WEEK FIVE

[whimsicalism]

WEEK FIVE

There's one thing that belongs in Closetland: Monsters.

It was a monster that brought the students here to begin with, and it's a monster who controls their lives now. By now, some have even accused their classmates of turning into--or always being--monsters themselves.

The academy is just as cold as it was last week, autumn air seeping in through the unfriendly architecture and the artificial light seeming darker than before. The occasionally cloud of purple fog snakes through the hallways at ground level, a constant reminder of the new presence haunting the school and her role in the past five weeks of torment. Now that Kakuya is back in a body of her own making, the music room is silent, though the rooms and halls of the Academy themselves occasionally fill with a low, haunting flute melody. With the school's new overlord already wishing her ill, Nanami's already deflating power and free roam capabilities are more or less completely limited as well: She's just one more toy in the box.

The stairwell has opened into another new floor. Upon closer inspection, it seems to be the uppermost one. This is the top of Ira Academy, and while it likely bears some new answers and some new locations to try and find a solution to your plight, is there anything that can heal some of the rifts that formed from the accusations thrown at the last trial? Still, if you don't find answers, then you'll be here playing this eternal deadly game.

Is the devil you know better than the devil you don't?

Sunday | Monday | Tuesday | Wednesday | Thursday
Regains | AC | IC Profiles | Locations | Mystery Information | Sheep Contact | Nanami Contact | Kakuya Contact

OOC NOTES

Welcome to Week 4! Nanami has joined the party! She no longer has office hours but still be contacted privately, as can Kakuya, who is no longer stuck in the music room. New locations are now open, and some minor adjustments have been made to the IC profiles and rules. Please hit the mods with a ping in Discord and put INVESTIGATE in your subject line if you're interested in exploring a new location. The SHEEP are still taggable, though you may find them in a...different mood.

You now have a week to make sure your AC in for last week and to start collecting AC for this week. Remember to submit your regains, and sign up for a spot exploring this week's mystery if you want to!

Comments

[canreallymove]

No. It's-

[Deep breath.]

Look, I...I'm not gonna pretend I, like, 100 percent get you or...or your relationship with the person keepin' us here. But...I made a promise that I was gettin' everyone out of here. That includes you. You don't deserve to be made to stay here just because you think you're some kind of irredeemable and horrible thing because of things that happened or...or because of people you know or thought you knew.

[He knows the truth about Yasu. He might be the only one who knows, now. He's not going to go into details, though. Not in front of everyone. Hers was a different kind of existential horror.

That would just be uncool.]

What...what I'm tryin' to say is that...it's not right to just be...going back and bein' back with our friends and family and stuff and...and knowing we could have gotten you out of here somehow and prevented you a lot more grief. But instead we didn't and were all "yeah, let's just leave her there, she fell in love with the doll that lied to us and told us she is a monster so she's just gonna stay there forever, oh well!"

Because...you're not a monster. I know you're not. A real monster is so selfish about what they want that they don't even care about other people. And I know you care about other people. You're nothin' like Buttnik or Father, or the monsters that wanna eat us. You're smart and you care about others and you've got a heart, man!

[Maybe he's rambling, but he's just. Whatever.]

...You don't have to go home, man, I'd never think you'd be trying to go home, but. A Freedom Fighter doesn't abandon anyone in their hour of need. And you need help, so we gotta help you find a way to get out do you're not stuck in this place forever waiting to be broken and then just. Having no way out.

That's the least we can do for you.

NOT HERE-ISH

[violence_ensues]

["A real monster is so selfish about what they want that they don't even care about other people."]

[Hmm...]

cw: emeto mention

[keyringwitness]

Sonic, you...

[Yasu is taken aback for a moment, shoulders slumped in apparent exhaustion. Then, they start to shake, as if she's crying, but on closer inspection-

She's laughing.]

YOU IDIOOOOOT!

You must be used to racing so fast that your brain can't catch up to your feet, let along your eyes or tongue. I was skeptical at first, but I'm really starting to believe that you can go faster than light given your apparent propensity to outrun the sound of what I'm directly telling you and even basic logical thought!

[More cackling. Yasu's words drip with red venom.]

So I need you to lis~ten close~ly for once in your life. I don't want to stay here, you buffooooooonnn! I'd be just as dissatisfied languishing in Kakuya's daddy dearest's vision of perfection for future uninteresting suburbanites as much as I'd be piggybacking atop one of you moralizing fools who think you know what's best for me and being forced to play pretend with one of your families. I! Am! Done! With pretending that I'm still some ordinary, scared little girl, that I'm even capable of being the sniveling, pathetic Yasu for a moment longer!

Sure, sure, surrrreeee, the taste of freedom was bitter, bitter enough for me to want to vomit up all my insides just so I could rid myself of my disgusting flesh and bone, but it's still freedom. I'm not Beatrice, but I have her legacy and her potential both, and I'll be damned a third time before I'm satisfied with shuffling off to be a side character again while all that pain festers and pushes me down the same path as I would've tread had I not come here. Dragging me off to live some wretched daily life again isn't the bliss you think it is; it'd just be an old hell with a fresh coat of paint.

So let me make myself clear, in case you haven't gotten the point yet: I'm not going with you, but you're not going to leave me with Kakuya... you'll be leaving Kakuya with me, and I'll decide a new destination from there.

[She huffs, crossing her arms as some of the manic energy that erupted apparently from nowhere fades.]

I hope that managed to penetrate your thick coating of quills, because if I have to simplify it further I'll have to break out the picture books. Do you FINALLY understand?