personavelvetroomdr | The Silence After the Storm

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The Silence After the Storm

The Ken Amada who made certain threats, whom Igor didn't bring to the Velvet Room and didn't welcome, has been permanently contained within his other-world self. Many of the Velvet Room residents mobilized in the effort to neutralize the threat he posed, and now, in the moments after the devastating battle that sealed Ken away, perhaps you have business to conclude.

Maybe you're a fighter, left in the rubble the battle made of its surroundings—or maybe you were a noncombatant this time, left behind to wonder what's happening or prepare for the aftermath. Maybe you linger around the battle site, or maybe you have other things to do.

Or maybe you didn't survive. Maybe you're one of the glowing forms slowly coalescing in front of Igor's desk in the Velvet Room over the course of the subsequent half hour. Igor presides over them gravely, with no sign of his usual smile. Near his desk sits a box of snacks, familiar to anyone who's used the operation's training room.

[[ooc: This post is a general catch-all for the aftermath of the battle! It's backdated to February 26, the day Ken got got.]]

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"They...didn't miss. I don't think." Ren's resolve lasts for a moment before he sits down, flopping backwards, putting all his weight on his hips. "I have...no ideas."

Moving his leg is pain. Not moving his leg is pain. His leg is just pain.

Tentatively, he grabs his leg and hefts it up to the chair.

Zenkichi is thankful for that, believe it or not. The last thing he needed was to have anyone focus on his face and without his hat its even more difficult to conceal it.

With that he nods slowly, shifting Akane a little closer to his chest so that her head doesn't brush up against anything else. And also, perhaps to comfort himself a little. "Be my guest- though its not really comfortable so mind your injuries. If there are any."

"No you don't get it, I-"

Her hands shakily go back to attending to her bottle, her fingers moving the cap clockwise then anticlockwise, trying to steel her nerves as she lets out a shaky gasp.

She was human.

She wasn't just some AI who happened to have a soul attached to her. No she was that soul. The soul who called the once man- Zenkichi Hasegawa, dad and then she was given the directive to call him dad after...

Ş̵̨͍͙̭̠̬̀͂h̸̤̳̔̊e̵̡̙͇̽̌̆͗̀̓̚ ̶̟̼͙̲̭͆w̶̲̙͉͂̇̉a̷͔̠̯̯̣͑s̴̹̖̈̍̐̎̍̀ ̴̭̳͍̭͔̲́͗͆̕͜ĉ̸̪̌͋̋̉͝͠o̷̢̤̣̦͓͙͋̈́̿d̵͍̩͚̪́͌͜e̸̱̝̥̜͛̓

Ş̵̨͍͙̭̠̬̀͂h̸̤̳̔̊e̵̡̙͇̽̌̆͗̀̓̚ ̶̟̼͙̲̭͆w̶̲̙͉͂̇̉a̷͔̠̯̯̣͑s̴̹̖̈̍̐̎̍̀ ̴̭̳͍̭͔̲́͗͆̕͜ĉ̸̪̌͋̋̉͝͠o̷̢̤̣̦͓͙͋̈́̿d̵͍̩͚̪́͌͜e̸̱̝̥̜͛̓

Ş̵̨͍͙̭̠̬̀͂h̸̤̳̔̊e̵̡̙͇̽̌̆͗̀̓̚ ̶̟̼͙̲̭͆w̶̲̙͉͂̇̉a̷͔̠̯̯̣͑s̴̹̖̈̍̐̎̍̀ ̴̭̳͍̭͔̲́͗͆̕͜ĉ̸̪̌͋̋̉͝͠o̷̢̤̣̦͓͙͋̈́̿d̵͍̩͚̪́͌͜e̸̱̝̥̜͛̓ That means she-

What's on your mind right now, Akane?

"I...I died."

"How...

...did I die?"

Akane backed away from the sofa, pulling away from both as the water bottle fell from her hands. It rolled and splattered all over and Akane didn't even seem to realize it as she shook her head, hand cupping the front of her open face as Zenkichi was already getting up and reaching out for her.

"Okay, clearly she's sensitive around these topics, Hamuko, maybe stop pushing-"

His hand is slapped away. Harshly.

"Don't." She starts. "I...I can't believe you."

"Akane..." he backed up, hands raised but its almost as if its second nature for him to switch into that same dance. Something he doesn't even notice. "What happened? You are scaring me like this-!"

"You know CCAIs are not supposed to die right?"

"...you have a human body right now. Hey, I am not mad at you for jumping in front of me-"

"That's why I jumped. I thought I would get rebooted back to your server. That's why no malware ever reached me."

"But I died...like a human. I had memories. Of course that's how I managed to maintain a body in the first place-!"

Wolf backed away a little, his shoes helplessly phluping on the water. "Listen. I need you to take a deep breath, alright. Let's go home and then you can tell me everything. You are upset, I understand that just...try to listen..." But the bite was already dying. The previous confidence was fading.

"Oh are you saving face in front of Hamuko now? No no- please, I think she should know. She should know that apparently you knew all along that I was your biological daughter? Akane Hasegawa?!"

Hamuko got to her feet with the water spilling, surprised and confused alike as it soaked into her skirt.

