Chapter Text
A few hours ago, she was sprinting past the run down streets of Fūchu. She found herself doing that a lot recently. The Tragedy was in no means friendly to anyone, but she felt she was particularly worse off compared to everyone else. Despair was prevalent, and hate and violence followed it.
She would constantly seek refuge in abandoned shelters and stores, and as decrepit as they are, still provided her with a roof and walls to sleep in. Insects and wild animals made for very odd housemates, but in the worst of days, they provided enough allure for her to not die out of boredom.
This would buy her time, time to think about where to go next, to think about where to find food and ration said food, to find some passable water to drink.
She would be lucky if the shelter she found wouldn't be raided a couple of days after she had just found it. She had to be constantly on the move. On one hand, scavengers would just be more eager to just grab whatever you would leave and be satisfied with that, Despairs on the other hand, would be an entirely different story. Their minds are warped to entirely ignore certain things. One of them could be exhaustion. So with some of them, she'd have to be running away for hours, sometimes even half a day, to escape their unrelenting hunt. Sometimes it gets cut short right then and there when Despairing people just start killing off each other instead. You could never tell.
This time though, she wouldn't be running from crooks or Despair stricken people. Temptation nearly got to her, and she almost did something she would very much regret later on. She had just recently settled down in a new shelter, but she knew she couldn't spend a minute longer after an encounter with a Despair.
She had mentally said goodbye to her recent shelter, an abandoned 7-11 store, which still had most of her stuff in it, foraged food and drinks, bootleg weapons and a comfy pink hoodie she had found near the beginning of the Tragedy, which had served to be very useful in the winter and as a pillow. She just needed to get away. She needed to survive, she needed to preserve what little normality she had left, she reminded herself her own humanity. She was still human. She is. So she ran. She never looked back. She didn’t look back to see if they chased her. She just wanted out.
Her feverish legs took her past multiple towns, eerily silent and no semblance of light whatsoever. She never stopped, never yielded. After what felt like hours, her mad dash came to a halt when she tripped over something, in the split second realizing they were rail road tracks. She flew for a considerable amount, crashed and the momentum caused her to slid along the gravel. She ended up lying flat on her back, biting her lip as she felt the searing hot pain from fresh scratch burns on her limbs. Her chest went up and down, not at all steadily as she made her best attempts to calm herself down, and keep everything inside. But eventually she let out a pained shriek.
She stared at the sky, painted red by the polluted air, with black blotches served as clouds. She was breathing pretty heavily as she calmed herself, taking in the horrid smell the Tragedy brought along with it.
She wanted to heave, she wanted to rip off her skin, she felt disgusted being soaked in sweat, grime and blood, she was feeling hunger pangs, her feet felt like they were going to burn off and her mouth felt incredibly dry. She thought about home, she thought about having hot meals when she wanted them. She thought about the comfy bed she would collapse to after staying up past midnight to work on random projects she jerry rigged. She had always been too precarious, and didn't like taking things too easy, but at the moment, she thought home was the best thing she could ask for right now, none of this tragedy nonsense, none of this non stop running. So, she felt like crying as well.
After a while the ground started to rumble, which meant a train would probably come whooshing by. For a moment she thought about staying there, but brushed those thoughts aside eventually and got back on her feet.
Now with a slight limp, trying to avoid as much pain from her cuts as possible, she resumed walking. She glanced back for a while when the train finally whizzed by, and then brought her attention back forward. She came across a roofed shopping district, which showed signs of decay. Faint red moonlight poured through the holes, which gave it an eerie appearance to her. The most bizarre thing though was that it was blocked by some wreckage, there were some scraps of run down cars in there along with some destroyed concrete and a collapsed lamppost.
It didn’t look very natural, which piqued her interest, and never mind the fact that it was a shopping district where she could find some good stuff to scavenge. The wreckage itself was high enough that she couldn’t jump over it in a single leap, so she tried entering the shops up front to see if she could make it around their back rooms. She tried what looked like a takoyaki store, but the doors were barred shut and the windows were all boarded up. She went back to check the wreckage if she could find a crowbar or something that could substitute as one, but the best thing she could find was rebar with some concrete stuck to it. Whatever, she thought, at least she could use something to fend for herself for now. She tried the other store, but that one just looked like it was bombed out. There were remnants of blast marks and the nostalgic scent of gunpowder. With no other options, she tried to pull together some rubble that she could feasibly move around and used them as a step stool.
