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...

ewww who invited Jin-- no hi come to the hugfest

[floreatnoctem]

Why is he--?

[Why is he gone? Why isn't he here, where they need him to be? Jin's presence is soothing for all of a moment, and then he tells her to calm down and she snaps her head toward him, eyes wide, expression somewhat pained.]

Calm down-?!

[How can she be expected to calm down when one of the people she cares about the most is gone? Possibly for good?]

I can't- how are you so calm about this? I... it's Minato-kun, Jin...!

WOW FINE I'M JUST GONNA STORM OUT

[morituramfides]

Stop--!!

[His voice rose to just under a full-on yell, his hand moving off her shoulder when she snapped to look at him.

Honestly? He's only calm because she's the one who's freaking out about it.]

I know it's Minato, OK? I know--! [Stay calm, man. You can do this.] But freaking out isn't gonna do shit!

NO COME INTO MY ARMS 8(

[miseris_socios]

[Ken hugs Chidori a little more tightly, trying to be reassuring. He's here. He's not leaving.]

We can still stay strong until he comes back.

[And he will come back. He has to. Or they have to at least have hope that he will.]

[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?

GET BACK HERE YOU HUGE JERK

[floreatnoctem]

[She knows, of course, that freaking out isn't going to do any good- it's useless and a waste of both time and energy. Despite her more rational mind telling her all these things though, it just isn't sticking. At the very least, Ken's reassurance is helping her breathing calm down, even as she shakes her head and tries to stop the hammering of her heart.]

What else can I even do then-?

[Because Minato had been there from the beginning, when she'd arrived- and he's been there still when she'd left and returned. He was a constant in her life, and it honestly felt like he always had been.]

He's never been the one who's just... disappeared...

HUFF HUFF

[morituramfides]

We can't do anything.

[Wasn't that always the truth of their life?]

He's gone. ...OK? [He didn't want to admit it-- but it was true. The last time he'd been without Minato was... honestly before they had broken out.

But with their track record, it probably would've happened eventually anyway.]

[miseris_socios]

He wouldn't want us to fall apart just because he was gone, right? We can keep surviving.

[He'll make sure of it. It hurts him, too, but... there's nothing he can do to bring him back.]

[But he's not on his own like he used to be. He has family here.]

[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...

[floreatnoctem]

[It's moments like this that Chidori remembers that while Minato does mean a lot to all of them, what he means to her- what he's almost always meant to her- is different. She won't say 'stronger' because that would be an insult to her boys- but it definitely affects her differently than it does them.

Or maybe they're just better at hiding it.

Regardless, she more or less wilts beneath Jin's cold rationale and Ken's logic, hands dropping lifelessly into her lap.]

It's easy enough to say...

[And of course she'll keep going, or at least try to. She won't disappoint the rest of Strega or Minato's memory by giving up so easily. But that doesn't mean she thinks it will be quite so simple, and she really wishes they wouldn't make it sound like it should be.]

I can't remember the last time he wasn't with us.

[morituramfides]

[Hm. "Surviving."

Ken really was different from them, wasn't he. Or maybe it was just him?

With Chidori's wilt, it seems Jin wilted a bit too, sitting back on the ground with one hand behind him on the ground and other half resting on his propped up knee.]

Me neither.

[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.]

[miseris_socios]

You two have known him for a lot longer than I have...

[It's... painful, but not insurmountable, to be without him. It's a little hard for him to imagine what the other two are going through, though.]

[He loosens his hug a little, but still keeps his arm around Chidori's shoulders.]

[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.]

[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...

[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.

[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]

It seems pointless now.

[Because really, what is the point when the people you care about are taken from you, no matter what you do, what you endure? No matter what you try, nothing you hope for works out-

What's there to survive for?]

Why bother trying not to give them reasons to be rid of us?

[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?

[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]

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.