It was-- explosive. Not the roaring, crashing, deafening bombs of battle but rather the deeply emotional pain that only a single shouting voice in a large, resonant velvet room could bellow.

An AI... all this time Hamuko had been assuming that Akane had been like Aigis, created from whole-cloth as her own person. It'd been easy to see through Zenkichi's claim that he wasn't human - so much of him was still so clearly human that she wasn't about to be fooled. But Akane had been mostly digital with only just getting a body when they'd first met.

"...What do you mean, you were his biological daughter? I'm-- confused. ...Were you put into a digital space?" she tried to guess, looking between a shocked Zenkichi and an outraged Akane and finding no easy answers. They were both from a time so... removed, technologically speaking, from what she understood. And Akane seemed confused about why she had died - Hamuko had no idea what that meant at all. "I don't understand?"

"That sounds... really good, actually." After all the serious training and shit, just to be able to relax with everyone. But: "You might need to organize it, though. Some people on the team don't like me."

"Okay. Something that makes good leftovers," says Ren, who hasn't yet had that realization. He squeezes Goro as tight as he can for a second, then reluctantly lets go. "Don't work too hard."

"Fine by me - you're officially off duty now!! I'll take charge and set something up for us in a week or so, give everyone time to breathe and recover."

Hamuko giggled a little excitedly.

"Oh man. Since it's free, we can go all out too...! Find the fanciest place that makes tons of it!"

"Your idea of working too hard and mine are... strangely similar, to be honest with you." Thirty Palaces in a week, after all, or whatever it is Ren has planned. He gets to his feet, with a faint smile; his fingers play in Ren's hair, as he goes.

"Text me if you need anything, okay?" In other words, even if he just needs to scream.

"Oh, so it's like the thing with Dove." He frowns. Something obviously happened to heal Dove, but he doesn't actually know what it was.

He can probably find out. In the meantime: "You can't just drag it around behind you like that forever, you'll just fuck it up worse. How do you splint a broken leg, anyway..."

"Nah. I'm all healed up." He plops down on the ground near Hasegawa and Akane. "...Are you? I know that fucker had his weird anti-healing shit."

Ren leans into the touch and squashes the urge to say, No, don't go. Goro is still here, and Ren already misses him. Pathetic.

"Okay. You too."

But he can hear it. He leans in again, for a last quick kiss. "Better mind out. They're coming around." You can do it, he doesn't add—but it's there in the warmth of his voice, in the steady touch of his hand as it reluctantly leaves Ren's hair.

Then he steels himself, and goes. They really are coming around.

"God, tell me about it."

He instantly hooked onto the question he could answer best. "Anymore of this and I might actually become immune to my own microbots- aging several decades in a matter of few seconds."

"What I wouldn't give to know..." he lets out a shudder. "It hurts more. Now that I'm not moving." He screws his eyes up. "Fucking. Fuck."

"I know, and I know that casualties were always a risk." He wilts, heaving a heavy sigh. "But I still wish it hadn't come to that."

"You deserve to be sappy." Here, he squeezes Ren, his voice weak and hoarse. "The important part is that we won. It's finally over..."

"Me too. We knew full well he was going to be tough to beat and we pulled it off." Barely mind you, but it's over.

"At least this time was quick. Getting stabbed and bleeding to death is not fun. Neither is temporarly disappearing from existance."

Does that last one even count?

...Yeah, pardon his staring. "Is the latter literal or purely hypothetical?"

"But if Igor-san didn't resurrect any of us, we would have had to carry those losses with us." He knows that isn't the case, and it's useful to hang onto such hypotheticals, and yet...

"It feels like I should have done more."

"Literal. To make a long story short, the God of Control was able to merge Mementos with the real world for a while, and due to people no longer believing we existed, we were erased from cognition. Thankfully we all ended up in the Velvet Room, and after Yaldabaoth tried to make a deal with me, I managed to encourage everyone to get back up and fight. We managed to get back and wake everyone up, as well as fight and defeat him."

It's very much the cliff notes version. Ren's not sure how much he knows about the future from Crow, as well as from being here for years.

"I know... I can't speak for anyone else, but I was willing to not come back if that's what stopping Fatalis meant," Hamuko assured, before leaning in a bit where she sat. "But listen - that is not a burden everyone can pick up and carry. And more importantly... there are a lot of battles to come, of all different kinds. There will be a chance for you to make a difference - it's okay to have been one of the people that we loved enough to protect with our lives this time."

That's...

Well, it's a lot to process, let alone imagine. It ended well, clearly, but even going through it temporarily... Raven shudders.

"Well, at least I know what to expect when I eventually face that godforsaken cup, though knowing certainly won't make it pleasant."

"No it won't. Just make sure to say no if Yaldy tries to offer a deal with you too. Gaining power is not worth sacrificing humanity's free will."

Honestly given how much this place attracts Akirens, he's surprised a version of him that accepted Yaldabaoth's deal hasn't shown up yet.

That would be bad if so, especially if it means Evil Ken 2.0. They barely won this time.

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Page 8 of 23

The Silence After the Storm

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HELLO LAST MIC CHECK??? 1/2

crisis averted 2/3

Re: crisis averted 3/3

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