breaks_destiny | 009th Shattering * Audio

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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?]

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It's no trouble at all. [ And, well, he won't beat around the bush. ] What's wrong?

[ How can I help? ]

[Honestly, Keiichi isn't sure how Hughes could help. But he's an adult with military training and someone he has come to trust a lot. He just can't see how it would hurt to trust in him.]

I have to apologize first, Hughes-san. I... Didn't take well that you hadn't mentioned your situation in your world, but that wasn't fair. After all I haven't told you much about mine either and maybe I should have.

I... Come from a small village, Hinamizawa, a bit secluded and almost forgotten, it takes a while to get there and it's really small. I'm not from that village since birth thought, but I moved there a few months before I was sent here. It's a beautiful place, very comfortable and familiar and the villagers are very welcoming and united. It may be a small and unknown village but it's villagers aren't people someone wants to mess up with.

Unfortunately, everyone in Hinamizawa is infected with a serious disease called the Hinamizawa Syndrome. It comes from a parasite that can only found in the village's area, it infects everyone living there and even if it's not contagious by itself outside of Hinamizawa, anyone moving to the village eventually gets infected. Like myself. The syndrome... Affects people's brains, you... You saw how some people got during the last week of the past month, right? The hallucinations and the paranoia...

The syndrome works similarly, but worse. It has several levels of infection per say, the lowest levels make it harmless, dormant even. One can be infected and live a long life without ever noticing it. But with stress and different triggers, like feeling that one can trust their friends or something, the level may raise. As it does hallucinations will start, at first just overlapping reality, seeing someone smile or look at you at every moment when they aren't doing that at all... But as time passes the hallucinations become more and more usual, you can end seeing people where there's no one and even touching them won't reveal them to be just your imagination because all your senses become fooled. At the end of the infection the person just... Is ready to kill, normally sure that their own life is in danger and they must kill unless they want to die. It doesn't happen always but if the person felt that they were being chased or that their friends can't be trusted and are out to get them... In the best scenario the infected person, rather than kill anyone will... Kill themselves my tearing out their own throat.

It's possible though, to get someone at the critical level back to the low levels. Be it with a medicine that was created for it or by, reaching to them and showing them that what the syndrome had made them believe wasn't true at all.

[Hughes isn't a stupid man, he may even come to connect what Keiichi is saying with his need for living with a friend and his denial to accept Hughes' own invitations the moment Elicia appeared.]

... I see. [ And because he can't just assume, because he has to be sure: ] Are you saying you're infected with this syndrome?

[Keiichi nods.]

I'm not a critical patient though so I can lead a normal live so long as I don't get stressed, of course here that's hard to manage but... Two good friends knew about the syndrome and kept me sane the couple of times it was about to go out. And I'm conscious enough of it to keep myself away from people when I notice it starting to kick in.

That's why I moved out of my apartment and crashed the couch of one of those two friends. There's a medicine and though it's not perfect it helps even more with keeping a normal life, I've asked the Malnosso to start stocking it at the clinics and will start taking it regularly with the help of a friend.

So, on my part things should be well.

[On his part. He's not that sure about others. However he pauses and looks down at the ground. He really had no right to get annoyed by learning through Elicia that Hughes was dead when he was keeping such a thing for himself.]

I'm sorry...

[ Cue one hell of a relieved sigh. ]

You've got nothing to apologize for at all. I'm just glad you'll be all right. [ And he cannot stress that enough. ]

[Keiichi nods.]

If it ever comes down to the worst, I know by experience on both sides that sometimes direct confrontation is the best. A well timed punch does wonders with hallucinations.

[But he really is confident that things will be all right. At least with him.]

But that's not all I wanted to tell you.

[Well, he has had this since he arrived to Luceti, but hasn't said a thing, it's quite clear that something must have happened to trigger him to talk now.]

Someone from my world has arrived recently... Someone who's infected too but doesn't know it. Unfortunately, it's not a friend even without the syndrome involved.

[ First, raising an eyebrow. ] I'll keep it in mind for if you ever need the extra hand.

[ ...ah. Sympathetic smile. Of course someone not quite friendly turned up. ] Luck of the draw, isn't it?

[A bitter smile.]

Must be that, yeah.

[He pauses, hesitating for a second.]

Hughes-san... I trust you, so I'm going to tell you the full story. I have to ask you before that to... At least wait until I'm done. And to believe me, no matter how crazy it may sound.

I guarantee it.

[He takes a deep breath, sorting in his mind how to present it all. Hughes, you're in for some crazy stuff now.]

Well... As I said the syndrome affects pretty much everyone, with just one exception. There's a little girl, named Rika Furude, who is infected with the 'queen' of the parasites. Basically they seem to work like bees. The existence of the queen keeps the syndrome mostly dormant, without it the risks climb to higher scales. How or why this is like that is hard to know, it has yet to be discovered, basically... But the person who has recently arrived, Miyo Takano, is set on discovering it.

She is the one behind a research group that studies the syndrome using a clinic as a cover for it. I'm not sure why, I suppose the research kept finding dead ends, it's a bit logical to think, but the point is that the situation reached a point in which Takano wasn't satisfied with what she had access to. She wanted to prove her research to be a fact and such, and for that she aimed to kill Rika. By killing her she could study her corpse and prove what effect had the lack of the 'queen' on the infected people of the village, apparently.

Fortunately, from when I'm from that's all in the past. Rika came to us, her friends and other people, for help to stop Takano and we managed to do so. But it seems that the Takano who has arrived isn't from the same period of time, so she can still be dangerous. The fact that she's infected with the syndrome doesn't help of course. And it's hard to say where ends the syndrome causing it all and where starts her own evilness.

So Miss Takano is infected, unstable and unpredictable. [ He's boss at general summarizing, idek. ]

Pretty much. She's also very manipulative... She... She got to fulfill her objective several times before we managed to stop her. She would often sow distrust between us, though I'm not sure if it was intentionally or not, and while we were busy going crazy she would just do her thing and kill Rika. And after that she would have the whole village killed too.

[Those are the most vaguest memories, but he remembers about the Great Hinamizawa Disaster from his time as a young father brought to Luceti, and he remembers being locked at the school with everyone else in the village and gas bombs thrown at them.

Of course, all he is saying right now has lost any sense. Because he's talking about Takano succeeding several times, but he also said that they had stopped her.]

And every time that would happen... Every time Rika died, time would reset itself and we would go through it again until we stopped Takano. So I know that I'm not exaggerating when I say that she can be dangerous and won't stop at anything if she decides to continue her investigation here or something else. But with the syndrome affecting her I can't really say that she's absolutely dangerous... After all she can't do much with the syndrome here.

[But he can't just sit and forget it either. And of course, just as he said, together with Rika dying several times, he's admitting that he himself has died several times too. Though that's moot point at the moment.]

I don't really know how to deal with this.

Edited 2010-11-27 22:20 (UTC)

[ ... ]

We handle this with a great deal of caution, and without causing a public panic. Luceti has a way of intercepting the goals you set on your own world, whether it's intentional or not. [ He pauses for a few moments, thinking. There's an entire village potentially at risk here. ] For now, we'll keep an eye on her- a close one. If things look to be heading in that direction, we'll very calmly and quickly put out a public notice and take care of things from there.

[ Take care in whatever way works best. ]

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009th Shattering * Audio

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