second prayer

[prayed]

Characters: Kyoko Sakura, open
Setting: Graveyard -> Cafeteria -> Library
Format: Prose to start, but I'll match you.
Summary: Kyoko pays a visit to the graveyard, then stuffs her face, then reads a motherfucking book (except not.)
Warnings: None.

《 GRAVEYARD 》
Kyoko had only given the graveyard a cursory inspection before, dismissing it as a decorative parlor trick like the rest of the floors, but after hearing that it was a sort of memorial she decided it to be worth another look. Not that she really cared about such things, but it was as good of a way as any to ascertain who was no longer in the tower. The sight of Mami's grave gives her a pause, though she does little more than let out an annoyed "tch" before moving on. She'd already crossed that bridge once and she didn't care to do so again.

So it's not until she stumbles upon a grave bearing her own name that Kyoko gives much of a reaction. Of course, her reaction was to kick it over, littering it with offerings of apple and pear cores. Her gaze bore down upon it for the brief moments that she stood in front of it. That sort of thing was fine if it was your own grave, right? It wasn't like she was going to be using it anytime soon. Crawling into a coffin once wasn't an action she felt any regrets about, but she wouldn't do so again. So, it was nothing less than an insult and a frustration to a person like her who still alive, right at the very top of the food chain.

《 CAFETERIA 》
She made a habit of avoiding to sit down and eat meals at a table like this. It was too slow and too stagnant and perhaps even a bit too lonely for her tastes. Well, being alone came naturally to her--after all, that was just how life worked, right?--, but the emptiness was nonetheless unwanted. It made her feel a sort of emptiness in the pit of her stomach, though food was one of the few pastimes that she truly enjoyed.

Still, some foods were harder to move with than others and so she was sitting alone at the table now.

《 LIBRARY 》
Kyoko wasn't an intellectual nor did she have any interest in becoming one; outside of comics and childish fairy tales where love and justice always prevailed she had always had precious little interest in things like books or school. Why bother with them when she already had a viable career locked in and could just take what she needed, but the end to their short-lived conversation had struck something of a personal chord. Losing your soul, trading it away, how much of a difference was there?

"'Lose your soul in the Tower of Animus,' eh? What a waste of time," the red-headed girl mumbled to herself, just barely audible, as she glanced at the empty history section and and munched on scooped spoonfuls of cranberry jam straight out of the can. She scratched at the back of her calf with the toe of her boot. There was no surprise in it's absence, but something to at least explain the name of this place would've been nice.

Comments

[prayed]

"Is that so?" She said nonchalantly. Her head tilted slightly towards the ceiling as she considered this new information. Her fingers gripped the spoon again, stirring at it idly. "Well, it still sounds like a pretty weak threat to me. I doubt it would be enough to strike fear into a girl like that." The girl in question, of course, being Ruana. The fact that she'd gone so far as to pray to keep her soul...there had to be something more than just being turned into soup.

[tohko_amano]

Tohko nodded. "Apparently...and it's actually a pretty large threat. I'm just guessing, but it's possible that being in a soul soup weakens your own soul and breaks it down. You could mix with a hundred million other souls, and in the process, you cease to be you or you could even die and not go to whatever afterlife or thing your soul was supposed to go to. Of course, that's just my guess. But..which girl are you talking about?"

[prayed]

"Didn't ya hear her? That broad who was all over the network earlier," Kyoko said simply. She leaned back on the empty shelves. Maybe something like that was enough. There was no easy way of telling.

[tohko_amano]

Tohko nodded. "Ah. Ruana. Well..if she can used telekinesis and other mental abilities, it's possible that she needs to have a soul in order to do them properly, if at all. Or she has a very unusual soul, and thanks to that, has a wide variety of abilities that normal humans don't have. If her soul got lost, she wouldn't be able to perform those abilities. She would just die. Then again..it's not like you or I wouldn't die either..but maybe it would be a death that you couldn't come back from. A real death."

Tohko tried her best to pull the truth out of what she knew while she rambled. She wasn't sure if she succeeded, but she tried.

[prayed]

"Who knows." A noncommittal shrug. Speculating about what could have happened to that girl was seeming increasingly pointless. "Maybe she made a deal with the devil to get those weird powers of hers. That kinda thing happens all the time, y'know, people trading their souls for the poison that'll kill 'em."

[tohko_amano]

Tohko nodded. "Sadly, that could be a possibility too. A Woland-type character is always good at making any deal sound great and wonderful, but the moment you agree, you find he takes everything and leaves you with either nothing or makes you worse off than you were before."

[prayed]

"Sounds about right. Things like that, the ones that sound too good to be true, are exactly what they sound like, y'know." Her eyes flitted up as she seemed to consider that, before looking back to the girl, smirking. "People who'd seriously believe they could just be given something like a free miracle deserve whatever Hell they wind up in."

[tohko_amano]

Tohko sighed before smiling.

"That usually is the case in stories, even though the reader and the characters usually can never remember that rule. I even forget it sometimes. However..I don't think people who believe in free miracles deserve terrible tortures and sorrow. After all..while that belief may wind up burning their feet sometimes, that hope and optimism can help save themselves and others if they're near despair."

[prayed]

"Hope and despair balance out to equal zero and if the world maintains it balance. When you make a wish like that, you're placing all of your hopes in a single prayer while sacrificing every other hopes, you know. So there's nothing left once ya lose it." A few more spoonfuls of cranberry jam to fill the hole in her stomach. Further thought and she found a small smile playing on her face. "...Heh. But I guess there are stories like that out there, aren't there? The ones where the hero pulls themselves out from the brink of despair."

Those were the stories she used to love so much. The ones where love and courage would always win the end.

