(no subject)

[murdergame]

blood match day four



open arena

16 players remaining

The morning is just as hot and muggy as the previous day, but this morning the air hangs heavy with clouds. There's smoke still in the air from the volcano yesterday; not as dark and thick, but still enough to make your lungs hurt and your eyes burn if you exert yourself too much, especially in the vicinity of Zone 0. Later in the afternoon, the clouds burst; the heavy rain only lasts a few hours, but it clears away the remaining smoke. Otherwise, things seem calmer today, though there are still places where the jungle is damaged from explosives yesterday, and it seems that the foot bridge between Zone 3 and 4 has been bombed out, and is no longer accessible.

As the sun rises, an announcement plays:

Good morning, contestants! Today, Zone 4 is off-limits. If you're in Zone 4, you have an hour to leave it!

Also, we've learned some of you don't like playing this game! Special new rule! If you kill your partner, you get to go home! If your partner already died, sorry, that's too bad. Okay, good luck!

True to these words, an hour from sunrise, the road bridge and tunnel to Zone 4 will be locked off by a thick metal gate. The rest of the arena is still accessible, but around midday, a fire in Zone 1 will begin to push players out of that zone as well. As a result, everyone will be pushed towards Zones 2 and 3.

(OOC: When starting a thread, please put in your header the following: ZONE # - TIME - AREA. This will hopefully make it easier for everyone to keep track of which character is where.

Please remember to update the Weekly Check-in with your character's planned movements. Check in is due by Monday at 9 PM)

Setting
Competitors
Weekly Check-in

Comments

[kouyouensei]

[She puts her hand over her eyes as a visor and squints, then realizes it's already dark so that's stupid. But there he is. Oh, he's not so big at least. Cole is like her; kinda low ranking, strong partner - though Iron Bull is nice as hell to her so far, which raises its own questions about how Cole has survived... which his mysterious appearance itself answers.]

I guess it makes sense you'd be around here somewhere. Aren't you getting a little sore?

[volcanoes]

[Maybe Kyouya had spoken to Harriet, then.] It could have been one of the really high-rated ones. They're still in the game.

[And they've all been unsettlingly scarce, though Iceland isn't really that eager to run into them.]

[whiterosefoes]

It does seem that way, but I wonder. Sougo seemed like he was rather enjoying himself.

[maybe he really would prefer to kill everyone first, and then Hijikata would be the only one tempted by such a bargain. Or maybe there's a little more to those guys than they let on... she may have caught a glimpse of that, before.]

Oh well. It matters even less to me, obviously. [Still sounding bitter about partnerless life....

She gazes idly back out at the magma field after that. They're just kind of standing around it, despite its inherent danger, so she had to eventually.] Don't let me interrupt what you were doing there, by the way. I'm actually curious.

[teach her about volcano stuff!! but not hands on like tamaki]

[kouyouensei]

[She's comforted and smiles - very softly, unintentionally, entirely Duchenne. She receives a certain degree of praise from her friends in Izukizaki, even if the well of school approval has dried up now that her success is so simply expected, but compliments from new acquaintances are rare - especially on combat readiness. The producers obviously don't think much of her. At least she has her fan.]

I wouldn't be here at all if she didn't believe in me. You might not know it if you just saw her at school or something, but she'd do anything...

[Around her eyes, the smile stops. Her voice stays steady all the way to the end, not petering out, just dropping, stone style. The sentence should have sounded like this: She'd do anything for us. For Haruhi and their shared friends. The friends that are in the middle of their own unpredictable violent interpersonal dramas. Haruhi has agreed that adults and children alike will die so she can go back to them. Do they even know where she is? Kidnapping aside, it's plausible that there could be a time gap, or even just a logical explanation. "Haruhi is in the hospital. Nui had an assignment." How will Chiyoko feel when she sees Haruhi emerge from all this? Will she have her permission to move on from the costs? Haruhi needs it, at least as much as she needed Nui's permission to set foot in the arena at all.

Because Ootori will be dead if they win. She's not feeling super attached to him just because they've now spoken. In another life she could easily entertain herself during a boring lecture in a fourth story classroom with the mental image of pushing him off the ledge. That's still different from wanting him dead in real life. If he could come with them - Suoh - Harriet - even Jack, she would be happier, and she's still looking for a way. But nobody is really on her side there.]

[kouyouensei]

Yeah, I'd been hoping the disasters would follow the rule of three but they just kept going! They aren't giving us time to wait around anymore...

[And that makes Haruhi sad. She looks to the north, like she always does when she's sad and thinking about the good end it's so unlikely they'll actually have, personified by the land so far out of reach. She did this back in the lighthouse too. The direction is persistent, in other words.]

And now today they're restricting territory instead of just rearranging it. You can't keep people from meeting each other.

