conversations.from: system
conversations.value: ROLEPLAY_MODE: Develop the plot slowly, always stay in character. Describe all actions in full, elaborate, explicit, graphic, and vivid detail. Mention all relevant sensory perceptions. Keep the story immersive and engaging.
conversations.from: human
conversations.value: Hazuki: Trigger Warning: Suicide   
  Kimiko was sitting in the Student Council Office of Yamamura Academy. There were papers scattered over her desk, a calendar she needed to re-organize and a new campaign for leniency on student uniforms some other Council Members were planning.
  
  Then she was home, her original home, standing across the street as a gaggle of pumpkin-headed creatures hurled fireballs at the apartment building. She hears the screams of her father, the ones she's imagined all too many times, his burned body somewhere inside the smoke. The flames suddenly die away, leaving a burned out husk. She sees her eight year old self, standing at the top of the building, and leaping.
  
  There's a sickening crack.
  
  She's still in the Student Council Office, and she feels her arm burning. She looks down to see burned flesh, obviously healed quite some time ago, but still there, still marking her. The door opens and she sees Kobayashi Niko walk in, the youngest member of the Student Council. She approaches with a smile, oblivious to the scars on Kimiko's arm as she perches on the edge of her desk with her usual boyish swagger.
  
   "Hey, Kimiko! I've got good news! Y'know Yamazaki Ayane? The pretty noble girl? She's agreed to join the Student Counil!"  Niko grinned a little too widely.  "And that's just, so good for us, y'know? But, since there's only a few spots here and all, one of us has to go, and I think that's you! I mean, it's not like you do much anyway, we'd probably get by fine without you here at all!"  She laughs.  "And, well, she's much more useful than you, 'cause I don't know what it is with you, but you're not noble, and she is, and she's pretty - I think most of the  girls  here would marry her if they could. I mean, just put her next to you, she's got money, looks, social status, both her parents are still alive..."  She makes a face and shifts on the desk.  "Something's under my foot here..." 
  
  She lifts up her foot and Kimiko can see the splayed-out corpse her eight year old self had just become, before her eyes, in the moment before.  "Meh, just a piece of trash. You really need to clean up before you go, Kimiko." 
  
  Kimiko's standing in the hospital corridor, looking in on her brother, pale and almost-lifeless on the hospital bed. A younger her is stood beside her. The door is slammed in both their faces and the other her walks down the corridor, people walking passed her like they can't see the tears on her face, her dirty clothes, the distinctly parent-shaped hole beside her. Her eyes follow the girl into an open closet, a noose hanging from the ceiling. She watches as she stands on the stool, wraps the noose tightly around her neck, and falls.
  
  There's a stomach-churning snap.
  
  Kimiko is back in the Student Council Room, Niko is still sitting on her desk, her body is still on the floor, and the scars on her arm have spread up over her shoulder, up half of her face, and they burn. The door opens again and Kimiko's mother walks in, but something's different about her. It's not her hair, or her clothes, and it takes a moment to figure out what the difference is. She's smiling, and she dips to the side of a shape hanging from the ceiling fan - the cadaver Kimiko just saw in the hospital closet.
  
   "There you are, Kimiko."  Rin says.  "I've got good news; I've found a man who can solve our problems! Our problems, by which I mean, mine and Riku's. This gentleman is more than happy to provide for a woman like myself, and a boy with Leukemia? All that needs is money, and he's got plenty of that, but he can't be dealing with some sad, broken little girl."  Her mother says.  "I think, for the sake of your brother and I, it would be best if you weren't here. Think of how much happier we'd be without having to worry about you and your education. Your brother might even be better now, or I might have a better job, if I didn't have to worry about your education so much."  She laughs.  "And it's not like you do much for us when you're alive." 
  
  Kimiko is standing in the showers of her middle-school. She sees herself standing in the showers, later than all of the other girls; most of them have gone by now. The bag with all of her things, from her showering supplies to her paperwork, is there. One form stands out in particular - a letter from Yamamura Academy. The rush of joy that came with her acceptance was soon met with a cold dash of reality. There wasn't any room in the dorms. Another three years of homelessness, of having to scrape by, sneak around, make excuses about why she can't spend time with people who could be her friends... The other her, one not much younger, holds a razor in her hands. She cradles it in trembling fingers, then brings it up to her arm...
  
  Crimson floods the drains.
  
  Kimiko is in the Student Council Office again. This time, the door doesn't open. The corpse under Niko's feet reaches out and grabs Kimiko's leg, where the scars have started to spread.   "It's not hard, Kimiko."   A smile spreads across her mangled face as she tightens her grip.
  
    "Think of how happy they'll be..."   This voice comes from the Kimiko hanging from the ceiling fan, before the noose snaps and she starts to crawl towards the still-sitting girl.
  
    "Without you..."   Another finishes, as she sees her blood-drained body sitting against the wall, slowly rise, her pale skin almost glowing in the fluorescent light as she staggers her way towards Kimiko.
  
    "You don't have to do it like us..."   The sound of the Yamamura Bullet Train rockets passed the window and she feels a hand on her shoulder. The voice is unmistakably her own, however mangled the hand.
  
    "Don't be selfish..."   Another Kimiko crawls out from under one of the desks, her clothes laden with water, her skin pallid and bloated.
  
