Disclaimer: I do not own s-Cry-ed or any of the characters. No profit is being made.
A/N: I found s-Cry-ed due to my insomnia and Adult Swim. I have since become obsessed with the characters and the subtle relationships between them. This fanfiction is based solely on the Anime and begins after the end of the series.
Chapter 1: Scavengers (The Second Year of Independence).
"Fifty-six, fifty-seven, fifty-eight," a soft voice droned on rhythmically, "fifty-nine, sixty." With the last number, a slender woman pulled herself onto a landing and paused. She breathed in deeply through the silk cloth she had tied around her face to protect her lungs from the ever-present dust. She wiped her forearm across her brow and grimaced at the stain of sweat and dirt left on the sleeve of her stiff canvas jumpsuit. Releasing a sad sigh, she began climbing once again. "Sixty-one, sixty-two, sixty-three…"
The woman finally stopped her ascent somewhere in the eighties where the sounds of workers could be heard filtering into stairwell through an open door. The woman wandered into the adjacent corridor. "Jiro," she called, "Jiro."
A relatively rotund man leaned out of an open doorway. "Ah, Miss Mimori," he called. Although a mask obscured his mouth, a smile was evident in the tone of his voice. "We were beginning to think you wouldn't be joining us today."
"I'm sorry," Mimori sighed, "The stairs seem to be taking me longer and longer each day."
"Don't worry about it dear," Jiro replied in a fatherly manner, "The job affects all of us. You can start in the third door on the left."
Mimori nodded and trudged in the direction Jiro had indicated. She found door already pried open waiting for her.
Before demolition of the HOLY complex was scheduled to begin, the call had gone out to former HOLY employees in the Lost Ground to join the scavenger crews and help sort through the potentially vital and sensitive information being recovered. Mimori was not really suited to this work, and she would have much rather remained in her little clinic. However since she understood the inner workings of HOLD and HOLY better than most, she felt obligated to volunteer.
The crew was currently working on one of the dormitory buildings. They had slowly worked their way down from the top, removing usable items. When the building was cleared, the heavy machinery would be brought in for the final demolition. All metal, glass, and other building materials would be recycled. When the ground was finally level and clear, new construction could start. Maybe this plot of land would become a school or a park.
Mimori entered an apartment not unlike the one she had made her home a few years ago, when the world was a different place. She decided to start in the kitchen, as that was generally the most unpleasant part. Often a scavenger came across rotting food and the vermin that lived off it, but kitchen cabinets also contained a wealth of useful items. Besides, Mimori had worked at this job too long to be frightened of scurrying mice. She started opening cabinets and began pulling out canned goods, dishes, cookware, appliances, and cleaning supplies. Nothing was left behind that could be useful. Later crews would come through to pull out the refrigerator, stove, plumbing features, and even the cabinets themselves if they were in good shape.
Mimori carefully arranged the items she recovered in one of the many canvas bags she had brought with her. When it was full, she tightly tied off the top and used a marker to label the bag with the building, apartment number, and room. Everything was properly labeled, just in case an owner would come forward. It took nearly all Mimori's strength to drag the bag out into the hallway and down to the Pulley Operator. The large man easily hefted the bag through an open window to his partner on the platform suspended off the side of the building. Soon the makeshift elevator would be loaded to capacity and lowered down into a waiting truck. Mimori waved as cheerfully as she could to the two men before returning to her assigned apartment.
The job of methodically evicting someone was not easy. Mimori had learned quickly not to pay attention to the names on unopened mail or the faces inside picture frames. It was just too painful. As soon as you started putting a name and face with the clothing or personal items you were packing away, you began wondering where that person was and worrying about them. Since the answer was more often than not unpleasant, it was better only to see objects.
By mid-afternoon, Mimori was making great progress. She had found a stash of prescription drugs that was probably worth twice its weight in gold and was currently packing up the remnants of a home office. Papers and files from any HOLY building had to be packed separately from other items. These would be examined with a fine-toothed comb for information. But even as she neatly stacked folders in a special bag, Mimori bemoaned the amount of time she and her staff would waste with the bags upon bags of papers. From experience she could guess that the bulk of the paperwork would end up being recycled. She opened a file just to prove her instinct and half expected to find another stash of old school reports.
Cougar. The name leapt out as her eyes skimmed the page. Mimori gasped audibly and the building seemed to tremble. She focused on the text more closely. It was a HOLY memo from Zigmarl to Cougar. A quick inspection of the rest of folder found more of the same. With dawning horror, Mimori seized the nearby bag containing the precious prescriptions. Now that she took the time to fully read the labels, the situation became clear. She was in Straight Cougar's apartment, and the pills clutched in her hand were intended to fight the damage using his alter power had created. The damage that eventually killed him.
She was truly amazed by how close the pain was to the surface. Tears escaped her eyes clearing little tracks on her dust-covered face. Mimori tugged the scarf from around her mouth and mopped at her leaky eyes as sobs overpowered her body with such violence the whole room seemed to shake. She thought of all of the seemingly meaningless items she had callously packed away and drug from the apartment. Now, they all seemed so precious that her heart ached at the thought of them. She wept so fiercely that the room rocked.
It was the groan of failing metal and the cracking of concrete that finally alerted Mimori to the fact that the building she was in was actually shaking. "Oh God," Mimori moaned. The Lost Ground had been subjected to countless earth tremors and small upheavals since the end of the war. Mimori was one of the few who understood why. Two alter users, locked in an endless battle for dominance on the Other Side, were still sending shockwaves through the lives of those they had chosen to abandon.
Even as the floor beneath her gave way and the ceiling above her collapsed, Mimori's thoughts were focused on Ryuho. As she collided with the ground and the rubble buried her, she managed to grasp the pendant around her neck. "Please be okay, Ryuho," she whispered before the world faded into darkness.
