week 6

[airlockedmods]

Week 6

[Six weeks. Twenty-three Champions whittled down to just seven. Where the halls of the station once felt crowded and loud now they're empty and echo when someone speaks too loudly. Again, the Champions will find themselves experiencing strange dreams on Sunday night but outside of the usual wake-up call there is no new floor announcement from CECE.

Like the trash compactor last week, the infirmary is pristine and sterile once again. As if nothing had ever happened.]


Sunday | Monday | Tuesday | Wednesday | Thursday



(( Welcome to Week 6! Don't forget to submit your memory regains and turn in your benefactor threads for sweet loot, too! There's going to be no AC this week.))

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SUNDAY

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MONDAY

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TUESDAY

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WEDNESDAY

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THURSDAY

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[le_mat]

[Akira sleeps in.

Or well, who can say how much sleep he actually gets, but he doesn't have the drive to come out until well into the morning, when most everyone else is already awake. Which is about the time he comes padding out of Room 22, barefoot and bleary eyed. Somehow, another day happened, regardless of how little he wanted to deal with one.

One might find him at the memorial wall once he IS out and about- after stopping a few places room he leaves the red panda kigu and his Morgana plushie there for the twins, as well as a fresh bottle of the good liqour. And, something else, written in one of the few blank spots:]

The Road goes ever on and on
Down from the door where it began.
Now far ahead the Road has gone,
And I must follow, if I can,
Pursuing it with weary feet,
Until it joins some larger way,
Where many paths and errands meet.
And whither then? I cannot say.

The Road goes ever on and on
Out from the door where it began.
Now far ahead the Road has gone.
Let others follow, if they can!
Let them a journey new begin.
But I at last with weary feet
Will turn towards the lighted inn,
My evening-rest and sleep to meet.

[Later, he's around the Dinner... tossing out huge amounts of food, oddly. Some might recognize it as Thursday's leftovers from Manaka's gathering. And by evening he's in the Arcade, shooting things. A LOT of things. Occasionally cursing, but still trying]

[in4apounding]

[Penny does not emerge from Room 9 on Sunday.]

[playthedamncard]

[Sleep is hard to come by these days, and Saturday night in particular, even with Akira with him. But he must doze off at some point, because he remembers.

And despite the months of time spanning across his memory, he wakes on the station.

For the briefest of milliseconds, he thinks that perhaps the body against him and the hair tickling him could be--but it's not.

Everyone's dead. He's still down an eye. And the game continues.

Getting out of bed is the hardest thing, but he has to. He has to keep going. They have to keep going. For the few people who are left. He shifts slowly, stretches, tries to quash the urge to stay in bed all day--even though he'd suggested staying in to Akira the other week, that it wasn't anything new, that nobody would think less of him.]

Hey. [you good soft boy?]

[lmafo]

[ Knock knock knock! ]

[le_mat]

[he mumbles at first, a garbled sleepy mess that might have been him telling Morgana to give him a few more- it's Sunday. He doesn't have school. It's fine.

His head clears soon though, his good eye blinking a few time to clear his memory, and shifting up to peer at Kaiba from the nest of of sleep tossed hair and pillow.]

...hey.

[playthedamncard]

[Something like a smile plays on his lips, small, sad.] Sorry, I should have let you sleep in.

[playthedamncard]

[It might be hunger that finally drives Kaiba to leave his room--sometime after Akira's already left. Fully clothed in his usual getup of extra and too much shit, thanks. If he looks like shit in particular today, good, because he feels that way, but he's at least actually going to eat food. Unlike yesterday.

There's no new floor. That's concerning. Why isn't there a new floor? Did they already reach the top of the station? Exploring for anything new won't do any good. Everything's changed back to how it was. As it always does.

He lingers in the bar, not to drink, but he sets his bottle of whiskey in there and...looks at it all, lost in thought.

In the gym, he's set himself up some targets to punch and kick. It might be kind of sad to watch, honestly, but hey, you try losing an eye and then have to rework your brain to function without depth perception.

He mentally finds the infirmary off limits, and the holodeck just seems like a rude idea given what he's remembered. In the zero-g room he can be found floating along--and with special guest Ibris the mecha-lizard, still with the ribbon of blue around his neck, and Kaiba holding lightly onto the trailing edge.

