"There is a moment where a little too much is done. Where the already chipped vase of a situation is pushed just far enough that the momentum reaches the point of no return wobbling far over the edge straight onto the floor as it shatters in a phenomenally horrifically large wail of despair, broken dreams, and regret."
Once Thomas's giant fist fully formed a new indent into the face of that poor bastard as he cracked the hard ground headfirst directly as the rest of his body slid out, legs still slumped on the bench he was sitting on.
"Arguably the worst part is the silence afterwards. They always talk about the calm before the storm but not the silence after the last thunderbolt. There's the flash, and the destruction. But the rumble only comes afterwards."
Kokoshnik Smirnov almost admired this moment.
"Like a shining jewel on a crown made of the novelty of a completely and utterly fucked situation. It was nestled nicely on the forefront on the head of all the consequences of self-made actions, gleaming brightly somehow to the wearer more than the outsiders."
It would've been easier for them to just fake their deaths and leave. She's had it happen, it's actually rather easy relative to dying. She found a sense of grim humor in that, trying to share that smile with Thomas in a small moment of relapse.
"It's too late isn't it, Thomas?"
Trying to do a quick jab at each other before they experienced the career equivalent of having their skin peeled off with rusty spoons.
No response. Not even a cry of apology to the victim.
"Thomas?"
30 SECONDS BEFORE.
For once Thomas revolted against someone, and of all people it had to be her.
Thomas looked away at the bandaged and blunted form of the teenage who was twitching and sitting on a bench. A cellphone in his hand nervously held.
"Just wait. No. Wait for a little bit- Just, put it down."
If they get caught for this- No spasms or seizures just twitching? - Keep it steady. Just wait for it. Time. Time. He'd be fine, or maybe not. Why them? Why did this happen to her? This is natural. This is natural.
"Помоги́те, пожа́луйста! Что-то будет, что-то не пройдет хорошо. Помоги́те, пожа́луйста!"
(Whatever shall be will be terrible. Someone help me please! Whatever shall be will be terrible.)
"I'll take all the blame. You'll be fine."
Thomas thought that for some odd reason, no. She wouldn't, she already wasn't. Of all things this brings her crashing down.
Kokoshnik made sure to raise the volume of her voice and force each of her feet to stomp on her way to Thomas, looking right to his face to articulate how much she refused on even considering letting him do that.
"No."
Stomp
"You."
STOMP
"Won't."
STOMP
She felt like a mouse intimidating a lion, and despised watching him recoil, and shrink downwards. It felt like planting verbal poison into his mind as for each word he withered a little bit more knowing this is what hurt him. She drew herself back so he doesn't notice her straddling attempt at apprehension.
"Just give me the phone. We'll think it over. I- I don't think there's something directly wrong with him."
She knew injuries and this was one of superficiality. Of all people this healthy teenager wouldn't have a seizure, especially after walking inside with them to sit down. And if it was, the main protocol is to wait it out.
"He isn't moving." Why isn't he moving.
The twitching was on all sides of his body, and yet there wasn't any violent jerking that was commonplace. Anomalies.
It was almost civil of how predictable they were, almost as if his body was willingly forcing itself to move. None of the signs of spiraling into worse stages were present. Why call the ambulance now and let everyone know they almost killed the crown prince of the ruler of this academy? Глаза боятся, а руки в ужасе!
(The eyes are afraid. And the hands are terrified.)
The best they could do is wait for him to come back so they could…grovel. Grovel at his feet. Begging for forgiveness and mercy and saying the ambulance was coming, as she would dial them the second, he came back to consciousness. Or if he came back to consciousness.
There was Thomas, in this rare act of rebellion kept the phone locked in his hands. Because he had the ability to care about other people and worry over others unlike her. Somehow making his palms tighten even more on it. And Kokoshnik knew emergency services were still dialed into the keypad and his clasp might turn it on by pressure alone, not right now. Later.
Kokoshnik went forward and tried to grasp it out of his iron grip, her weak fingers were proven insufficient quite quickly, so thinking fast she pushed the entire weight of her body backwards in a jump. Surprising the below nonexistent effort, Thomas was putting into combatting her. As she swung backward fully into the fall, he began to exert some effort to stop her by drawing back his arm. Or maybe to save her from hitting the ground, some small sectioned off part of her mind liked that impossible fantasy. As he drew her back to standing with strain. But this momentum, this small attempt to pause her strive for inaction caused Thomas to stumble backwards, his fist splaying wildly in the air, in a perfect pendulum trajectory in between the ears and directly on the now crumpling face of Ichika Orimura.
30 Seconds Later.
Ichika Orimura was surprised by the fact he didn't have that many complaints, after all the very valid reasons he collected with care, they were even polished with quite a lot of unwanted contemplation. In fact, he was calm, as if all those issues were washed away in a nice tide.
This calm wasn't from anger so boiled over with rage it dissipated into mist like water or the preferred calm of an ongoing conversation. No. He rarely got that anymore. It was the calm of knowing it was all over. Whatever happened next, he wouldn't have to deal with it. A consolation that over his years of service, he clung to, a simple mantra of "It's not going to be my problem anymore."
Crashing, the wind whistling around a war machine turned coffin. Crushing entrapment as the air below him makes way for his inevitable initiation with the ground. The moon was beautiful as if it would be the last person he'd talk to. Comforting. It'd set and rise. Fixed in position. Sometimes it's new topics would be over it's predictable change of shape. Metal crumpled as it hit the ground.
