I don't care whether I live or die

[floreatnoctem]

Characters: Chidori Yoshino, OPEN
Setting: Outside of Minato's old room, but feel free to run into her wandering the tower.
Format: Action, but I can match if prose is easier.
Summary: Chidori can't sense Minato in the tower, so she's checking everywhere herself to make sure Medea isn't messing with her.
Warnings: Stregafeels, likely murderous impulses, possible mentions of self-harming tendencies later.



[Some days, Chidori wakes in a panic from dreams she doesn't like to think about and has to scan the tower to make sure the boys are alright. It feels silly after the first few times, how she worries that they might not 'feel' right when she seeks them out. She'd never anticipated not sensing one of them at all. Of course, she knew it was a possibility- after all, she'd disappeared from the tower before herself, left the boys behind entirely without wanting to. She'd never considered that one of them could be taken away too. Or rather, she'd always preferred to think it wouldn't happen, especially given how long they'd all been there.

Even if she had considered it, she never would have thought it would be Minato.

So when she wakes, a little frantic and still not entirely lucid and searches for them- finds Jin, finds Ken, but feels nothing of Minato nearby, she expands her search as far as she can. Considering her range, it's not too difficult to expand it, to scan the majority of the tower in either direction. In the back of her mind, Medea's amusement about the situation is obvious, and Chidori gets up and dresses in a rush, running her fingers nervously through her hair as she makes her way out her door and out to explore as much of the tower she can herself.

She has to be absolutely sure.

She makes her way upward first, venturing out into the newer floors cautiously. Some she rules out immediately, knowing Minato wouldn't be on them unless he absolutely has to. Partway up, she starts worrying in earnest, and Medea gets even more smug. By the time she starts making her way to the lower floors, 'worry' is becoming a quiet, desperate 'panic'. When she hits the cafeteria and there's still no sign of him, she starts scanning the tower again, breathing picking up speed. She stops by his room last, and his name is gone from the door.

In the back of her mind, Medea laughs and laughs while Chidori's legs give out from under her, quickened breaths becoming full-blown hyperventilation.]

Comments

[miseris_socios]

[Ken hears someone moving around while he's doing his morning rounds. He heads towards what he hears, and spots Chidori.]

[She's on her knees, and he rushes to her side, kneeling next to her.]

Chidori!

[floreatnoctem]

[She senses him coming, but she only vaguely acknowledges it as a fact until he's suddenly there in front of her. It's a little grounding, seeing Ken, enough that she at least makes the attempt to try and calm down and let him know she's alright. Or that she will be. The only thing she can manage though is a gasp of-]

--gone...

[It takes her a moment afterward to calm down enough to convey what it is she's trying to say, but even then it's not the reassurance she wants to give, though she eventually manages, fingers clutching tightly to the sleeves of his jacket.]

He's- Minato... he's gone.

quietly slides in i hope you guys don't mind

[morituramfides]

Chidori--!

[Jin was coming right up behind Ken, taking to one knee and butting a hand on her shoulder. He may not have been in tune with things like she was, but... It was kind of obvious by now.

He was just trying not to think about it.]

Calm down!

NO GET OUT - it's fine. :3

[miseris_socios]

[Ken takes a deep breath. That was what he was afraid of. He puts an arm around her in a gentle hug. He knows he's not as close to him as the others are, but still...]

... Ah.

[He reaches up and brushes her hair with his fingers, trying to calm her like she calms him sometimes.]

Shh...

[ghostytrainer]

[John was maybe ten steps down when he heard a sound that sounded suspiciously like someone collapsing on the floor he had just left. Turning on his heel, he pulled Elliot's pokeball off of his fanny pack, prepared for the worst and made his way back up the stairs.]

[While he was glad not to see a body or somebody getting mangled by a monster or something, the sight of a familiar redhead hyperventilating on the floor was no less unwelcome. Clipping the pokeball back in its proper place, he dashed down the hallway.]

Chidori? Chidori, what's wrong?

[floreatnoctem]

[She jerks a little at the sound of his voice- as if she hadn't considered that the sight of her might worry some people. In all honesty, she really hadn't, caught up as she'd been in her own worry. She straightens up a little when she sees him coming, fingers smoothing her skirts nervously, trying to calm herself down. It would be extremely difficult, explaining to someone outside of Strega what Minato being gone means to her.

So she tries to pull herself together, shaking her head some, and looks up at him, her usual impassive expression shaky at best.]