[tohko_amano]

"But..the world isn't always balanced, so I'm not sure I believe you when you say that. And if you make a wish, you can hold on to your other hopes and dreams as well. That way, if that wish fails, while you have to pay the price, you have other things to keep you going as well."

Tohko smiled and nodded. "Yup! There are tons of stories like that, and the majority of them are tasty. Of course..sad stories are good too..but since there are a lot of delicious stories where the heroes can pull themselves out from their depression, that means that you can also do it in real life. It's hard..but it can be done."

[prayed]

"Heh, maybe that's true. If ya know the right way to live, anyway." She paused for consideration, chuckling. She'd pulled herself out from the pit of despair, though no hero would approve of her methods. That was fine though, right? Because she was still alive. "But...tasty, huh? Never heard 'em described like that."

[tohko_amano]

"Well..there are many ways to live, some good, some bad, and some in-between..so the right way to live depends upon the person."

Tohko then lightly chuckled and scratched her head. "Well..that's because I compare stories to food a lot! After all, cooking a meal and writing a story are quite similar when you think about it."

[prayed]

Kyoko nodded in regards to her first sentence. She wouldn't argue that, not so long as her own way of life was accepted. Any way a person chose to live was the right one.

But that second thing...she glanced down at her can, taking a bite, then glanced around the library. "But unlike a meal, ya can't just eat a book. They're pretty useless when ya get down to it. Especially the ones around here." She nodded down the aisle, devoid of anything that might have explained this world or this tower, let alone the guys in charge of it.

[tohko_amano]

Tohko sighed at that comment and smiled..or tried her best to, at least. She ate books every single day, and she found so many uses for them, even in odd spots.

"..Actually, books aren't useless. They give information, joy, hope, dreams, ideas, and other things! Even though the shelves here are a little bare, they still help out..and the books here are still wonderful and delicious!"

[prayed]

"Hmm. They're too slow for me. I don't like boring things like that, y'know." Though well, she didn't mind the occasional manga. Sometimes even short stories, fairy-tale like scenes were love and courage would always win. Setting the (now empty) can off to the side, she instead to lock her hands above her head, stretching her arm and back muscles with a grin. "I already know all that I need to. Even if I didn't, anything worth knowing can be learned on the fly, y'know."

[tohko_amano]

"Eh? How are they boring?!" Calling books boring right in front of a book girl was never a good idea. Tohko looked a little shocked at that statement, but she managed to reply to the girl's second one. "I don't think that's true, or you would have been out of this Tower a long time ago. And I don't think everything can be learned just on the fly. Sometimes, you have to take some time to get lessons to sink in."

[prayed]

"Books haven't helped us get any closer to getting out of this place either, y'know. They yanked all the ones that mattered." She tapped her heel against the shelf it was resting on. "What's supposed to be so good about 'em, anyway? Unless you're still in school they're pretty worthless."

[tohko_amano]

"Well, they did pull a couple of them..but that doesn't mean they don't have them hidden away somewhere. And that doesn't mean they pulled away all the ones that mattered..and I'm sure some have helped people get closer to t escaping."

Tohko then let out an annoyed sigh. "That's not true! Even out of school, books are wonderful things! Behind their covers hide joy, hope, wisdom, a million things that you would never find or think about in the real world! They hold solutions to problems, even if you don't realize it and great adventures that you can never actually go on. They're wonderful!"

..And delicious.

[prayed]

Wow, that was some lecture.

"Are ya done yet? Cause like, I really don't care about any of that."

[tohko_amano]

And Tohko just looked shocked at that.

"But why not?! Books are important!"

[prayed]

"What's wrong with not liking that sorta thing?good." She took a couple more bites, chewing over it, before relenting just a little with a sigh. "But since you think they're so great, why don't you try and convince me? Gimmie a couple that are actually good and I'll give it another shot."

[tohko_amano]

At the challenge, Tohko grinned a little. This was easy for her.

"Alright then! If you are depressed in this Tower, I suggest that you read The Little Prince! It's like a glass full of water that will cheer you up at the end of the day! The Book Of Tea will also do that!

If you meet another person with bad deals, read The Master and Margarita! You'll feel much better in the end, as Woland isn't a wholly terrible person!

Oh, and you must read No Longer Human, even if it is really bitter! I'll help you understand others! Read those and you'll enjoy them, trust me! You'll see that books aren't useless or terrible!"

[prayed]

Well, Kyoko had to admire this girl's dedication, if nothing more. A lot of those books sounded appropriate for someone like her by title alone. So much, that it was a little frightening, though of course she admit to that.

"Heh. Well, we'll see about that." She looked around the library, her face falling a little. It was pretty big. "There an easy way to track books down around here? The computers they got here are useless when it comes to stuff like that."

[tohko_amano]

Tohko sighed and scratched her head.

"There's no computer service or anything that will tell you where any one book is at any given time. But..that's why you have librarians! Hang on here for just a minute! I'll grab the books for you!"

Since this was a research library where books like the ones Tohko mentioned wouldn't be located, she quickly ran downstairs to the library on the third floor, grabbed the books she had mentioned, and then ran back up to Kyoko. She caught her breath as she handed them to her.

"H-here you are! I hope you enjoy them and I hope they manage to make you like reading again!"

[prayed]

"Oi, you don't have to--annd she's gone."

Kyoko sighed, shaking her head, but waited for the girl as directed. In the time that it took for Tohko to return she pulled a book off the shelf at random, flipping through it without actually reading any of the contents. She snapped it shut and laid it down on a shelf when she saw that Tohko had returned, taking the small pile of books. She held them carefully with one arm.

"You really got 'em all, huh? You really didn't have to go that far, y'know." Really, she hadn't expected it.