He also makes a point to go into every dead room, looking through what's left or to find letters he hasn't gotten yet or...just looking.]

[le_mat]

[he is not prepared for a look like that first thing in the morning, and burrows his face further down, ignoring all his aches]

Did the mornin' announcement already go off?

[playthedamncard]

In another couple minutes. Guess my memories woke me.

[The heat of the sun and the crunch of sand. He gets out of bed properly, so if Akira wants to hog the whole warm space, he can.]

You can stay in here if you want today.

[le_mat]

[he doesn't hesitate to drag over the now free pillow and roll into the warm spot]

Hmm... no, I gotta get up too.

[he's in no rush to do so, though. He takes note if what Kaiba said, about memories waking him]

... up for talking about it?

[playthedamncard]

Oh? Are we suddenly interested in sharing memories? [He means nothing by it.] Perhaps later. ...Needs time to sort itself out. A matter of months, though. Not just days or a handful of weeks.

[He grabs a pill container (full of oxy) from off his desk and rattles it in Akira's direction.] If you need something to take the edge off, I've got some.

[in4apounding]

[It takes a while for the door to open. Like, a really long time. It'd be reasonable for Roxy to have knocked again at least once, honestly.]

[But the door does open, to Penny wrapped tightly in that blanket cape she's had on and off for a while now.]

Roxy..?

[lmafo]

Oh shit, girl... You cool if I come in?

[in4apounding]

I- ...yes. Please.

[That. Last part sure sounds a lot more desperate than your typical polite invitation.]

[lmafo]

You got it.

[ And in she comes, closing the door behind her. ]

You wanna sit down? Hella comfy-lookin bed just over yonder.

[le_mat]

That long...

[His was just a few hours, and were things he already knew from context. The feeling of dread in his belly is less to do with what he now remembers, and everything with what he still doesn't. The Grail, his friends, his entire world.

But for now, he is too warm and content to mull over it]

Yeah, please. You are a saint and a scholar, Seto Kaiba.

[Cuz no fucking way was he going back in the infirmary]

[playthedamncard]

Don't let anyone I know back home hear you say that; they'll never believe you. Besides, maybe we should thank whoever is in charge of the dumbwaiters for handing out items like this.

...Hn, speaking of. I should see what other potentially inappropriate but vaguely useful items I got this morning. You want to go check yours later?

[le_mat]

I should. Maybe I'll get lucky and they'll send me something useful. Like a gun.

[He finally sits up, curious what Kaiba got]

cw: mentions of child abuse

[playthedamncard]

An airsoft gun, perhaps.

[He runs a hand through his hair, moving over to the dumbwaiter. A couple different drinks and edibles, a body pillow--that he tosses at Akira, let's not talk about the condoms...

When he picks up the switch, he nearly sets it aside with everything else. It could be anything, belong to part of anything, for anyone. But before it leaves his hand, he stops cold and brings it back up. It's not coincidence, not at this point. It even looks used, not like some cheap new plastic replica.

For a moment, that voice that isn't his bubbles back up. Losing is death, this is the perfect game isn't it? To hammer home the lessons he'd tried to shed. Caring is weakness, nothing matters more than getting ahead, the long and ceaseless lessons day in and day out, the crack of the switch in front of his face to keep him awake and going because the consequences for doing otherwise would be worse--

If it had showed up another time, he knows he wouldn't feel this stabbing pain. Because the past is the past and needs to stay there. Gozaburo was buried with Alcatraz, laid to rest with the destruction of the duel tower. But after all that's happened, catching him when he's weak, surprising him when he's vulnerable, this feels like a deliberate act of provocation.

And it makes him furious.

He glares into the camera, not focused on yelling at CECE but past her to the overseers--to one in particular.] You don't scare me. You can't scare me with him anymore. I watched him burn. Do you think you're so damn clever, Petuu? You're going to have to come up with something a little more original, because someone else already beat you to this little game!

[le_mat]

[Akira snickers at the pillow hitting his head- and so is surprised by Kaiba's sudden turn. He startles, eye wide as he watches him snarl at the camera]

Wha-

[He rolls out of bed with practiced ease, all his earlier sleepy contentment shed in exchange for a fight he can't possibly understand]

Seto, what is it?