Funeral Service for Adaman and Hodaka Morishima

[giddyundertaker]

[ An hour or two after the first trial's end, Hild and the Undertaker set out to invite as many people as possible to the Restaurant for the funerals of our dearly departed friends.

Why the restaurant of all places? Because there aren't enough chairs and tables elsewhere.

Indeed, some of the tables have been moved against the wall to make room for the seats. The chairs have been set up in four rows of six, like an improvised theater or a church. To the side, a small buffet has been set up courtesy of Obi, Mafuyu, and Hild. As for the main event? Two tables have been set up and decorated in black fabric and white flowers. In lieu of a live viewing, two drawings referenced from the profiles have been set up in the center of funeral wreaths... They're not the best, due to the artist's handicaps, but it does look like Adaman and Hodaka at least.]

Comments

[dullshooter]

[Misfire is neither a guy who goes to wakes, nor the kind of guy you want at a wake. This isn’t the first time he’s someone he cares about die and it’s not going to be the last. For this reason he mostly avoids the afterparty, aside from popping in to provide some (surely welcomed) annoyance, and spends the most of it sat on the floor of the lobby idly shooting the nerf gun at…whatever, really.]

[fuckingguy]

[ Misfire hits Nandor pretty much dead in the chest with the nerf gun! He looks down at the site of the vicious attack and just kind of shrugs. ]

Misfire, good evening. I would like to ask a question of you.

[dullshooter]

[He actually made a hit, and it was when he wasn't even trying to. Typical.]

I think that's a pretty liberal use of the word 'good', but...sure, go ahead. What's up?

[fuckingguy]

Well, I am not going to go around saying "bad evening," like some kind of dipshit, but that is fair enough.

Is the age listed for you an accurate one?

[dullshooter]

[That gets something of a laugh out of him, then he addresses the question.]

Yeah, give or take a few years. Why?

[fuckingguy]

How is it that you are still so normal?

[dullshooter]

[Misfire opens his mouth. He closes it again. He furrows his eyebrows, tilts his head, and tries again.]

Going to need you to define normal for me, buddy.

[fuckingguy]

[ Nandor proceeds to also open and close his mouth, but he continues quickly. ]

Did you see the creature in the meeting room cell? A little greyish guy, wings, a tail... completely nude?

[dullshooter]

Yeah, I did. Despite how much I tried not to.

[Completely nude.]

[fuckingguy]

That creature is what a vampire devolves into when he lives a very long time. And I get you are not made of flesh, so that would not happen, but, you know, emotionally. How do you not turn into that after the first hundred thousand years?

[ He's 700 and he's barely holding it together!! ]

[dullshooter]

Really? Mate...that's grim.

[He feels bad for Nandor's inevitable fate. At least, maybe, he might find some freedom in abandoning clothes for good.]

I don't know what to tell you, we're just built to last this long.

[But that's a bit of a shit answer by itself, and he knows Nandor will point it out as such. He tries to think a little more on it.]

I mean, we had the war going on for so long that it kind of distracted us from the horrors of ageing because we all just really didn't want to die. Though, of course, the war seriously messed up some people's brains so I wouldn't exactly reccomend it as a good coping strategy.

[Ugh. He leans back. There's something along the lines of a laugh. A grin.]

Guess I could say the only reason I look 'normal' to you is because I keep up a whole jokey persona that rebuffs any assumptions otherwise...but who wants to hear that?

[fuckingguy]

... Oh.

[ It's a weird little curdled-sounding noise that ends up coming out of his mouth! He looks thoughtful, which is never a good sign.

This, of course, is not what Nandor wanted to hear, but it's also very familiar. There are probably many vampires who do the same, and there is simply nobody to ask or pick through their depths, because as a general rule vampires don't give a shit. ]

And the other Cybotroniums you live with. Do they feel the same way?

[dullshooter]

[...Do they? Misfire does a quick roll-call in his head, counting fingers up with the names.]

