voidtreckerexpress | A New Platform [Intro Post December]

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A New Platform [Intro Post December]

On the Train

It's only been a couple of days since the Voidtrecker Express took to the void once more, and many of the passengers are still recovering and recuperating after a very hectic end to their latest mission. Nevertheless, they are awoken by a familiar message.

"Good morning passengers, it is day sixteen of the month of Imagination. Points have been updated on the system."

They have indeed, and everyone can spend the morning shopping. Those who have been on the train for a while will be expecting the second announcement that comes a few hours later.

"Shortly arriving into a designated void platform. Exit from void in ten, nine, eight, seven, six, five, four, three, two, one." A lurch and a jolt and the windows fill with the fog that means they are at a platform. It is warm outside with a pleasant breeze that flows down the platform, rustling the light spread of leaves that litter the floor.

As usual the first to leave the train notice nothing, walking silently, rucksacks on their backs, towards the barriers. Akemi Homura, Alfred the Poisoner, Donatello Versus, Chie Satonaka, Joscelin Fitzthomas, Ronan Lynch, Rose Tyler, Tangle the Lemur, Trowa Barton, Wester Mazaki and Whisper the Wolf all pass through the platform, not looking back before they disappear through the barriers and into the fog beyond.

But on the platform itself there are new faces. Wearing hoodies in all four colours, in various states of confusion.

For New Passengers

At first all they can see is steam, billowing around them as they come to their senses. The second thing they will notice is the swirling leaves at their feet, moving in flurries and rattling against each other softly. As their eyes adjust, they will see they are on a platform, cement and packed earth forming a very practical, plain-looking shelter. Behind them is a set of barriers, and in front of them is a single track extending both ways into thick fog.

They are standing, in clothes that are not their own and a style they might not even recognise. They are carrying a rucksack on their back. For a moment it seems to just be them, alone in the white haze but then the steam begins to fade and they realise they aren’t alone.

The platform is not large and it holds eight figures all facing the tracks, all dressed in cargo trousers and hoodies. Both left and right the tracks disappear into the mist. Then there is a roaring sound and out of the fog arrives a train. Jet black with gold writing on the side. The Voidtrecker Express. There is a hiss as the doors slide open and out into the gloom step a selection of people. Some are human, some are less so. Most are wearing the same hoodie in one of the four colours, red, orange, blue and purple though some are sporting different clothes in a variety of styles.

The Train

The doors hiss open. Those from the train may encourage those on the platform to board. It’s not like there's anywhere else to go and even if there was, you feel a pull. A need to board, a feeling that staying on the platform would lead to something terrible. If that is not enough, there are plenty of people on the platform now, to encourage them onto the train.

Each ICP shows the same message and next to the screens there are stacks of leaflets written by those on the train, with further information (see
'Publications'). The store rooms have been restocked with more jars of honey, the ingredient of the month of Imagination, as well as sundries.

A new carriage has been added right next to the luggage carriage. It is a second medical carriage, or triage carriage. Downstairs is more open with beds and chairs, upstairs are two surgical bays for those that need immediate attention.

For those intrigued by the claim of a parcel for every passenger they will find several large boxes filled with small blue bags. Inside each bag is ten dark blue coins imprinted on each side with a silver snowflake. Each bag has a small label with a passengers name. On the other side of the label it reads: Keep these safe for now.

Of course for any passengers that have bought items, these are also scattered around the luggage carriage as well.

New passengers will find their tickets allow them into their cabins. They may need to negotiate for beds, especially if they want a top bunk!

Room is tight but there are storage cubbies at the head of each bed, beds fold up and the bottom bunks double as benches for the small table. There is storage under those benches and you will hopefully find a pillow for your bed if it has not been nabbed by a roommate, there are also spare blankets for if it gets cold.

Departure

A second horn sounds to encourage any stragglers taking advantage of the pleasant weather and the doors slide shut. Veteran passengers know what will happen next, but they may wish to brief their new companions.