Fulfilling it like this as nothing more. It was comforting.
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A torn asunder machine. The caskets door ripped open of a friend, his protector, laying ruined behind him, thrown onto the ground metal pressed against his head. Yelling. Strangers wearing masks. Everyone is wearing one. He always liked the feathers his mimicked.
Damn it. Nope.
Ichika Orimura opened his eyes. elevating himself into known consciousness, hoping to just fix his friend and was greeted by the visage of that girl staring down at him eyes looking him up and down, left and right.
A hastened glance over that was pretending to be calm. A medic.
She was lanky, not weak, just skinny. Acne scars around her neck and mouse face. Thin strips of hair with fading cyan etched. How did she have red eyes? Wearing a mechanic jumpsuit with blue and white on it, the ISA insignia on it. Weirdly enough at this angle he could see she was missing a few teeth that weren't present when talking to her earlier. Square glasses that looked too big for her face. She was in a weird transition between looking like an adult and a teenager.
Her jumpsuit had a nametag on it, except the name was scratched out. From everything he's know about her in this entire experience, he would assume from everything he experienced about her, this was intentional.
He just laid there and she just stood there. As they mutually looked at each other. Until she decided that she would initiate. "Good. You're fine. I'm calling an ambulance." She paused at his universally understandable yet misinterpreted look of horror and added "This is all my fault." As if that was all she needed to say, turning away to do something else that she deemed more important. Ichika grabbed her shoulder as she almost jumped out of her skin as his fingers touched her shirt. "Please… I'm fine… just help me fix her..." He waved his ring finger upward to show Fukuro's pendant. The silver ring reflects the lighting. "…please, this needs to be done, nothing more."
"Oh." She paused to admire the kuklos. Appreciation, an examination. But she drew back as if she was ashamed to do so for that tiny moment. "Alright, good for us, you're helping me first." She immediately grabbed his arm and forced him upwards as Ichika was still swept in his daze and her wake. His mind accepting all the exterior factors of the world.
A collection of machinery, the sound of workers in a far-off distance, scraps and random wielding materials or whatever is used. Smell of oil consistently in the air. State of the art sleek everything with blue and white. Please let this be the right place.
As his hands were weakly pulled he noticed quite a few well-done bandages wrapped around them, at least negating the need to put them on himself. Firmly placed, but not suffocating blood flow. They were quite comfortable, excluding the pain that came with need them. Once both his feet were planted firmly on the ground with plans not to leave, he was brought to a dead body.
Thomas was a big guy, a real strongman. Tall to boot and olive skinned, the guy had biceps that were noticeable underneath his clothing, big arms, big legs, big everything. A stubble beard on his chin that was fiercely trying to grow on a babyface. He was about as imposing as a green tree. There was a tempo surrounding him, an ebb and flow that surrounded him wherever he went. This image, this prior form was smothered to death. As if his mind self-imposed a removal from his own body.
It was one of the most disgusting things Ichika had ever seen.
A dead body would still have some semblance of action in rigor mortis.
There was no merciful exit in-in IN THIS ABOMINATION that took a civilian. It could live a beautiful life, it could move and dance freely, but it chooses not to. It chooses to node the world in utter nothing; this wasn't a silence. This was a vacuum of pure nothing, that ripped everything vibrant into a place not of this reality. A sack of skin, with no tells.
His skin. Drowning. It's a lot like that. Except afterwards it's frozen over. Purple.
"Thomas… are you alright?" Ichika whispered as he reached his hand out to touch the throat of this, this horrifying thing. There was a pulse, but his skin was soaked in sweat, as if he had drowned only a few moments before reaching the surface.
Bloated stomachs rising to the surface.
He shifted to see the girl. Paused in a moment of sitting realization. She knew something, whatever caused this effect, this punishment, this personal hell to someone who he knew didn't deserve it.
"CRASHING." The girl rippled with dread and fear directed him behind the still living corpse of someone she couldn't possibly carry onto the ground. Instructing him on how to do so. "You're strong. Bend your elbows into L's and put them underneath his armpits. We can't let him fall to the ground." She pauses again, as if second guessing urgency. "Please." It was almost painful for her to say it. As if her throat was dragged through a floorboard of nails as the word rushed out. There was a high importance to it.
Ichika did so, and even then still needed some assistance from the girl as Thomas was roughly yet safely placed on the floor, his arms raised to the ceiling bent, and jutting like dead tree branches, rigid as they were brittle.
Sometimes, when someone is faced with him, they sharpen, they have to or else their nails and jaws snapped and splintered into the ground along with their bones.
"Are you there, are you there Thomas?." He ducks down. "Checking for pulse." he placed his hand on the side of Thomas's throat.
Often times they try to run. Running on two feet in cramped metal roofs while he flied. Running far far away into the same fate. More decomposition.
A pulse was felt, but it was stiflingly silent, as if Thomas's heart waited for the absolutely longest time it could before beating again, the air flow coming from Thomas's mouth was dry.
At least they tried to survive.
And then there's the ones who didn't. The ones who even if they might've had the ability, the possibility to escape. They just stood there as his claws descended into them. Guns still in hand or dropped on the floor .It's guttural instinctual. As wings descend as he gave a real answer to them on their fates. There wasn't a point to fight or flight, as there was no decision.
Ichika couldn't stand watching any longer, bile was almost rising to the back of his throat.
There was only freeze.
His blood ran cold.