Season 3/ Suzune Gikou - "Counting Sheep" [The Third Trial Projection]

Robert McCay

The sigh of relief Robert breathes out is shortlived. He looks at the keys for a long moment, then back to the mannequin in his arms. After a whole projection of carrying it around bridal-style, he lets it slip out of his grip. It falls to its knees and claws at the hem of his bathrobe.

“…So that’s what all the fuss was.”

He picks up one of the keys and turns it over in his fingers, his other hand brushing through the mannequin’s nonexistent hair. He sounds weary and lonely.

“It was fun t’pretend fer a bit, but… y’don’t have his heart. He’s so kind and cares so much about everyone. If he’d seen what we all just saw, he wouldn’t have just…”

He stands up tall and solemn again, holding the key out of reach. To unlock or not to unlock…

“…Neither option really feels right. But I guess that’s the point, huh? What are y’all thinkin’?”

Emmy | Akemi

Akemi knows this was not an easy choice for Suzune to make. She knows why it was a choice she made, and she equally knows why it was the last thing she’d have ever wanted to do. Suzune was a kind person, but as Akemi had been suggesting for at least a couple of months, she took on so many burdens. Too many.

“Gikou-chan cared deeply for Chiyu-san. She didn’t want to send her away, but she felt she had to.”

This mannequin is not behaving as Suzune truly would– Suzune would look at her with a sad smile and tell her to do whatever she needed to do, the impact on Suzune herself be damned. She’d keep her damn hands off of Akemi once she said she didn’t want to be touched.

Then again, this mannequin isn’t supposed to be Suzune– not really. It is supposed to be Chiyu. It is supposed to be a person woven into her life, who cannot survive without her. The real Suzune is far stronger than this.

“I said not to touch me.”

Akemi allows the frustration over that loss of control– that violating and horrible moment– boil over. She grabs at the chain with her cuffed hand, yanking the mannequin’s arm with far more force than she otherwise would. She winces at the feeling of those chains digging slightly into the side of her hand while she pulls the cuff close enough to insert the key into the lock. Maybe this was what the real Suzune felt, then. Then again, maybe not.

This isn’t Suzune. But this is what Suzune chose to do. Perhaps it was wrong, perhaps there was a better way, but Akemi is not in any position to suggest such a thing now. She has little choice but to honor the same decision Suzune herself, the real Suzune, had made.

She unlocks the cuffs.

Chula - Suzune

Emmy | Akemi She unlocks the cuffs.

As Akemi unlocks her cuff, the front door to the house swings open. The mannequin, panicking, begging, and screaming in a familiar voice is sucked out of the door and into the front yard. You can see them standing through the window, shivering and cold, eyes wide. A red dot lights up on their forehead, before you hear the gun fire. Blood splatters across the window, leaving their scream ringing in your ears.

Akemi disappears, exiting the projection.

Robert McCay

“…Jesus…”

It’s not what Suzune chose, and he knows, he knows this isn’t really Tony… but he’s already seen his partner get shot in the goddamn head one too many times already.

“I’ll… see what happens if we stay.”

Chula - Suzune

Robert McCay “I’ll… see what happens if we stay.”

As Robert decides to keep their cuff locked, their mannequin drags them over the the couch to sit, where they cling and snuggle up to him. Though it doesn’t hurt, you feel your lungs slowly losing air. You’re suffocating. Painlessly, perhaps, but suffocating nonetheless. Dizziness overtakes you, as your vision fades in and out, before your body gives out.

Robert disappears after dying, exiting the projection. Robert’s mannequin slowly fades away.

Emily Lewenhock

The tiny weight of the key shifted in Emily’s hand as she inspected her cuff. Or, tried to. The mannequin started making such a flailing fuss it knocked the both of them over first.

“Still not the time—”

Though given the hints and Akemi’s more concise advisements, Emily could certainly guess where this was going. Did not like that.

Hopefully the apparent mannequin couldn’t actually overpower her as easily as she knew an actual athlete could, or this would be even more impossible physically than it was mentally. She watched her “ex” for a minute.