The train sets off, the fog obscuring the view again as it picks up speed.

"Welcome aboard, passengers of the Voidtrecker Express." A female-coded artificial sounding voice echoes throughout the train. "Please take the time to read the passenger information displayed on the Information and Communication points and familiarise yourself with the layout and emergency exits."

The train begins to tilt, leaving the ground and rising up into the fog-filled sky.

"Entrance into Voidspace imminent. New passengers are advised to remain seated. Entry into Voidspace in ten, nine, eight, seven, six, five, four, three, two, one."

A shudder, a jolt, a lurch to the left. A flash of light, colourful and blinding. As quick as it happens it is done. The train seems to steady. The fog from the windows is gone now, replaced with a kaleidoscope of ever-changing colours.

Welcome to the Void!

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

"It sounds like your world doesn't support those who step up to serve it," Devero says slowly. That's what bothers him the most about this, he's realizing. "It sounds like you had to choose between your duty and your-- your personal integrity. And with a duty as enormous as yours, guarding your sutra-- sutras-- who could blame you for making whatever sacrifices you needed to?

"But you shouldn't ever have had to make those sacrifices, not to the extent of-- of having to train the person who murdered your friend!"

His lip curls. "Fuck that, and fuck the flawed system that forced you to."

Koumyou watches Devero, observes the anger on his behalf, and...

It's still like watching a movie. Talking about it now, watching an outsider's reaction. It should make him feel something. Something real! Something--!

It doesn't.

He shuts his eyes.

"I think something's broken, in me. Or just... missing."

Koumyou doesn't realize he's said the thought aloud until he hears it in his own voice, though it sounds distant to his ears.

"Trying to live by muichi motsu... I can't even believe in it, anymore. When death came for my son, I... I couldn't."

"Or maybe it's hiding," Devero suggests gently, "until it's safe to come out again."

He leans forward a little, clasping his hands between his knees. "--What happened to your son?"

"We were attacked," now, Koumyou hides his face, his forehead resting on his knee.

"He had to watch me-- I-- I couldn't stand there and let him die. Not Kouryuu! So I--"

A deep, shaky breath.

"I locked him in place so he couldn't interfere, and I took the attack myself."

Now he's feeling, and he's feeling too much, the denim of his jeans starting to wet from tears.

"He had to... I know what it's like, to watch someone ripped apart like that, someone you care for. To feel their blood rain down on you! And now he's a Sanzo, and he's only thirteen, and I didn't-- there's no one--"

And now it's Devero's turn to hear a muffled sob, ripped straight out of Koumyou's heart.

Devero has been leaving space between them, space for Koumyou to wrestle with himself and space for Devero to absorb what he's being told. But he can't leave that space open now, not when he hears the other man sob like that.

He's on his feet and across the space between them in an instant. His fingertips brush Koumyou's shoulders, wordlessly offering the space between his arms.

It's only once he's already there that the import of what Koumyou has said sinks in. "Sanzo... did you die?"

Koumyou can't... move, he can't get up from the bed and take Devero up on that silent offer, can't un-clench his wiry arms from around his own leg. But he also doesn't shrug those fingers away from his shoulders.

He just... nods, and sobs, all of him shaking under the pressure of it. His tears are for his son, not for himself. His son who had to watch him die, and now bears the weight of at least one sutra, eventually two, and with no one to show him the way.

Koumyou knows his son is strong enough. He does! But that doesn't mean he hasn't been thrust into a living hell. That doesn't mean he should have had to see that. Kouryuu -- Genjo Sanzo -- should have gone his whole life without feeling his adoptive father's life blood rain down onto him. Without hearing it, seeing it, smelling it sprayed across a room.

He doesn't have to get up. Devero's arms are long enough to wrap around him where he huddles, and he doesn't hesitate to do just that. He tucks the priest's head under his chin and holds him.

