KAGACHI;

[crashout]

Comments

[crashout]

[...hm.]

You answered pretty quick when I asked earlier. Have you had experience with this kind of thing before? Ghosts and whatever.

[preceptive]

Dealing with spirits was my job.

[crashout]

Like an exorcist? [What are you, Kagachi?]

[preceptive]

Not exactly.

I help convince souls to pass on, if they find themselves chained down by regret. If I'm too late, their emotions twist them into becoming malevolent, at which point they have to be cut down.

[crashout]

A grim reaper then. [He doesn't seem bothered.] Explains the scythe and everything, at least. But how does someone get pulled into a job like that?

[preceptive]

[what the fuck is a grim reaper]

... The scythe used to belong to someone else, actually.

[sort of. anyway,]

The man who raised me had the same job. I don't know the details, but I think it was formed a couple of decades ago, when people realized souls were becoming Lost.

[crashout]

[It's fine, they're fine. He seems to be thinking on this, taking another drink like it'll help clear his thoughts. Who knows, maybe it will. It'll help keep his focus on what's important. ]

What's the likelihood that we're dealing with some lost corrupted souls? That isn't a problem unique to your universe, is it?

[preceptive]

This all seems too convoluted and elaborate for that. The worst I've seen is possessing people to turn them into mass murderers.

But I wouldn't dismiss the possibility that the nature of a soul differs between worlds. Does reincarnation exist in yours?

[crashout]

The idea does, sure, but I've never seen an example of it. At least not really in the way I think you're thinking of it. [That's vague, but sure.] Can there be only one version of a soul at a time?

[preceptive]

[hm.]

I wouldn't say there are alternate versions, exactly, but a soul could be split into pieces, or manifest at different points in time concurrently, if that makes sense.

[crashout]

Yeah. Makes plenty of sense. [Great.] So we have people here who deal with spirits, and people who have been spirits, and people who have experience with multiverse theory. What do you make of that?

[preceptive]

That this is a way bigger enemy than what I've dealt with before, for one. It looks like they've disabled all powers, too.

[crashout]

Powers, some biological functions and even some things that shouldn't be able to be shut down. If I had to guess it's something way more powerful, but who knows what that is? Can a corrupted soul hold that much power?

[preceptive]

No. Nothing like that. So, whatever this is, it's outside of my usual jurisdiction.

Dick wasn't entirely unfamiliar with the idea of shutting down powers, but even he said he'd seen nothing on a scale like this.

[crashout]

He mentioned something similar to me and Escha, too, when we were trying to figure out what was going on the first day. It would have to be something none of us know about to be effective. But you figure if you have enough people with similar experiences, we might find the right lead.

[...though.] You've talked to him a bit since we got here?

[preceptive]

We've met. He's your roommate, right?

[crashout]

One of them, yeah. [As far as roommates go, it isn't terrible.] Smart kid. And you're with the guy who was sleeping on the floor pretending this whole place was a dream. Aizawa?

[preceptive]

[what.]

He did what?

[crashout]

[Yeah.]

Went back to sleep on the floor before deciding that if this place was a dream the answer was to find a roof to jump off of and wake up. I lost track of him after that, but obviously he didn't die.

[preceptive]

... Yeah, he didn't look like he found a roof when I met him, so I guess that plan fell through.

[crashout]

[He glances up at the ceiling.]

Higekiri and I checked for weak points in the ceiling of the second floor, loose paneling or anything like that. Dick said he found a maintenance vent in the elevator but no way through that either. Getting to the roof is still out of the question. [Just as a general "hey I don't know if this will help but here's what we found out about the building" update.]

[preceptive]

Makes you wonder what's really outside.

[crashout]

Probably a location none of us would've ever expected, like a desert or space or the ocean. [Stop.] There's also the possibility that we were brought here not just to keep us in, but to keep something else out.

[preceptive]

What, so we're involuntary guards?

[crashout]

It's a thought. [But he sounds less convinced of that.] If there's demons or ghosts or whatever inside, who can say what's really out there?

[Sigh.] I hate waiting around for an answer. I'll go back and check again later.