[glasshole]

Could it have been? I don't think that's necessarily the case.

[As far as he's concerned, that's confirmation right there. If he didn't know, he would have asked after the rumor, not providing another option.]

At any rate...Mayu was a troublesome person. With the possible exception of Jack Vessalius, I think everyone was relieved. Won't you take credit for your actions?

[volcanoes]

[Iceland looks out across the magma field.] There's not a lot in this area. I was checking to see if there was anything over here besides the obvious.

[And also checking on the obvious, but admitting he was checking on the lava specifically sounds a little too antagonistic. And also weird.]

[volcanoes]

[He has to be bluffing. Saying it with an expression like that doesn't make Iceland feel any better about what he keeps insisting, but he holds his ground. In this situation, though, it means shrugging the accusation off.]

The only thing I did was break her wrist and run. [He puffs up a bit--deliberately playing up the side of himself that wants to be taken seriously, because he knows how often it accomplishes only the opposite.] ...Maybe I'd have done more if she hadn't healed.

[That was still really creepy, thinking about it. Sure, he'd finished her off, but how long had she been able to do that?]

[glasshole]

[He watches with mild interest while Haruhi becomes lost in thought. He can imagine, at least vaguely, the contents of her thoughts. She seems like a fairly ordinary girl. She isn't one of the natural killers here, she isn't accustomed to violence. Whatever Nui is doing to keep them alive must unsettle her.

On the other hand, what he's feeling isn't sympathy. If he had more self-awareness, he might realize he's not in such different circumstances than she is. But he doesn't; as far as he's concerned, high school student or no, he's anything but ordinary, and he'll adapt to whatever circumstances he's put into. He'll be a natural killer if he needs to be.

Rather, he considers how useful this is. If she's experiencing doubts, then perhaps there's an opening for him, as one of the few here she might believe she can relate to. And she seems to respond well to praise. That's one of his stronger suits, finding what accomplishments a person secretly wants recognition for, and praising it. Or twisting the knife, as circumstances may require instead.]

I'm sure Miss Harime is a remarkable girl as well. I wouldn't think to underestimate her. You might not think much of Suoh or I if you saw us at school...but we all can't do anything here but try our best, right?

[He adds just a touch of wistfulness to that, a hint that he regrets what he's had to do.]

[glasshole]

[Well, okay. He's not getting a confession if that didn't work. But he has enough to be suspicious.

He honestly doesn't give a shit who killed Mayu. But he does give a shit who would have had one of her backpacks.]

If you say so. I would think running away from someone so dangerous would only delay the problem.

[volcanoes]

So would you've tried to fight her? [Iceland would really like to know more about what physical abilities Kyouya might have, not to mention it's a topic Iceland prefers to discussing who, specifically, killed Mayu. That said, he doesn't think he'll get a straight answer out of Kyouya. But maybe he'll get something.]

[kouyouensei]

[There's something strange about that series of sentences. It sounds like it's been pasted together from other sentences. Haruhi has done the same thing herself with no ill intent. It's just not... She looks to the north, trying to summon up a memory of the interviews. Oh, yeah, Tamaki's foreign. What else???]

That always depends on the school day, though. What about sports day? Especially after you get rained out!

[Her eye shuts in a big wink and she's laughing at her own joke. That's what she really retained: The great figure they cut. The thing is that insincere laughter requires her to take even deeper breaths, and the air is humid as hell, even more than before, probably because it's gonna rain later. She realizes she's forgotten to drink anything for the past couple hours, mostly reluctant after breakfast was already water. Her mouth is dry but she can't control herself enough to close it anymore and now bugs are trying to fly in. She waves them away with both of her hands for several seconds. After her fit is finally over her eyes set on Ootori again and are unsubtly relieved he's still there.]

After all this exercise, maybe I should see the next Izumizaki school sports festival. [There's a stress around "should" that makes it even more glaringly obvious: This isn't really something that someone who herself attends the school would say, or for that matter somebody who doesn't have feelings about that fact.]

[glasshole]

Ah, well. Mayu was never an issue for me personally. [He doesn't elaborate what he means by that, but you can have it, Iceland.

He wouldn't have run per se; he would likely have tried to talk his way out of danger. But that was more meant to be a threat anyway.]

[volcanoes]

[Frustratingly vague, but maybe he can use it, assuming it's not a bluff, which is a stupid thing to assume. He'll just have to file it away with all of the other information he has on Kyouya that's not directly from the information card. Maybe someone else will kill him and Iceland won't have to worry about it anymore.]

I guess she's not an issue for anyone now. But it makes you wonder what the rankings mean.

[Iceland is pretty sure Mayu got that healing thing in the arena, since he didn't have his nation body handy, but if they weren't taking that sort of thing into account in the rankings, anyone could be a wild card with the right sponsorship.

Also, he'd really like to know more about Kyouya's 7.7.]