What can someone like him say in response to something like this? Koumyou's grief seems more profound to Devero than any loss he's ever suffered; the burden he's left to his son an incomprehensible one to a man from a world without magic. Not for the first time, he feels small in the face of who and what Koumyou is.

But he holds him regardless, and he whispers the only thing he can think to into Koumyou's hair: "I'm sorry. I'm so sorry."

Koumyou shakes like he's being rattled apart from the inside, but he leans into Devero anyway. And eventually he even manages to pry his arms off his leg, and grab onto the front of the bigger man's shirt instead.

"I failed him," he gasps out, still weeping, "I failed my duty, I failed the one teaching I ever passed on... but I couldn't watch him die! I couldn't!"

Devero is a man who hails from a world where community allegiance is valued higher than any individual bond or responsibility. He's a man who understands that duty is supposed to come before any personal bond. The citizen sacrifices for the community, not the other way around.

Devero is also a man from the world where children are so precious a resource that they all grow up as wards of the government. To care for children is considered one of the highest aspirations a person can have. And he's a man who's yearned for family, so desperately that he put his well-being into the hands of a woman who saw him as a compliant commodity.

To Devero, this seems simple. Maybe it shouldn't, but it does. "You saved his life. What else could you do? He's your son."

And yet, strictly speaking, by the rules of his position? Koumyou was supposed to have stood by and watched his son be ripped apart. He was supposed to put the safety of the Seiten and Maten sutras above all else, and even his closest... friend? had assumed his adherence to muichi motsu was absolute.

But in the end, it couldn't be.

It just couldn't. He just couldn't.

The priest's sobs continue to wrack his thin frame, the man weeping like a dam has been broken inside him. But eventually, he starts to calm down. Even if his mind is still whirling in that storm, his body has begun to run out of the energy to sustain it.

Slowly, eventually, Koumyou just... slumps there, in Devero's arms.

"I would immolate myself here and now if it would somehow help him," Koumyou says softly, his exhaustion heavy in his every word, "I would string my guts the length of the train. I wouldn't hesitate."

But there's nothing he can do.

Even if the train sends him on his way... he's dead. There is no going back, now.

Edited 2020-12-15 04:15 (UTC)

Devero will hold him for as long as he needs. The dam may have broken but there's a core of bedrock inside Devero; Valdana's been chipping it away, bit by bit, but she hasn't worn it down yet.

"I believe you," he says. He loosens his arms, but only so he can hold the priest out at arm's length. He tries to catch his eye. "And Sanzo?" --That seems so impersonal. "Koumyou Sanzo, I think I would have done the same thing in your place, if it was my child's life on the line."

Turn and turn about they go, two celestial bodies rotating around a common center of gravity...

Koumyou doesn't meet his gaze, for once, his head drooping, long bangs hiding his down-turned eyes.

"I failed my duty to protect two sutras, threw aside the only teaching I ever passed on, and damned my son to a cruel memory and an even crueler life as the youngest Sanzo to ever exist. And one without a mentor, to boot."

He sounds so resigned. So tired.

"And if that teaching was wrong, then I also failed every friend from the first squad who I watched die. And I failed Tenkai Sanzo and Goudai Sanzo, by doing nothing."

Edited 2020-12-15 04:38 (UTC)

Devero releases him entirely, but only so he can sit beside Koumyou on the bed. He's silent for a moment, considering, before finally saying, "You understand your duty, and the consequences of your actions, more thoroughly than I can. I won't damn you or absolve you of the choices you made. I can't do that.

"The past is what it is," he continues. "Whatever regrets you have now, you can't change what you did then. The only thing you can change now is what you'll do from here on out.

"So-- I guess my question to you is, what do you want to do, going forward? If the person you were before you died for your son brings you so much pain, who's the person you're going to be now?"

Koumyou leans heavily against the bigger man, and rests the side of his head on Devero's shoulder, an exhausted lump of a priest.

"You're right," he murmurs, "I can only control what happens next. But I don't know what that will be. I've been treating my time on the train as a... a strange limbo, in between reincarnations. A waiting room. But I still have a sutra to protect, somehow."