Grimlock and Spinister are discounted on account of the fact that no-one, truly no-one except the most experienced mnemosurgeons - and even then, I'm not sure - can possibly know what's going on in their heads.

[He strikes down two fingers. Next,]

Then there's Crankcase. He's just miserable. Actively miserable. He literally says 'bah'. He's also taken some major damage to the cranium, though it's hard to say how much that really matters. Point is: he only feels one way.

[Another finger down.]

Fulcrum's green. He spent who-knows-how-long unconscious 'til we found him, so he's all...sincere. I'm sure he'd speak of the virtues of continuing to stay alive and how there's beauty still to experience in the world, or something like that. He's that kind of guy. However he feels, he'll give you the softer version of it.

[Just one standing!]

Then, Krok. He's an anxious, twitchy, ex-strategist, and is obsessed with re-connecting with an old squad that are long dead in the ground. Hard to say whether that one was age or the war, though. Maybe both?

[With that lengthy explanation it's pretty clear: Misfire's crew are the wrong ones to ask.]

[pairtner]

[Aiba is trying so hard not to think about what happened. It's her job to aid in solving cases, but that doesn't mean she has to like any of what happened, especially when she liked both Hodaka and Adaman.

Which is why she has made herself scarce for the most part. She has never been one to be able to give consolation or condolences -- not because she doesn't understand people being in pain, she just isn't used to that at all...

...much less when it's to all these almost complete strangers. It's...really rough]

I hadn't thought I would find any place suffocating.

[Things sure are nice and easier when all you have to do is hang out inside your partner's eye socket and see stuff happen. To be the one to face it all herself...it's not all that great]

[dullshooter]

[Misfire tilts his head at Aiba's approach.]

Clearly, you haven't been to enough places.

[He pulls the trigger of his nerf gun but - out of ammo. He'll have to go collect the rest of those foam pellets, but...not right now. He doesn't feel like he can get up.]

...I'm not gonna force you if you just want to, but you don't have to worry about keeping up the human looks around me, at least. We're all mechanical here.

[pairtner]

...thanks. I will.

[She doesn't feel with the energy to keep up the charade, and she doesn't mean it in the 'my battery is almost drained' way. Goodbye, human projection. Seconds later, Aiba just...waddles until she's near the wall, leaning against it. Somehow she conveys quite well she's feeling dejected]

I most likely haven't. I would have thought you wouldn't be as affected as this, though -- with your age, you must have been in countless places and seen enough suffering and death. You did mention wars.

cw: corpse desecration but like, robots

[dullshooter]

[Misfire almost feels called out by that. He sits up more to attention.]

Hey, I'm plenty desensitised to gratuitous death and violence. After Flywheels died a gruesome and untimely death, we barely spent a minute feeling bad about it before ransacking him for parts.

[Mentioned very casually.]

I'm not - I'm not that affected. I'm just out here playing a solo game of 'rooty tooty wall shooty'.

[pairtner]

I suppose in the end recycling what remains is the right thing to do. That's what nature does, after all.

[She says that to avoid asking some really unnerving questions that came to her mind. It's not the time at all for them.

You definitely didn't brush off things as if they were nothing. Something about Hodaka being the killer seems to have bothered you, at least for a while, she thinks]

And afterwards I suppose you'll go sleep and wake up tomorrow as if nothing happened.

[Probably...?]

It would be for the best.

[She should do that, she figures]

[dullshooter]

[At Aiba’s final suggestion he makes a short exhale, an vague something of a laugh.]

If it looks like I’m acting like nothing has happened, it’s because nothing has changed. We’re still stuck here, and we could all kill each other at any time.

[Noticing that Hodaka and Adaman are gone is all the more unavoidable in close quarters, but it’ll be a dull ache than a gaping wound.

No doubt for some it’ll hurt too much, and all they’ll be able to face it with is denial.]

What about you?