt for the man who was kicking him.

But now - it was anger towards himself.

- All things considered…I'm more like the parasite.

He had founded Dollars. But that was it. He wasn't capable of anything, but despite that he somehow felt as if he was special. He had never wanted to see himself as anything special, but he had only just realized it now.

That when he was called a "mere human" and not treated as a worthy opponent by the mysterious assailant, he felt so humiliated that he could hardly stand it.

- I…what a despicable human being I am...

Mikado felt ashamed of himself.

But he struggled to his feet anyway, trying to think of what he could do.

The burning whiteness in front of his eyes was receding.

As his vision slowly began to recover -

Note:
-A grenade?
-Holy shit I am so blind
-Sounds of metal hitting metal and fighting, what's going on?
-The lady who threw the grenade, what's she saying?
-What is Sonohara-san doing?
-Everything is a daze of light and shock
-......
-A mere human?
-Who is that person to decide what I am?
-But... It's true isn't it?
-.....
-How useless am I as a human?
-Sonohara-san had to protect me again
-"Black feelings" of rage, hurt pride, and humiliation

What we learned:
Setting: Anri and Mikado are sneaking around behind Raira's back field when Vorona shows up and throws a flashbang at them.

And then some things happen.

The entire scene is white out and shock for Mikado. He's on the ground holding his eyes while the girl he likes fights off an assassin, protecting him. He's had a long day, hasn't slept in two days, just received a nasty beating and repeated kicks to the head right before this, and has probably been running on adrenaline and stress for at least an hour or two now. Needless to say he's not in a stable state of mind or emotion when this all goes down.

So while Anri and Vorona are fighting and talking about him basically being useless, while he's blinded, he doesn't really react well. There are a WHOLE lot of bad emotions up in here. And the damage to his pride at being useless, at Anri protecting him, at not doing anything, at being looked down on is really really hard on him here. He starts to feel a whole lot of rage for just a bit, some more emerging crazy surfacing to his own awareness. He wants to make someone hurt. He wants not to be dismissed.

In short, yanyanyan