As soon as Koumyou leans against him, Devero wraps an arm around the smaller man and tucks him close.

"You don't have to know right now," he says. "You can figure it out. Maybe-- maybe that's why you're here, instead of-- d-dead. Maybe you're supposed to spend your time here figuring it out."

Religious people believed stuff like that, right?

"Maybe," Koumyou agrees to that much, at least. But Devero's stumble over 'dead' has caught his attention. "...It bothers you that I've died, doesn't it?"

How strange. He's told a few people here that he's dead on his world, but no one really... seemed to give it any thought.

"Well, I've never kissed a dead man before," Devero says, but his attempt at levity falls flat.

He tightens his arm around Koumyou, and leans his cheek against the other man's pale hair. "...You said you got ripped apart." That's the part that bothers him, not that Koumyou was-- is?-- dead. It's the violence of that death.

"Yes," Koumyou's had some time to process what had happened, enough to have pieced it together somewhat. "While there were hostile youkai in the room, the attack that actually fell me was similar to how Goudai's students, and Goudai himself, died."

Ukoku. The heretical Sanzo must not have been in the room, which was probably why he'd 'missed' Kouryuu and hit the larger body shielding him, instead.

"...Ukoku never liked how much of my time and attention went to my son," Koumyou continues quietly, feeling rather detached from it all. "I believe the intention was for Kouryuu to die, and for the youkai to provide plausible deniability."

And then, in theory, he'd have been all Ukoku's.

Edited 2020-12-15 17:46 (UTC)

"Ukoku," Devero repeats quietly. He doesn't like the taste of this name in his mouth. "This is the person whose soul you said shriveled? The one who killed your friend? He's the one who tried to kill your son?"

Koumyou nods, and then reaches up with a hand to try to de-gunk his own eyes from all the earlier crying.

"That's what I suspect."

To say that Koumyou and Ukoku's dynamic is complicated... is an understatement. But, they're Sanzos. Some of that just comes with the territory.

"Goudai was slowly dying anyway," he feels the need to clarify, "he called me to him to act as witness. Any of his students who could have become the next protector of the Muten, would have had to kill him to do it."

That hadn't made it any less horrific to watch.

"Ukoku wasn't invited to that final trial, but came anyway. I think Goudai knew that he would."

That didn't really make it any easier to hear, either. In fact, he slides off the bed and paces away from Koumyou, rubbing a hand across his own eyes as well. His thoughtful silence is interrupted briefly by the sound of water running, and he returns to Koumyou's side with a damp cloth for the priest's eyes.

"You said the Muten sutra is the one that-- that destroys, right?" He sits again beside Koumyou. "Is that why your friend's students had to kill him to take it over?"

Koumyou takes the cloth with a murmured thanks, and uses it to clean his face.

"All Sanzos inherit their sutra over the dead body of their predecessor. One way or another."

They weren't always the one to kill their predecessor, but it wasn't unheard of.

"Goudai was wasting away... collapsing sometimes, coughing up blood. I sometimes think Muten was eating him from the inside, like an acid. I think he just wanted it to be done quickly."

"No peaceful retirement clause in your contract with the gods?" Devero asks, his voice perhaps sharper than is really warranted. He looks at Koumyou sitting beside him, and-- he doesn't want to ask this, but he realizes that he has to.

"How did your predecessor die?"

"There's no retiring from Sanzo, no," Koumyou reaches back with his bandaged hand and pulls the sutra from where it's sticking out of the back pocket of his jeans. "Apparently even death doesn't always free one of their duty."

Because Seiten is here, in his hand, even though he absolutely died.

He meets Devero's gaze for the first time since he'd started crying. Steady, not even offended, looking up and over at the bigger man. "I didn't kill him, if that's what you mean."

That was one reason why he'd asked. But there's another: "Did his sutra eat him alive, like the Muten did your friend?" Will it eat you? is what he really wants to know.

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cw abuse mention

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