Keiichi Maebara (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
breaks_destiny) wrote2010-11-09 02:51 pm
breaks_destiny) wrote2010-11-09 02:51 pm
Entry tags:
009th Shattering * Audio
[Filtered to: Minato, Minako Arisato, Hanyuu, Ami, Hughes, Elicia, Winry, Adell, Patchouli, Bernkastel, SOS Brigade members, Shiki, Neku, Grell. || Unhackable 70% 100%]
[Actually the Arisatos and Hanyuu are a bit of an overkill to add to that filter since they should know already but just in case...]
Just a small heads up to the lot of you, not that it has happened that I can remember but... I won't be answering to any call through the journals unless it's filtered as high as you can.
Which means that, Elicia, you tell your dad beforehand if you want to call me for something.
[A pause.]
Actually if any of you have problems with filters or something just call for Souji instead, I'll answer if it's any of you calling.
[That sounded casual enough, right? Let's hope no one goes into too much of a question mode as to why he suddenly wants to be so secretive with the journals.]
[Filtered to Ami ||70% 100% Unhackable]
Are you free to meet up and talk? [The library would sound good but he can almost imagine Takano there looking for information so... And the medical center at the battledome is as out of the question as anything that is related to medicine.] Does the lake sound all right with you?
[Filtered to Hughes ||70% 100% Unhackable]
Hughes-san, where could we meet to talk? Alone if possible as I told you.
[Hopefully it won't be a place where Keiichi can imagine Takano around easily. Though maybe he's just being a bit paranoid.]
[Filtered to Adell ||70% 100% Unhackable]
Oi, Adell, I think I heard around that you knew about one of those groups, Blue Rogues, I think? Can I ask you a few questions?
[Filtered to the Malnosso ||70% 100% Unhackable]
I... I'm not entirely sure how to do this... Can I talk with... Catherine, I think it was?
[Sincerely he has not much hope, he has been out of things for a while and who knows if that guy hasn't been changed or whatever. But he won't lose anything for trying, right?]
[Actually the Arisatos and Hanyuu are a bit of an overkill to add to that filter since they should know already but just in case...]
Just a small heads up to the lot of you, not that it has happened that I can remember but... I won't be answering to any call through the journals unless it's filtered as high as you can.
Which means that, Elicia, you tell your dad beforehand if you want to call me for something.
[A pause.]
Actually if any of you have problems with filters or something just call for Souji instead, I'll answer if it's any of you calling.
[That sounded casual enough, right? Let's hope no one goes into too much of a question mode as to why he suddenly wants to be so secretive with the journals.]
[Filtered to Ami ||
Are you free to meet up and talk? [The library would sound good but he can almost imagine Takano there looking for information so... And the medical center at the battledome is as out of the question as anything that is related to medicine.] Does the lake sound all right with you?
[Filtered to Hughes ||
Hughes-san, where could we meet to talk? Alone if possible as I told you.
[Hopefully it won't be a place where Keiichi can imagine Takano around easily. Though maybe he's just being a bit paranoid.]
[Filtered to Adell ||
Oi, Adell, I think I heard around that you knew about one of those groups, Blue Rogues, I think? Can I ask you a few questions?
[Filtered to the Malnosso ||
I... I'm not entirely sure how to do this... Can I talk with... Catherine, I think it was?
[Sincerely he has not much hope, he has been out of things for a while and who knows if that guy hasn't been changed or whatever. But he won't lose anything for trying, right?]
[Action]
Okay, first off... Oyashiro-sama would never curse anyone, not even someone it may hate. It may sound sappy but Oyashiro-sama just worries about people and wants to help and do as much as possible but... Its powers are limited, okay? So even if it would want to stop the so called curse, it can't, but Oyashiro-sama never cursed anyone.
The rules were mostly probably created due the syndrome. Given how the parasite only lived in Hinamizawa's region and anyone who entered the village would be infected and if anyone left the village and the radius of effect of the Queen Carrier... Things would get bad. Oyashiro-sama didn't make them because it wanted to trap people or something.
[He clearly sounds as if he knows Oyashiro-sama personally. He scratches his head for a moment.]
