Chapter Text
“Kronii, we need to talk,” Mumei demanded as she stomped into the warden’s room.
Kronii looked up from where she sat on her bed, reading a book by the meager light of the overcast sky filtering in through her window. The room once so full of life and glamour now was drab and dim, a shadow of its former perfection, much like its inhabitant.
“What’s up, Mumei?” Kronii asked flatly. The spark the pair once had, always flirting with each other, had completely died out, leaving just a dry air between them.
Mumei marched back and forth inside the room, Kronii’s eyes barely bothered to track her. “It’s about last week, the building that collapsed.”
“A tragedy.”
“No, it’s more than that! But I’ve been ordered by Bae not to say anything!”
That got Kronii to raise her eyebrow. “Ordered? She never gives orders, not real ones anyway.”
“I know! I want to tell you anyway! I’m going to tell you!” Mumei ranted.
“No.”
“What?” Mumei looked back at Kronii incredulously.
“If she ordered your silence she must’ve had a good reason for it,” Kronii explained.
Mumei stomped her foot on the ground. “I don’t care! She’s… she’s…” She looked into Kronii’s dull eyes and saw that she wouldn’t get anywhere with the warden, she was already too far removed, too broken. “Forget it, Kronii.”
“Okay…” Kronii responded, her eyes drifting back down to her book, leaving Mumei completely alone, even if they were in the same room together.
—
Mumei walked out on the city streets, surrounded by the bustling night-life and flashing neon signs. Cars zipping down the crowded streets, drivers honking and shouting at other drivers or the pedestrians that tried to bolt between them. This was her element, these were her people.
“Spare some change, miss?” Some beggar whom Mumei hadn’t noticed tugged at her arm.
She looked at the poor fellow with sympathy. He was wearing a tattered old coat, the arm that wasn’t grabbing onto her was missing, leaving the sleeve to dangle and flutter in the night breeze. His hair was hidden beneath a toque. His face was scraggly, clearly not shaven in quite a long time. His eyes were tired and sad.
Mumei stopped and gently pulled the man's hand off of her. “Here, just a second…” She grabbed the pouch she always wore and started rifling around inside. “Tell me your name, stranger.”
The sound of metal coins clinking around didn’t go missed by the beggar. “You’ve got a lot of change on you there, miss…”
Mumei shot him a cold look. “Your name?”
“Not safe for a young lady like you to be carryin’ so much…” The man inched closer, greedily eyeing the bag.
Mumei waited, as if daring him to make a move.
The man flailed out with his only hand and tried to grasp onto the bag.
Mumei was too quick for him, she nimbly spun round and with practiced ease and some godly might, roundhouse kicked the man, sending him flying backward careening toward the concrete facade of a building.
“Uch—” the man gurgled as he collided, several of his bones snapped instantly and a spurt of blood bubbled out of his mouth.
His consciousness flickered for a moment, but he was just barely able to stay awake. However it wouldn’t aid him in what would happen next as the owl girl’s dagger eagerly lept from her hand and into the man's neck, snuffing out whatever life remained inside of him instantly.
She started at the mess for a moment, pondering it. This was the reality of civilization, there was joy and happiness, but there was also cruelty and despair. Mumei was a reflection of that.
The council looked at the bigger picture in their goals. They had all worked together on the macro level, influencing the world’s politics, climate, and general fate, leading them toward peace and prosperity globally.
The man’s neck made a disgusting squelching sound as she yanked the dagger free. She wiped the blade clean on her skirt and shoved it back within its scabbard.
The others didn’t see human life as she did. The humans were still here, all living their short meager lives, still as cruel as ever. That was the reality of it. Even if she agreed with the council in their decision to sacrifice everything they held dear to make the goal of peace come to fruition, they couldn’t change human nature.
Mumei turned and continued walking down the street, completely visible yet somehow unseen, her magic bending the minds around her, making them forget that they ever saw her and what she just did.
What she did out here, on the streets and as her duty, wasn’t cruelty, it was mercy to humanity. She didn’t want these people to suffer needlessly, but some of the herd needed to be pruned if they wanted the world to trend toward safer and happier.
That’s why she didn’t understand what Bae was doing. That building, that tragedy, that horrific disaster, it was just so needless, it was pure despair. Cruelty for the sake of cruelty. It was the antithesis of what the council wanted, what the world needed.
Mumei trembled with rage thinking about it, so much so that it felt as if the entire world was shaking around her. Her blood boiled over, until all at once she realized that it wasn’t just her. The world was shaking.
The people around her panicked and ran in every direction. Mumei blinked in confusion, this wasn’t supposed to be happening. This was an earthquake, but the council didn’t do natural disasters anymore.
That little…
Her thought was cut short as she was thrown to her feet by the shaking earth. Stone cracked and the ground began to fracture from the might of the quake.
She didn’t have to be here for the calamity, she wouldn’t achieve anything by getting herself buried beneath Bae’s unprompted malice.
With a flurry of magical feathers she whisked herself away from this place, ready to bring down some hell of her own onto that sad excuse for a council leader.