I'm... I'll be-- okay, John.

[A lie, for the moment.]

Someone- [a pause to swallow and calm the shaking in her voice]- very close to me is gone, is all...

[ghostytrainer]

[It's true, he's not a part of Strega, so he likely can't understand fully and exactly. But he's lost people who she's been through hardships, highs, and lows with before. Ask him about how many times he'd lost Dave back in Johto, it was absolutely ridiculous. But at least John's not asking for an explanation.]

Oh...I see.

[With a grunt, he joins Chidori on the floor, taking a seat next to the wall so that he can rest his back against it.]

Do you want to talk about it? We don't have to. If you'd rather, we can talk about something else. Like ice cream! Ice cream is pretty much always a good topic but we don't have to talk about that either. It's whatever you want to talk about.

[floreatnoctem]

Mmm.

[She watches him sit with only a mild curiosity, drawing both her legs and skirts up out of his way.]

I would prefer not to. It is... complicated. [Though honestly, she appreciated the gesture for what it was, considering John was still fairly new to being acquainted with her.] Ice cream is good- though we rarely seem to get it here, and I never really want to ask for it to be put on the menu. It might wind up being the only thing we have to eat.

[imperialsun1]

[A while later, she'll run into Naoya. While not as acute in detecting the others like Chidori, Rise or Fuuka, the teenager's powers given to him by Philemon had some degree of detection of the others who had powers similar to his own. His persona's whisper that Minato was gone created a visible degree of distress, something he rarely showed openly.

Even if others had come and gone before...many in fact, including his own, he knew that losing the uniting member to a group would be hardest on their team's own members.]

Chidori...

[Unfortunately he is very bad at this sort of thing.]

[floreatnoctem]

[His presence is one of those few that she's usually aware of, whether because of proximity or because she did it subconsciously, she wasn't sure. But she tensed when she felt him approaching, and ducked her head, looking at him out of the corner of her eye. It wasn't that she wasn't glad to see him, it was just--

-things had been so strange between them, lately. She wasn't sure just what he'd make of the situation at all on top of whatever awkwardness remained between them.]

...Naoya-san.

[For his sake more than her own, she tries to slow down her breathing and not look quite as panicked, fingers tugging on the fabric of her clothing in a nervous attempt to calm down.]

[imperialsun]

[It's hard not to see that. Naoya has always prided himself in being able to notice signs from others around him. Yet despite everything, he stares at her eye to eye. His own are sadness, true, but he isn't judging her.]

You're strong, Chidori.

[It's not much. There are a thousand meanings between those three words, but they carry a lot of weight. And he truly, really means them.]

[floreatnoctem]

I'm not--!

[She bites the words off before she can get too far, bringing her hands up to grip her upper arms, legs curling closer to her body. She shakes her head- both to disagree with him and to try and shake the panic that keeps trying to creep up on her again.]

If I seem like it, it's only because they need me to be. I can't fall apart on them, they don't need that on top of everything else so I just-! [A hiss of breath- in through her teeth then out again, and quietly-]

I'm not strong at all.

[determinedhowl]

[Being on the third floor sometimes didn't help when one of his friends or acquaintances was hurting/in trouble, and considering what the members of SEES mentioned about Chidori's condition at the hospital (whispered, more like--they never told him much directly)... He slowly pads up to her, whining.

Hey... calm down. What's wrong?

Any sort of flame retaliation didn't scare him, so he simply sat beside her and whined again. Wait, wasn't this?

...He wouldn't want this.]

[floreatnoctem]

[Koromaru's concern doesn't go unnoticed, but it takes Chidori a few moments to respond with anything other than rapid breaths and the shaking of her shoulders. She knows it's not what Minato would want, because Minato never really understood the extent of what he meant to the rest of them- the only person who might understand it would probably be Jin.

But even then, it was different, what he might feel and what she did.

She reaches out to set a hand on the back of his neck once she's calm enough to do so, and shakes her head. She brings her knees up, hiding her face against them, and when she speaks, her voice is muffled.]

What are we supposed to do if he's not here?

[determinedhowl]

[He simply sits there beside her, waiting in case she needed him. So when he feels her hand on his neck, at least he knows it's progress as he looks to meet her gaze and blinks once.

It's a question he knows all too well, ever since his first master died. Even more since he saw what became of the city SEES tried so hard to protect. How to move on, where to go from there when his driving force had vanished. He'd gotten stuck in a rut of doing the same thing over and over each day. Others may have thought it was just out of loyalty, but the truth is...