Let's see how to start this... Maybe Rika would be better to explain all this but she's not here so...
Let me start from several years ago in my world, okay? Around four years ago, there was a goverment project regarding the building of a dam in the village that would drown it under water. The workers all came from outside the village, most of the village people were against the project because they didn't want to leave the village. This kind of broke the rules Oyashiro-sama had set, people outside the village were in it and they were going to damage the village. Besides the fight people put up everyone expected them to be cursed by Oyashiro-sama...
Four years ago, in the night of the Watanagashi festival, a festival of the village to worship Oyashiro-sama. Two workers of the dam were 'cursed', one was killed and cut in pieces, most of them were found except one arm, and another vanished entirely apparently taken by the demons. That was the first time the curse acted.
The next year, around the same date, that of the festival... A married couple fell from a cliff, one of them was found dead, the other's body vanished as well. They were the parents of a good friend of mine, and even if they had been members of the village they had supported the dam project, thus they hadn't minded leaving the village nor harming it. So everyone assumed it had been Oyashiro-sama's curse punishing the traitors of the village...
The next year, once more, a married couple suffered the curse. Rika's parents, despite her father being the priest of Oyashiro-sama, he had kept a neutral position during the dam project instead of fighting for the village. He died, his wife vanished.
And finally the previous year to the one I'm from... A woman was killed and her nephew vanished. Them both were related to the victims of the second time the curse was said to happen. She... Was an evil woman, an outsider who tortured my friend. He was my friend's older brother, who kept protecting her but... Apparently he wanted to leave the village as well.
[Keiichi sighs.]
But all this was just a coincidence. There was no curse... At least not one that came from a deity or a demon. It was simply a combination of the syndrome and a human working against the village.
[Action]
But I think I get it. The so called terms of the curse are more related to the Syndrome itself rather than Oyashiro. ...In a way, it almost sounds like a way to keep people from being exposed to the Hinamizawa Syndrome. Never leave, never let anyone in. It's almost like a medical quarantine.
[He pauses. He's clearly thinking very hard right now.
Mom would be proud.]So you figure the murders and disappearances every year during the festival were all results of the outbreak of the Syndrome? And if you said the Syndrome triggers because of stress... do you figure that some of the disappearances were related to the fact that people were stressed out over the dam project and felt excluded and shoved aside because their opinion wasn't the popular one?
[Action]
I didn't figure it. I'm... Let's say that I'm from the end of it all, we discovered the truth behind the so called curse. And the objectives of the woman I told you about, and we stopped her, defeated her per say. So this isn't just speculation, okay?
Anyway, you can figure it out on your own. Just... Focus in the first year the curse happened. A man was killed and cut in pieces in the most gruesome way. And another man, who worked with the first, vanished from the Earth apparently.
Back then, the study regarding the Hinamizawa Syndrome was already working and estabilized in the village... And I already told you what they were after.
[A pause, if Adell doesn't get it on his own Keiichi will say it but... He really would prefer to not be the one to say it openly even in private.]
[Action]
He puts a knuckle to his upper lip as he begins to really think hard. How does this all fit together... the false curse, the murders, the disappearances, the Syndrome... and the people studying it, the dangers and psychosis associated with an outbreak...
They were looking for ways to study the Syndrome and the extent of how strong it was. There was a murder of a dam worker... and one his coworkers disappeared entirely without a trace. ...And similar things happened beyond that... and there was no actual curse.
...Wait. Adell's eyes light up with a realization, though it's not a happy one. To figure out the Syndrome by any means necessary...]
...The team that was studying the disease was responsible for the disappearances, weren't they? If one of the dam workers had an episode with the Syndrome and killed his coworker, it'd be a perfect excuse to take him away for study...
[And his expression darkens again.]
...And the village's so called curse was a convenient cover for it all, wasn't it?
[Action]
That's more like it was... The syndrome wasn't public knowledge, no one told us and the research was covered, we all thought it was just a clinic there. Not that there was something being studied.
From what I know the incidents... Happened and they took advantage of it to go further with the investigation, though to know the details of how and such you would have to ask someone else. Still... They took advantage of the village being scared and worried about Oyashiro-sama's curse, and used it to cover themselves and keep the village under a limited amount of stress. And as other bad things happened to people and the circunstances matched... They considered it the curse, even if there was none.
