Tsujii ♠ 01
Who: tsujiisensei and somarium
Where: Espoir
Style: First or Third, either's fine.
Status: Open! Come bug a disoriented, dead mad scientist.
There was sunlight on her face, so Tsujii opened her eyes: it sounded easy, didn't it? Just that, the opening of one's eyelids: even a newborn could manage to do that unaided. There was nothing remarkable about it this time save for the fact that she was doing it at all.
She should not have been able to do anything of the sort. Should never have been able to do anything at all, ever again, and yet--
Good girls went to Heaven, or expected to - and yet she knew that she too must have gone somewhere. Eliminate the impossible and the truth remains. Tsujii had closed her eyes on chaos: on a debris-strewn room, the sound of fire and falling masonry echoing in her ears, along with the desperate pounding of her own heart. That she could open her eyes at all was the first surprise: the second was to open them not on rubble and the smoking wreckage of her destroyed laboratory, but on what appeared to be a tiny village, all trim little cottages and glossy, verdant greenery. The entire setting was as unremarkably easy on the eyes as the photo on the front of a picture postcard. The only person who could have occasioned such a place any kind of paradise was a small-minded Englishman, though an Englishman would no doubt have preferred everything a little more prim and manicured...
Wincing with every move, she clambered to her feet, instinctively brushing down clothes that were so torn and bloodied a little more dust and smudging would have passed entirely unnoticed. She pursed her lips, shifted her weight slightly, instinctively pressing one hand to the ache in her chest before letting it fall by her side. That was quite enough of that, thank you. Standing was no joy, but it was at least manageable, and she felt rather better for it. There was nothing she could do about the blood on her blouse, her hands, but she could at least face whatever she had been brought here to face (for everything that happened did so, after all, for a reason) standing on her own two feet.
(Only good girls go to Heaven, and Mayumi Tsujii had long since stopped qualifying for either of those descriptions, but it seemed that someone, somewhere, hadn't got the memo--)
The thought was a foolish one, and she disowned it. She was not a superstitious woman. Someone in Tsujii's position had no time to waste on daydreaming of jam tomorrow. She hadn't had the time for anything as patently ridiculous as that for as long as she could remember: the afterlife simply did not exist ergo this was clearly not the afterlife, and yet...
And yet here she was, and yet there was no doubt in Tsujii's mind that Youji had killed her.
Yes, she had died - but more importantly she had failed and the knowledge she was going to die hadn't hurt Tsujii nearly as much as the sudden, terrible realization that, somehow, she had snatched defeat from victory's jaws had done. There had been the reek of spilled blood and a minutes-old boy who had been born to be a God vanishing in a blinding burst of light, and the building shaking itself apart about her ears: there had been him, his fingers closing about a minidisc as he crushed it in his hand. Youji. Oh, Youji was a fool but he had been a useful fool - and now he, the fool, was going to kill her! She would die here, and he would die too - and for what? She had failed. What was her own death, next to that knowledge?
And then there had been nothing but pain. Even as she raged against it, even as with everything she had she railed against him, and against her failure, Tsujii had understood that the pain, white-hot and unendurable though it was, was all she had left--
And now this. Bloodied and aching but bodily whole, stranded somewhere so disgustingly pastoral it was almost a bad joke.
She was, she owned it, somewhat shaken.
Where: Espoir
Style: First or Third, either's fine.
Status: Open! Come bug a disoriented, dead mad scientist.
There was sunlight on her face, so Tsujii opened her eyes: it sounded easy, didn't it? Just that, the opening of one's eyelids: even a newborn could manage to do that unaided. There was nothing remarkable about it this time save for the fact that she was doing it at all.
She should not have been able to do anything of the sort. Should never have been able to do anything at all, ever again, and yet--
Good girls went to Heaven, or expected to - and yet she knew that she too must have gone somewhere. Eliminate the impossible and the truth remains. Tsujii had closed her eyes on chaos: on a debris-strewn room, the sound of fire and falling masonry echoing in her ears, along with the desperate pounding of her own heart. That she could open her eyes at all was the first surprise: the second was to open them not on rubble and the smoking wreckage of her destroyed laboratory, but on what appeared to be a tiny village, all trim little cottages and glossy, verdant greenery. The entire setting was as unremarkably easy on the eyes as the photo on the front of a picture postcard. The only person who could have occasioned such a place any kind of paradise was a small-minded Englishman, though an Englishman would no doubt have preferred everything a little more prim and manicured...
Wincing with every move, she clambered to her feet, instinctively brushing down clothes that were so torn and bloodied a little more dust and smudging would have passed entirely unnoticed. She pursed her lips, shifted her weight slightly, instinctively pressing one hand to the ache in her chest before letting it fall by her side. That was quite enough of that, thank you. Standing was no joy, but it was at least manageable, and she felt rather better for it. There was nothing she could do about the blood on her blouse, her hands, but she could at least face whatever she had been brought here to face (for everything that happened did so, after all, for a reason) standing on her own two feet.
(Only good girls go to Heaven, and Mayumi Tsujii had long since stopped qualifying for either of those descriptions, but it seemed that someone, somewhere, hadn't got the memo--)
The thought was a foolish one, and she disowned it. She was not a superstitious woman. Someone in Tsujii's position had no time to waste on daydreaming of jam tomorrow. She hadn't had the time for anything as patently ridiculous as that for as long as she could remember: the afterlife simply did not exist ergo this was clearly not the afterlife, and yet...
And yet here she was, and yet there was no doubt in Tsujii's mind that Youji had killed her.
Yes, she had died - but more importantly she had failed and the knowledge she was going to die hadn't hurt Tsujii nearly as much as the sudden, terrible realization that, somehow, she had snatched defeat from victory's jaws had done. There had been the reek of spilled blood and a minutes-old boy who had been born to be a God vanishing in a blinding burst of light, and the building shaking itself apart about her ears: there had been him, his fingers closing about a minidisc as he crushed it in his hand. Youji. Oh, Youji was a fool but he had been a useful fool - and now he, the fool, was going to kill her! She would die here, and he would die too - and for what? She had failed. What was her own death, next to that knowledge?
And then there had been nothing but pain. Even as she raged against it, even as with everything she had she railed against him, and against her failure, Tsujii had understood that the pain, white-hot and unendurable though it was, was all she had left--
And now this. Bloodied and aching but bodily whole, stranded somewhere so disgustingly pastoral it was almost a bad joke.
She was, she owned it, somewhat shaken.