When she finally made it over the wreckage, she felt her breath hitch, reminding her of her fresh cuts and scratches. She would just have to make it quick and go look for some disinfectants and bandages.
She checked around an electronics store and grabbed as much junk she could get into her sack of rice(she found a store that used to sell rice, aside from a few grains scattered on the floor, there was nothing else but discarded sacks). Disposable cameras, burner phones, discarded PC parts, cracked LCDs, radios, Nintendo consoles and a bunch of batteries. She doubted could make use of like, 90% of these, but she felt like she had nothing to lose.
She eyed a tiny, old desktop PC on top of the counter. Walking over to it, she tapped the power button, which didn't do anything. She didn't expect much anyway. Still, she thought of stashing it too, grabbing some random set of cables, a processor and a motherboard and a hard drive, hoping to trouble shoot this metal brick(and find a place with electricity still). Troubleshooting wasn't her field of expertise, but she knew enough about them to get them to work.
For the first time in a while, she felt a smile creeping up onto her lips. There were few things that could get her excited in the apocalypse, and a store full of junk was definitely one of those. Her little celebration was cut off when something went off in the edge of the store. The store was lit brightly for a brief moment, she could tell almost immediately it was a camera flash. No one else seemed to be inside with her, but she didn’t stick around to wait for a newcomer. She tied a fast knot on the sack and made her way out of the electronics store.
She ran back as fast as she could, but she could hear something gaining close to her, which seemed much faster than her. She sneaked in glances behind her back and saw a figure slowly walking towards her direction, who was still quite a distance away from her position. The sounds of the footsteps were much, much closer than that. She turned her head back forward, and she noticed the shadows of what could be her pursuer. It finally dawned on her that her pursuer was on the roof. The footsteps eventually stopped, but she didn’t even consider stopping. She felt danger. The wreckage she leaped over came into view, her hopes bubbling up as she tried to desperately escape for the second time in a day. Unfortunately she noticed a looming shadow cast right on the foot of the wreckage, and a figure came leaping down, their landing causing a loud, thunderous sound. This figure was somehow... smiling? They jumped off of the wreckage and started approaching her.
“Get the fuck out of my way!” She screamed, throwing her sack of junk on the floor and swinging her rebar club sideways at the pursuer.
The pursuer dodged with a perfect split, and countered by kicking her club away. In that moment, she got a better look at her attacker. A twenty something year old woman, brown hair tied in a wild bun, tall(taller than her), tan skin and wearing a red track suit. Her eyes looked fierce and manic, and her smile looked more like a sneer. After a moment, her expression softened up, and she turned her attention behind her. “HEY!! Looks like we got a fighter here! Tell Chimichurri I'm calling dibs on this chick!"
The person behind her screamed something back, but she couldn't make out a single word they said. The woman right in front of her seemed like she understood entirely though and flashed a thumbs up.
She scrambled to pick her rebar club back up. She looked at the woman straight in the eyes. "What the hell do you want?"
The woman rested a hand on her waist and replied with a snort. "Heyyy, ease up! Just stopping you from going back there, is all!" The woman assured her, before effortlessly leaping over on top of the wreckage.
She leered at the woman as she felt her grip tighten on her club "So what, am I gonna be held captive here? This your territory?"
The woman turned her head ever so slightly and spoke. "Ah come on, we're not going to do anything like that. So chill out! My friend over there's gonna explain everything. She's better at the whole talking thing!"
And with that, she dropped to the other side, and soon enough, she was gone.
"What in the hell was that…" She felt her eyes squint as she listened to the woman's steps carry away farther, until it was inaudible. She shifted the weight of her club on her hands, as she then turned to face the other person.
In contrast to the warrior goddess just now, this person was sluggish, moving at a rather slow pace. Now, this was the fucking apocalypse, you'd grow to learn that there's only two types of people: defensive and aggressive.
Defensive types, well they're all cautious and easy to rattle — they'd be scrambling the moment they feel their life's in danger. Aggressive types, though, if they're not defending whatever properties they have — they'd be scrambling at you in a Despair driven rage.
If she was an aggressor, their approach was very unconventional. She eased up her grip on her weapon a little, but decided to maintain her guard.
Eventually the person got close enough that she could tell some of their features. Most definitely human, average height, meek posture and dressed conservatively and professionally, donning a suit and tie. Her dark hair was neatly done, fringes swept and kept with clips and the back of her hair tied in a loose ponytail.