He was just as lost as them, even with his other canine friends.

Do what we have to and can for who's still here.

It hurts, but... it's all he could do as young puppy on his own. Even with the guard dog of hell in his head. He still remembers the cry he gave after his Minato as he rose above everyone else...

Koromaru lowers his head to his paws, looking at the door of a room with one less person there.]

[swordofzero]

[Suzaku only knew Chidori from Jin's memories and the few glimpses he had seen of her with Minato and Jin. But when he saw her panicking he hurried to her side with a worried expression on his face.]

What's happened Chi... [He trails off when he realises what room they are at, and whose name is not on the door...]

He's gone...

[floreatnoctem]

He is.

[She recalls, vaguely, that this is the boy whose body Jin had been trapped in. She's surprised he remembers who she is, although not as surprised as she is that he realizes what's wrong with her so quickly. Then again, she supposes it's easy if anyone knows the first thing about them, and having been trapped in Jin's body, she figures he might know better than most.]

He shouldn't be.

[swordofzero]

[He knew where Minato lives, he was his friend as well (sort of...) and knowing that it wasn't difficult to piece together what was wrong.] I'm sorry... [It was very little, but it was all he could say.]

They know how to hurt us most.

[caliginous]

[It wasn't hard to hear the sound of panicked footfalls down the hall, so its no real shock that Karkat is found poking his head out of the door with a small roll of his eyes. He fixes his jacket pompously and steps outside to bark down the hall--]

Some of us--

[But then he focuses on who exactly his in the midst of a panic attack and abruptly falls silent, his entire body stiffening. He'd done a spectacular job of avoiding Chidori since the mind-control incident (and after she had burned him alive), so seeing her now in a state of durress...

Well, lets just say he had mixed feelings. His empathy, while on lockdown as much as Karkat is able, is going haywire mixing with Chidori's despair, panic and his own intense feelings of fear.]

...uh.

[floreatnoctem]

[Really the last thing Chidori wants to deal with in a situation like this is someone she dislikes. When it turns out to be the troll that had put Minato through so much grief those months before, a spike of rage jolts through her, eyes narrowing as she focuses on him for a brief, vicious moment.]

You're what?

[The snap is harsh, fire edging her words and Medea's shadow briefly coalesces behind her, backing the threat in her words. Despite that, there's a tremor in her voice that she can't hide- it's empty anger, mostly. Misdirected and ineffectual.

There's really no point in bothering to be angry with him.]

What could you possibly be doing that I'm so thoroughly disturbing?

[caliginous]

[Karkat shrinks back behind the corner he had poked his head out of instinctively, the urge to survive momentarily overpowering his normal prideful nature. However, when Chidori doesn't get up, he slowly inches back out further to examine her.

He adjusts his jaw awkwardly, his fangs sinking into his lower lip before he straightens up and steps back out into the hallway, bracing himself.]

Doesn't matter, moment's passed.

[He glances up toward the door she had been in front of, obviously not aware of who was in that room -- though she was clearly close to whoever it was. Talk about awkward.]

Couldn't help but notice, y'know? Empathy and all.

[knightime]

[Missy had gotten to Chidori first. She bounds up to her, whining and nudging at her with her head. She turns her head towards wherever Dave is heading over from before turning back to her and nudging at Chidori again.]

Chidori? [He doesn't bother to try and mask the concern in his voice.] Hey...? [He bites back asking whether she's okay or not. That's a dumb question.]

[floreatnoctem]

[Chidori blinks as she's nudged, turning and setting a hand on Missy's head in mild confusion. When she sees Dave coming up behind her though she understands, and lowers her eyes, shaking her head.]

He's gone, Dave... these people-- ['people' is said with a certain measure of disdain, disgust, frustration mounting in her tone]- the monsters who run this tower... they took Minato away-!

[knightime]

[Missy whines and bumps her head against Chidori again.]

I... [Dave doesn't know what to say to her. The Tower had taken away Jade, but he won't say that. He needs to figure out how to calm Chidori down.] Yeah. The Tower does that. It's possible he'll come back though. [He's not sure if that's good or bad.] Shit. What are you supposed to say in these situations? [At least he can say he tried?]

[evokingfool]

[When he was about to exit the glassy lounge room on floor four, Minato saw a familiar person. Judging from her body language, she seemed to be panicking.]

...Chidori-san?

[He called out, unaware of what happened and how seeing him might not be any good for her.]