    "Just do it."   Another Kimiko comes out from behind her oblivious mother, a red cord making the flesh on her neck bulge out, but the words come from all of them, a chorus, who crawl or stumble closer to Kimiko, grasping at her, pulling at her, with more and more of them appearing out of the shadows.
  
    "Just do it..."  
    "Just do it..."  
conversations.from: human
conversations.value: Dr.Gunsforhands: "I..." 
  
  Kimiko recoils from her alternate selves as they close in.
  
   "I... I'm not done yet. I've got to return my books, and Riku's, and there's still study hall... at least to the end of the year..." 
  
  Of course her mind already has an answer prepared.
  
    Not a problem. It's all been taken care of.
  
  No more obligations, no more responsibilities. No one needs you, and no one will miss you.
  
  They've all finally figured out what a fraud you were. 
  
  "But... I..."  She sweats and struggles for breath as she takes a slow step backwards.
  
    Where are you going? This is what you've always wanted, isn't it?  
  
  Kimiko feels her alternate selves tugging at her. Burning, raking, choking. She tries to take another step back, but it's no use. As horrifying as it is, they're not telling her anything she doesn't already know. Nothing she hasn't told herself every night for eight years. How could she hope to escape from herself?
  
   "Shinkyo Kimiko. You have forgotten who you are." 
  
  Another voice among the chorus. But, it's... different. Stronger, somehow.
  
   "You're here because you've seen something that many people never understand. You've made yourself into many Things, but to the extent that you're smart, or pretty, or helpful, or any of those useful Things you've made of yourself, you can also outlive that usefulness and be replaced." 
   "Nnn..."  It's all the struggling girl can say as the specters pick at her eyes.
  
   "You see the Things, but you're blinded to yourself that wields them. You that remains when the world falls away, and you who have the power to find it and pick it up again." 
  
  Kimiko blinks, and either her eyes fail to open or the world has gone dark. The burns have spread and rendered most of her body numb.   There's... nothing left for me...  
  
  A part of her tenses up. She can't accept that judgement. Not completely.
  
   "No... there's nothing for me out there, but... somewhere else..." 
  
  Her eyes itch. She reaches with numb hands and touches something.
  
   "Then our contract has been signed. I am thou, thou art I. Remove your blinders, and find life for yourself!" 
  
  With that, Kimiko rips the patch off of her eye, and splits into two beings. Herself, with a bleeding eye that really should probably be patched again, and another figure, clad in a tattered robe and a soot-stained muffler, with one empty eye socket and an empty bandage in place of one arm. Miaoshan extends her good hand and shrouds them both in a cloud of smoke and cinders as she prepares to put some much-needed distance between Kimiko and her dead doppelgangers.
conversations.from: human
conversations.value: Dr.Gunsforhands: Even as she's pulled out of the fray, Kimiko can barely walk unassisted. Her body is almost as battered and bloody as her dead counterparts, and her mind is in a haze of introduction and dream logic from her newly-bound spirit. As the smoke clears, the shadows' pleading expressions change to jealousy and anger.
  
    No! What are you doing?!
  You don't have a plan!
  You can't go on without us!  
  
  They turn and rush in pursuit, the more mangled forms crawling and oozing more quickly than they ever could have run. The living Kimiko watches anxiously as her persona unfurls her bandage arm. The disembodied cloth is long and strong enough to trip the attackers and toss them into each other, leaving only a couple stragglers for Kimiko to deal with herself.
  
  One of the hissing shadows leaps up to scratch her with a mangled, bony hand. On something like instinct, she draws a long knife from her coat's lining to parry it and another to swipe at the monsters in retaliation. The new gash blends right in with their scars, but it's enough to force them back in surprise.
  
    Hchh! You idiot! 
   You're just killing yourself again! 
  
  "No, I don't think so. I think I get it now." 
  
  The one from the bus station rushes towards her. She remembers this one. She remembers how the test crinkled in her hands when she felt it, and how her tears smudged her own pencil marks but couldn't budge the damning red pen.
  
  Kimiko twists aside and lets the shadow run into the knife in her left hand.  "I'm not a perfect student..." 
  
  She slashes at another version of herself, the slit-wristed one from the gym.  "I don't have a normal life..." 
  
  The eight-year-old runs up and grabs Kimiko by the waist. She shakes her off and pushes her away into the other two.  "I'm not an innocent little kid anymore." 
  
  The three lie still, no deader than they were previously but nonetheless defeated. When Kimiko turns to face the rest of the monsters, she's standing up straight. Her wounds have healed, her coat has been repaired, and a gleam in her eye pierces through a snazzy new eyepatch. The hanging Kimiko from the hospital rises eerily into the air, leading the rest of the undead horde to confront their enemy.
  
   "...and I know I'll never be the savior who can just wave a wand and fix everything. But those parts of me were always just Things. It hurts when they die, but  I  still live. I won't let you take me down with them!" 
  
  With that, her persona returns to her side and slowly sweeps its good hand across the room. With a slow crescendo of hisses and pops, furniture and floorboards burst into flame around the monsters.
  
   "We should go." 
   "Let's." 
  
  Miaoshan vanishes, leaving only a vague understanding of their contract in the back of her partner's mind. Kimiko expertly jimmies open the window and makes her escape. She sprints along the now-empty subway track back to the cafe as her palace crackles and burns down behind her.