She almost forgot she was supposed to be on alert; this person looked so out of place, she looked… normal. It had felt like it had been so long since she saw someone that didn't wear dirty, ragged clothes and unkempt hair, covered in dust and soot.
The dark haired woman looked a bit uneasy, and was nervously fiddling with her fingers together, eyes flipping from looking at the ground, surroundings and straight at her. Okay, well, most definitely not an attacker.
She started laying down her club. She then waited for her to say something.
When it was clear the suit lady wasn't going to say anything, she thought she'd break the ice instead.
"Hey, don't suppose you-"
"Uhm uh hello, I'm Taka- ah!"
They spoke at the exact same time. She pursed her lips together and gestured to let her keep going.
"Ah… ah! Uhm, I'm Takahashi Hanabi! I'm your assistant's evening today! You'll be in your care!" She screamed it out, bowing and presenting a card at the same time. "Ah! Only if you were willing of course! We wouldn't take people in without their consent!" 'Takahashi' added.
Her brain blanked when she heard the phrase 'your assistant's evening'.
"You're my what now?" she asked.
"Ah! I'm sorry! I messed it up again, didn't I?"
She scratched her head and took the card. Or at least tried. It was firmly in Takahashi's grasp, while still bowing in that position, trembling.
"Let… go!" she said as she tried to pry 'Takahashi's' hands off of the card. "Shit, are you two some kinda lame ass comedy routine?"
Seemed like Takawhatsherface had realized what was happening and quickly jolted up from her position, but then bowing multiple times again. "Oh my — uh I'm so sorry!"
She furrowed her eyebrows and clicked her tongue. "You're a fucking disaster." she said, which was drowned under a sea of 'I'm so sorrys'.
Her card read 'Future Foundation' at the top. Her brows somehow furrowed even more. The Future Foundation was the group that vowed to put an end to the Tragedy. She thought that they were doing a pretty awful job at it, considering the state of the country. What was this person doing here though, she wondered. If she can recall correctly, the clown foundation's situated at central Tokyo, why would an agent be around bumfuck nowhere?
She checked the rest of the card, which she then realized was just the other woman's ID. She guessed Takahashi's info's just out in the open for her now.
Takahashi Hanabi, twenty-one years old, seventh Division.
Her eyes went back to Takahashi, sighing exasperatedly and rolling her eyes.
"Straighten the fuck up already, geez. You're a member of the Future Foundation aren't you? Shouldn't you guys be all stoic and cool? And what are you doing here of all places?"
Takahashi rose back up from her position and looked embarrassed. "Uhm… well… I'm on leave. Indefinitely. Though my boss put me up to some new work for now so uh…" Takahashi fiddled with her fingers again while eyeing her wounds. "You're in need of care, right?"
The last time she had a 'peaceful' walk with someone, one that actually let her cut loose and just leisurely walk without being in constant terror was with some random person she met through solidarity of being messed up by the Tragedy. She even taught them how to make weapons to fend for oneself, and basic survival tools like bootleg flashlights, a water filter, and some gas masks back when the air was just way, way more poisonous.
It was a good there weeks until they eventually caught Despair and well, Despaired at her.
This could classify as a chill walk, though she had now realized, after this Takahashi person applied some first aid on her wounds and offering to take her to a settlement, she couldn't ignore the gun that was strapped on her back. She wondered if it was real, she tried reaching for it only for Takahashi to turn around and shake her head. She couldn't even begin to figure out how Takahashi knew she was trying to reach for it. She began to construct questions in her head to pry some information about this settlement, but at this point, she felt too exhausted from fatigue and hunger. And also something else distracted her from asking anything, because something started feeling weirdly alien to one of her senses. Something smelled... weird?
They eventually got to the end of the shopping district, a waterfront that also served as a fish and farmer's market, at least back then it did. The rest of the waterfront was lined with massive tents.
The place looked fairly busy, a few people would come in and out of the tents from time to time, and she couldn't help but notice that the tents were rather high quality, appearing similar to military tents. Looks like this place is pretty professional, she thought.
On the waterfront's edge were some people casting fishing poles into the sea. She could also spot some fishing boats sailing slowly.
"Uh… well… this is it! I hope it doesn't look too bad… Is it too bad? Would you like to step in?" Takahashi asked.
She inspected the place one last time. It looked… too organized to be Despair. So maybe she could trust this place a little.
She sighed. "Fine. Do you have some fuckin' ramen? I smell some fuckin' ramen."
Chapter Sketch
Design Sheet for our protagonist
