Morality Chain (Himeko Soryuu)
Morality Chain (Himeko Soryuu) | |
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Date of Cutscene: | 21 September 2023 |
Location: | Dorms |
Synopsis: | The burden gets passed down the chain. |
Cast of Characters: | Pyrite |
Himeko Soryuu is in Darien and Koji's dorm room. She has her own dorm, but that is an even more improper place to be right now. She tried to deal with this by herself, like an adult. Honestly, she did! But she is not an adult, and she wants to be certain she is doing the correct thing. She feels lost. Her independence is being threatened by confusion and indecision.
Also, there's the death wraith sitting on Darien-onii-san's bed. A younger version of Himeko, in silhouette, but otherwise just a seething mass of shadows as black winds whip around her like scythes, and whispers rush around like secrets without anyone to tell them. The red eyes that smolder, ruby waves of anger slowly steaming upwards from them like hot coals put into a skull's eye sockets, likewise provide no form of reassurance or confidence to Himeko.
Primarily, this is because the death wraith is Himeko too.
She thought they were doing so well, but it seems not. The older of the two Himeko is on the phone, since neither Koji-san nor Onii-san are here right now, and she wasn't sure who to call for help. She just looks back occasionally at the whirlwind of death sitting on the bed, as the younger Himeko periodically reaches out one hand to near the pillow, and runs her hand through the air, as though stroking Onii-san's head while he sleeps. Maybe she is. Time is always so uncertain, and the present so easy to forget.
Case in point, she is standing there on her phone, waiting for someone to pick up on the other end, but the older Himeko hears only the beep-beep-beep of a busy signal, and she can't hang up. She can't try again. That is against her nature. No matter how much more human she looks and acts these days, she is, at her core, still a memory that can't stop repeating.
So she can't hang up. She can't even remember who she was trying to reach, but she can't hang up.
Maybe if she just keeps listening long enough, the busy signal will turn into the sound of someone's voice.
Beep-beep-beep.
It certainly is strange that all of this Dark Energy seemingly came out of nowhere. Himeko seems to be more or less free of it, but there's a large amount of it building up in the small Himeko. How strange. She thought that Darien-onii-chan was getting rid of Dark Energy gradually, so why is there a build-up like this? Well, as long as he doesn't use a bunch of it at once, or become very angry, it will probably be okay. He knows about their connection, and how that sort of thing affects them.
Beep-beep-beep.
Himeko doesn't know who she is trying to reach on the phone, maybe Takashi-san, or Hotaru-senpai, or Usagi-san, but suddenly the busy tone goes silent. She perks up. There's the sound of an old phone being lifted off of its cradle that Himeko can hear before the call even connects properly. Then she hears an unfamiliar woman's voice on the other end, saying soothingly and earnestly...
"Come home."
Himeko's phone drops to the floor, and just lies there, beep-beep-beeping out the same busy signal without interruption.
The phone is the only sign that the now-empty dorm room was ever occupied while the residents were away.