[A pause.]
Her name's Miyo Takano.
[Action]
...So this Takano person? Was she responsible for the disappearances, or was she just a part of a larger research group?
[Action]
The disappearances... Some of them were mostly the person being taken by the research group for their study, but I don't know more or if all of them were taken by them.
[Action]
...If she was afflicted with the Syndrome herself and that's why she started getting so extreme with her methods, she must've been running on some level of the Syndrome that makes her not right in the head. ...Or maybe she's just a huge bitch.
...It's probably a bit of both. But I do believe you're right in that acting on it without provocation here would be wrong.
Is there more to the story?
[Action]
It's hard to tell where starts her own mind and where the syndrome. As far as I know the clinic was settled in before the dam project started even, or when it was starting. The curse only began months if not even a year later. More than enough time for her to get infected and go up some levels due frustration on having the research at a stalemate or something. I hadn't been in the village for more than a few months and I'm already infected so...
Still I think too that it may be a mixture of the two options given all that I know... You see if she had been successful in killing Rika... The next step would have been to gas the whole village and make it look like a natural disaster. But that may have come from the higher ranks she worked for and not from herself...
[It's hard to tell when the puppet is the culprit and when the puppeteer is the responsible one. At any rate Keiichi stops to think. More to the story? Actually yes, but he doesn't think it really matters. At least not now. He has told Adell about the syndrome, the medicine, Takano and what she was after. There's not much else to share, at least that he can think about now.]
No... At least now I can't remember anything more that needs to be told, but if I forgot something I'll let you know as soon as I remember.
[A sigh.]
That's why I was asking about monitoring... If we could get someone to keep an eye on her without her noticing or realizing it, we could be one step ahead of her if anything bad happens. Whether if it is her doing something to someone in the village or her hurting herself. And even if she did something, confinement wouldn't be a good idea, the syndrome would eventually just... Make her kill herself and the only way to avoid that would be to restrain her completely... Which is inhuman.
Back home... The guy that defended her when we got her, he was her boyfriend or something. He had been working with her but knew basically nothing of all the things they were doing. He was completely kept in the dark and used, she kept an eye on him that way... I suppose that would be the best way to monitor her, to have someone befriend her naturally, without her noticing that they are doing so to keep an eye on her, and have them keep an eye on her that way.
At least it worked for her.
[Action]
Just... arrgh. This is a completely lose-lose situation, and Adell would really like nothing more than to go down and just start kicking some ass to solve his problems. He misses those days a lot. That was the thing about the Netherworld! Solving problems was easy. You didn't need to be subtle.
Here though, as the leader of the Blue Rogues and dealing with mostly humans things got much more complex. And this whole Hinamizawa thing sounded almost like the dreams of a madman. Or some form of horror story.
Gassing the village after committing murder. Hell. Even if that wasn't Takano's idea, that's still disgusting and she might've still had a hand in it. But either way, it still doesn't change the fact that she hadn't done anything here yet.]
...Deception to that degree really isn't my style, man. And I don't know anyone who could or would be willing to pull that off. It's a lot to ask someone to do something like that. I can't really condone using methods that she would. Indirect monitoring's really the best I can do, and like I said, I'll have to go outside of the Rogues to do it.
I mean, I guess you can try it if you find someone who'd be willing to do it, but I've got no one who can. I personally couldn't ask anyone to do it, either way.
And I know imprisonment is going to be bad for her. But if she tries something against you or anyone else in the village, I'll be damned if I let her stay free and do it again, especially if she's as manipulative and dangerous as you allude to.
[He lets out a tired sigh and pinches the bridge of his nose.]
I know... this is something of a really sensitive area for you. You suffer from the Syndrome as well. And given we don't know how much of her actions are caused by the illness and where her mind is... we might be fighting and jailing the Syndrome, not Takano.
...If she tries something and we have to detain her, we'll do our best to figure out whether it's her or her illness that's causing problems. If we can figure it out, we'll just go from there. Does that sound fair?