WHO: Gebura and you!
WHAT: June catch-all! Maybe longer! It's a mystery!
WHERE: All around
WHEN: June 2024
WARNINGS: Graphic descriptions of violence, dismemberment, murder, gore and death. Also spoilers for Lobotomy Corporation and Library of Ruina!
[ If you'd like a starter, just let me know! ] 
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which is why the bodies strewn about make it so unfamiliar -- not only because she'd stopped paying attention to who came in, who was around, so she could keep up with her work... but this place was never meant to be a tomb.
it was for two people already; how had it come to this?
gebura-- kali, and...
...
binah...? malkuth doesn't know who she was before, or how exactly they'd come to recruit her; she'd never thought to ask, really, simply accepted it since the upper layer didn't speak to the lower, and though it wasn't so rare anymore. but the woman resembles binah, speaks in the same cadence and aggravates kali the same way she does gebura.
what had happened after her own painful passing? of course the research team had fallen somehow -- they'd all gone through the same thing of becoming "AI" but what had happened? suddenly it feels as if there's a secret malkuth hasn't been privy to, that everyone knows but her, and she remains frozen as one dies, one remains barely alive.
a shaky exhale. death is no stranger to her now. but that might be the blue of (chesed) daniel, blond hair stained with blood belonging to (tiphereth) lisa. plenty of other faces she doesn't recognize. it's different like this, of course it is. ]
... Gebura?
[ a soft call. she doesn't know if she can wake her, or if she's even aware, or if (binah) the woman might answer instead, but she can't not do something. even if that something is speaking up. ]
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And, wearily-- ]
After this. Gebura was after this.
Technically, I guess I'm the reason we wound up in those bodies.
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how... did this, lead to all that...? the question is on her face, and as ever malkuth isn't bothered by the bodies as she approaches gebu-- kali, she reminds herself. sits beside her, sleeve coming up to wipe at the blood on her former, current, future coworker's face. ]
I don't get it. [ ... ] What are Claws doing here? Is she... Was Binah from the Head? How did they find us out here? What do you mean, you're the reason?
[ so many questions, as ever. ]
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Dispatched an Arbiter [ a nod towards Binah ] and two Claws... somehow the Abnormalities all got out and went through the facility killing everyone while the Claws took advantage of that.
By the time I heard about it, it was pretty much assumed there were no survivors, but...
[ Well, she'd never been the type to just sit back. Except now, allowing Malkuth to wipe blood off her face. More keeps coming, anyway. ]
I fought my way through the Abnormalities, killed the Claws, fought her. I guess because of that, Benjamin and Ayin both survived.
... The only two survivors.
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wants? doesn't want? will get the answers to, sometime. their words or not. she doesn't ask. ]
You're amazing as ever, in every life you've ever lived. [ simple and plain fact. ] Even if... there's so many dead, I think you've done more than enough for all of us. You always have.
[ kali hadn't been scary, just hard to get to know. steadfast. a pair of watchful eyes from the wall, a hand pushing her around the corner so she doesn't trip against it. red hair unmistakable. ]
... Do you regret saving them? With how everything unfolded afterwards.
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[ That's simple, squeezed out as it is through a throat that should no longer be able to draw a decent breath. She's lost far too much blood to be able to hold a conversation at all, but such is the nature of dreams. And such is the nature of Gebura who was once Kali, who had never once considered herself amazing and doesn't really think so now. It's not self-deprecating, either. Just a fleeting thought.
An amazing person would have been able to protect so much more. ]
I won't say I don't have regrets about how things played out. But in the end, because I was able to save the two of them, I could keep my promise to Carmen. And even with what happened, everything everyone went through...
... Where we're at now was worth it.
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... I think so too. I don't... know everything that happened to everyone, and... I didn't pay enough attention to others when I was still live, either, but...
[ she wasn't good at being a person, or so she'd told izou. a quiet explanation he couldn't have made sense of -- but maybe he does a little more now, their awkward similarities a little too close to home.
malkuth exhales, then reaches up and rests her hand on the other's head. what can be said in three will be said in thirty, but... that's how it is. long winded, but every word is chosen with care. ]
But I can't imagine my current life without you or anyone else in it. [ softer, voice cracking a little. ] I don't want to, either. And I definitely don't regret forsaking a comfy, safe job back in my home Nest with how happy doing just that made me in the end. You're so vivid, it makes my chest hurt.
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It's not as familiar when compared to Chesed's almost sing-song way of speaking far more than he should and Tiphereth's tart quips--Tiphereth, who came from the Outskirts. Though her counterpart had also been surprisingly eloquent, detached but caring more than he should.
Malkuth has also changed, in subtle ways, even from her time in the Library. ]
I'm not a bright spot, or anything like that. But I can tell you what you already know; that there's no point in imagining things that won't happen. At this point, we can only move forward, since we weren't allowed to stop moving at all.