come out of hiding, i'm right here beside you

[barehands]

[A while after the execution has ended, everyone will find a simple note slipped under their door.]

If you don't want to be alone after everything that's happening, some of us will be in the dining room. Even if you decide not to come, please remember that you aren't alone here.

[The note isn't signed, but the handwriting is feminine and neat.

For anyone who decides to come, there's a good array of food laid out on the table. There are some small and simple cakes, cookies, and pastries, a healthy amount of okonomiyaki, okayu, and other Japanese dishes (with a focus on rice and eggs), along with curry. In addition, there are pancakes, and a large pot of soup. It looks like a few people collaborated to make enough food for everyone here.

Just like the meal they shared together earlier in the week, the candles from the storage room lend a more peaceful light than the fluorescent lights above.]

Comments

[nachetanya]

[ . . . You know she doesn't know what all this is, but after about three: ]

... Should you really delete all portraits of Felicia?

[yourpiecenow]

I don't like dead people on my phone. [said like this has happened enough for her to develop a preference.]

[nachetanya]

...Mm. I suppose I can understand. I would think it's nice for sentimentality, but it also would make it feel haunted.

[yourpiecenow]

If it hasn't been made super obvious yet, I'm not an overly sentimental person.

[nachetanya]

No, that much has been made abundantly clear.

[ That said... ]

I had wondered if you would take a certain picture for me, though.

[yourpiecenow]

... Sure, why not. Of what?

[nachetanya]

[ She holds out her arm, and then rolls it over to reveal a small cut on one of her forearm - it's scabbed over a little, like she got it in the last day or so. Honestly, from the relative freshness, maybe the last hour or two, despite them having only come off from the trial in that time. ]

This cut. My wounds have been healing strangely, and I don't know if the missing arm has effected that, so I wanted to compare how this looks now with how it might look tomorrow more directly.

[yourpiecenow]

Gross. [she says, immediately snapping a pic of it.] Why would you be healing any differently than normal?

[nachetanya]

I don't know! That's why I would want to look into it.

[yourpiecenow]

Do you have any magic healing abilities back home? Because everyone else here has their magic all fucked up, so yours would be, too.

[nachetanya]

Mmm, some.

[ She admits ] I'm not the sort of saint where it's more natural to their abilities such as the Saint of Fresh Blood, but even the Saint of Blades can recover from injuries quicker.

[yourpiecenow]

Well, there you go. Another thing to chalk up to this place's bullshit.

[beat] God, your saints sound so much more exciting than ours are.

[nachetanya]

I'd been hearing that a lot before now, actually.

[ About the saints. She laughs, shaking her head ]

In my world, saints are women who've inherited a fraction of the gods' powers. There are seventy-eight in all, all of them with some specific collection of abilities: the Saint of the Sun, the Saint of Blades, the Saint of Ice. So on and so forth.

[yourpiecenow]

Ugh. That's so badass...

So, what, the Saint of Blades was your grandma or something?

[nachetanya]

No. I'm the current Saint of Blades.

[yourpiecenow]

Oh. So, it's more like incarnation than a bloodline?

[nachetanya]

Yes. [ She nods ] When the previous saint retires or is told to retire by All Heavens Temple, the gods will select the new saint. Usually, this can be predicted - the most worthy acolyte of the temple in question. But sometimes it can produce more unexpected results.