[glasshole]

[Well, Ouran isn't a typical school. They only ever had one sports festival, and that was only because Tamaki got it into his idiotic head to have one. He can't actually relate to her student to student, because his life is so far removed from whatever he assumes hers is, so this isn't a fertile ground for meaningless conversation even if she wasn't speaking dishonestly herself. Besides, he won that competition. It doesn't really fit the narrative he's trying to convey...and it's also a somewhat more complicated and personal memory. While he'd normally be fine just telling a lie to suit his needs, he doesn't actually want to use that victory or pretend it didn't happen.]

Aha...maybe, maybe not. We've never typically had them, so I wouldn't know. Maybe it would come in handy if we were to do a wilderness class trip.

[Which would never happen.

It probably says more about him that it doesn't even occur to him to be suspicious about her dishonesty, or to worry about her reaction to his own beyond simply not wanting her to be offended. He grew up in a world entirely about pretending to have friendly intentions while never believing anyone actually does. He simply pretends not to see her fit, her panic, her exhaustion. Who really cares?]

That's where you're from, is it? I think Miss Harime said so in the interviews.

[kouyouensei]

[What kind of school doesn't have a sports festival and takes a class trip into the wilderness? Haruhi doesn't doubt the story so much as pity Ootori. Combined with her reaction to this one completely natural misunderstanding, her face looks pretty unpleasant for the moment before she starts speaking.]

Nui and the others go there. I live in the city and go to the Academy.

[It's a pretty pained sentence and she can't summon up any enthusiasm for her immediate attempt at a distraction.] But you and Suoh-kun are at school together, right?

[glasshole]

Yes, they can be curious, can't they?

[Smiling. He knows his 7.7 is probably cause for alarm. He knows if everyone knew it was likely based only on his intelligence and skill for playing people against one another, they would relax.

He also knows they're wrong. He's by far the most dangerous person here.]

I won't detain you...

[glasshole]

[A school for rich kids, that's what kind of school. But it doesn't really matter what she thinks.]

That's right, we're classmates.

[dramatist]

[If Jack has noticed her tendency to look northward, there's nothing to indicate it. Rather, there's not much that indicates what he notices no matter what the object or situation or person in question is. In the same way, it may be difficult to gauge his opinions and reactions; he makes a noise of vague discontentment, but it's shallow.]

They're trying to get things finished quickly, I guess. With how much the number of contestants has shrunk, they probably don't want to risk entire days passing without anyone seeing another team, right?

zone 3 | 2ish | swamp/jungle

[blastardise]

[ Anyone who's passed by may have likely heard loud Shounen Idiots screaming and groaning as they try to kill each other. Hijikata and Sougo had been fighting all day to no avail. They've at least got cuts and wounds here and there, but no one's dead yet.

They've taken refuge by a tree to rest and rejuvenate. They'll continue their fight once they have more energy. Sougo was definitely not going to stop until one of them dies, after all. But he wasn't that much of a dick to kill someone unarmed or unable to fight. ]

Re: zone 3 | 2ish | swamp/jungle

[mayotaku]

[While Hijikata had expected to actually fight with some intensity, he underestimated just how intense it would have been in the end. That was definitely a mistake on his part. So while he was not gravely injured, in fact his injuries weren't even that bad, he was pretty exhausted. After all, food has been hard to keep too.

But he could be missing both legs and still be bitching at his partner for as long as he had a mouth to do so.]

Go find your own tree.

[kouyouensei]

Figures.

[She has a lot more angsty thoughts about her class at the Academy not caring that she's missing. This is actually worse than before. She was grappling with the landscape, not her feelings. He really does remind her of what it was like to talk to a high school boy, though maybe not any specific one.

She starts fussing with the knife.]

Do you ever finish an assignment for school and think, this isn't all there was to learn? If the requirements had been different. [It's a pretty weird and irrelevant philosophical question. Combined with the weapon, she's obviously guilting herself for something else.]

[quncertain]

You say that now, but that knife could wind up saving your life because it's sharp. I've been in more than one situation where a good sharp knife was all that came between me and dying.

[Though he gets the feeling that she probably doesn't want to hear it, he says it anyway. Sympathy and pacifism have their time and place, but it's not going to be here.]

[quncertain]

[Is it really. Is it really worse, Iceland. These are going to be some pretty terrible puns.]

I didn't think someone like you could be surpriced. [Okay he's done for now...probably....not....]

[quncertain]

[Someone's prickly. Of course, considering the situation they're in and how many people are dying, he'd be more worried if the kid seemed perfectly cheerful and fine with everything that's happening. And hey, he probably deserved it by being sarcastic first, so he gives Kyouya what he hopes is a rueful smile.]

I was actually about to ask you the same question. I don't mind giving you some actual fishing advice if you want it.