DEAD 04

[thecomputer]

[Welcome, Anthy, Sakura and Simon!]

[You regain consciousness in a waiting room of some sort. Something is clearly odd - your entire body is slightly transparent, and everything you were carrying with you aside from your clothes is gone. On the plus side, you seem to be impervious to all harm.]

[There is an end table with two stacks of papers. One is a large area to write in (there is a small assortment of pens next to this), and the other all bear the same message:]

Congratulations! You have died.

Please wait in this area until such time as the exercise is terminated. At that time, you will be transferred to your appropriate afterlife. If you were assigned a Communist role, rest easy knowing that any ultimatum given as part of your motivation was false.

If you have any questions, please shout them into the air, and a representative will get back to you within 5-100,000 business days. If you have any final messages for the living, please write them on form B and submit it into the slot in the south wall. Delivery is not guaranteed.

[Sure enough, there’s a slot. In addition, a hallway connects this room with a much larger room, not unlike a movie theatre. A large screen on the far wall shows various events back in the facility as they unfold in real time. A side alcove provides slightly transparent popcorn and a water cooler, although hunger, thirst and exhaustion don’t seem to exist here.]

Comments

[ossifragant]

[It would probably help if Greed was the sort to come right out and say it. He's been open about a lot of things because he's an honest person.]

I can relate to Yomiel when it comes to matters of death. That's all.

[alchemicals]

Okay? Thanks, I get it.

[This would have been so much easier if you'd said this five minutes ago.]

...I appreciate the clarification, though. That you weren't talking about the whole Devil's Nest thing.

[ossifragant]

[We had a point here, it just got lost in all of the... talking.]

I'm not interested in making jabs at you anymore.

[He's not even really interested in fighting because it's hard to feel satisfaction from hurting someone when no one is capable of feeling pain.]

[alchemicals]

...And what brought that on?

[ossifragant]

We're both dead. I don't see the point.

I'd rather not hold onto grudges anymore.

[alchemicals]

[And that'll get another shrug out of him, though this one is far easier.]

If you missed me that badly, you could have just said so.

[ossifragant]

Hmph!

[But he's almost smiling.]

You missed a good show. I don't know why Yomiel picked the two of us to go out fighting for but it's funny as hell.

[alchemicals]

Oh, please tell me he didn't yell that out, too.

In front of a room full of people.

Like an idiot.

[ossifragant]

He restrained himself, thankfully. I don't think I could deal with the melodrama if he had.

[...maybe he should mention that Fulbright shot him, but that hadn't been done within the rules so it shouldn't stick, right?

...guess they'll find out if Yomiel shows up here tomorrow. Oops.]

I don't get him. We didn't know him at all.

[alchemicals]

Absence makes the heart grow fonder, and apparently sudden death makes Yomiel remember a pair of assholes with more fondness than they deserve.

[He doesn't exactly get it, either; it's kind of been grating on him a bit, if he's going to be honest about it, but no one really needs that right now.]

I'm not sure if I should have stayed or not. There was already too much melodrama for my tastes by the time I left.

[ossifragant]

With the kid, you mean.

[He's curious about what the hell that had been about, honestly.]

She's alive for another day at least. But she's next unless they're saving her for last.

[alchemicals]

...Yeah, with the kid.

[He falls quiet again at that, for a bit.]

I don't know. I would've been fine if she'd just agreed that that was what it was - that I had a role and so I needed to die, so she went ahead and did it. Or if she'd tried to put on a brave face and done that stupid little attitude thing she does when she's got the brace off and acted like it was what she'd wanted. Or hell, if it actually was what she'd wanted and she'd been a lying little bitch to my face to try to get me to trust her.

It wouldn't have been better, but at least then I could hate her and get on with it. What she ended up doing was just depressing.

...I'm not making any damn sense, am I.

[ossifragant]

[It takes him a very long time to respond, and when he does, his expression is soft. It's nearly gentle.]

No, you're making perfect sense.

[alchemicals]

[Something about that expression is nearly enough to get him to go all prickly again, and he needs to look away before he lets himself; he doesn't really want to think about it - he hates thinking about shit like this - but there's not much else he can do with himself right now, short of deciding that he doesn't want to deal with it and he should just sink everything and stalk off again.

And doing that just means dealing with everyone else, and he'd really rather not right now.

So instead he just...mulls it over, and he fiddles with that pen between his fingers, and he isn't sure what he thinks of the conclusion he comes to eventually.]

That's what got you so angry with me, isn't it. When you died.

[It's...not really a question.]

[ossifragant]

[The irony of the situation hadn't escaped Greed. He's just not the sort to do anything with it. Throwing it in Kimbley's face would have just pissed him off.]

That's right.

[It's not like he needs to answer it because it's not a question, but he does it anyway.]

[alchemicals]

[Really, it's best to let him figure things like that out on his own sometimes anyway, even if you're not going to throw it at him; there's a bit less anger that way, though the effect is more than a bit aimless.]

The stupidest part about all this is that I don't actually regret telling her to stay out of my room that night, even if it probably made it easier on her to make the damn decision.

[ossifragant]

You and I would have been fine no matter what happened. She was going to break sooner or later, probably no matter what side she was on.

[He's not sure what it says about Kimbley that he was looking out for someone else so he's going to just... ignore that.]

[alchemicals]

Yeah.

[...You know, let's just change the topic now that this is getting good and depressing. Good idea? Good idea.]

So how many of us are going to hate Fulbright whenever he shows up? I imagine Keyes is going to be pretty pissed off, and I'm sure you're not too happy with him either.

[ossifragant]

[You're not going to get any complaints from him.]

That's the thing-- he wasn't Fulbright.

He was an imposter.

[Either way Greed isn't very happy with the guy but that whole thing had been weird.]

He was going on about how he doesn't have a real identity anymore. I got the feeling he probably offed the real Fulbright listening to him talk.

[alchemicals]

Oh, for hell's sake.

[From the sound of it, he's actually...kind of impressed.]

I thought that whole "Hero of Justice" thing was an act, but that's actually interesting. Almost makes me wish I'd been recruited to side with those idiots, just to see what the meetings were like.

[ossifragant]

[He'd acted off every once in a while, like someone not really sure about what the hell he was doing, but as most of the acting had taken place when Greed had been dead and unable to call Fulbright out on it, Greed hadn't been able to do anything about it.]

The meetings must have been a hell of a party.

With the Hero of Justice routine, he probably elected himself the leader.

[alchemicals]

[It had never really been anything Kimbley could put into words, at least not well; he's fully aware that that's why his attempts at going after him early hadn't panned out. They weren't solid, they weren't based on much outside of "I don't like what you're doing, I don't like you" and they'd come at a time when they couldn't afford to execute based on feelings and suspicions.

Just the same, he actually sits back and stretches a bit, crossing his arms behind his head; he feels so fucking vindicated right now, Greed, you have no idea.]

He probably got the position just because he's got the strongest personality out of all of them. Newman's a follower, Himemiya and Matou are passive-aggressive but have no actual bite to them. The last one they're looking for is either also a follower, or they're the biggest bastard out of all of them.

[ossifragant]

[He's glad to help.

Granted, they'll never know just who the hell fake Fulbright is because he's likely to not say anything to anyone here.]

If I had to guess, I'd say it's another follower. Yomiel indicated that he knew who it was, but he didn't get a chance to name names.

Newman called him a liar, but no one else jumped up to say anything.