“Sure, Mr. Tough Guy. Like you’d ever beg for your own life.” He’d pretty explicitly not done that, actually. Death hadn’t felt as certain in real life, maybe, but…

Well. This was clearly the route they were supposed to take. When had she ever done otherwise?

With some struggle, she unlocked the cuffs.

Chula - Suzune

Emily Lewenhock With some struggle, she unlocked the cuffs.

As Emily unlocks her cuff, the front door to the house swings open. The mannequin, panicking, begging, and screaming in a familiar voice is sucked out of the door and into the front yard. You can see them standing through the window, shivering and cold, eyes wide. A black-robed figure comes running at them with a knife, stabbing multiple times and splattering more blood across the windows, leaving their scream ringing in your ears.

Emily disappears, exiting the projection.

Just Kaoru now, what will he do?

Kaoru Naito

He, maybe surprisingly, hesitates. He watches the other three make their choices, eyes alert. What would he do? Looking down at the sad little man he has restrained, he lets him go, and the mannequin, of course, turns and hugs him, clinging and pleading for no one to hear.

“It’s never enough—! I can never change your mind, but I still care about you, asshole!”

Haha. Well, what he should do feels obvious; and it’ll play to what he thinks of Suzune’s psyche, the one that’s shouldering all the blame for this and thinks she basically killed him (well, “her” for Chiyu, but that’s now who he’s staring at right now).

If he wants to stay so bad, this is how it should end. He drags his mannequin to the kitchen to grab the knife— and for a second, he thinks of Gracie— before grabbing the mannequin’s head to just stab it in the neck, banging on the back of the knife if the wood proves actually difficult to stab through.

Chula - Suzune

Kaoru Naito If he wants to stay so bad, this is how it should end. He drags his mannequin to the kitchen to grab the knife— and for a second, he thinks of Gracie— before grabbing the mannequin’s head to just stab it in the neck, banging on the back of the knife if the wood proves actually difficult to stab through.

The knife connects, plunging into Kaoru’s mannequin’s neck. Blood spills from the open wound, spreading up the knife and onto Kaoru’s hands. Covered in blood from his fingertips to a bit above his wrists, the blood continues to pour, far more than you would expect this level of wound to give.

Red covers the floors, creeping up the walls as the room seems to shrink, stained with its color. Soon, the ceiling is touching the top of Kaoru’s head, weighing down upon him, causing him to crouch. Soon, the weight of the house bears upon his shoulders, his back. Kaoru feels horribly sick, a nausea turning his stomach ten times over, yet all he can find himself capable of doing is forcing a smile, as if to comfort the corpse of the mannequin beside him.

He’s on the floor now, as the room grows so small that only the two of them can fit. Kaoru and his mannequin, holding hands in this closed, red space. You close your eyes from exhaustion. You exit the projection

MILGRAM

Just as you’re beginning to wonder what takes to end this projection, everything around you shutters into darkness. A breath, a blink, the shadow of a laugh, and then you’re once again standing in the relatively empty courtroom. Any injuries or other strangeness incurred during the projection has vanished in like fashion. It’s all finished, it seems, though the wardens still have to release the prisoner from the pathetic remaining restraints on the chair themselves. You wouldn’t want to risk undoing them anymore, would you?

As you’re all shooed away, down the long hallway and back to the core of the prison and your daily life there, all that’s left is for you to ponder what on earth all of that meant.

Emily Lewenhock

Ah. That. Was worse than Emily had expected. She’d braced herself, thinking from Akemi’s round she was prepared, but—

A stranger. A stabbing. A scream.

She dully wondered if that’s what they would have done to him.

“……..”

That’s… fully her problem, though, not Suzune’s. Probably best to just go blow off the steam first now that she was back in the real world. Or whatever this was.

Maybe no more projection-hopping for her, actually.

Emmy | Akemi

Akemi does expect unlocking the cuffs to lead to her watching Suzune die– but like this. This isn’t what happened to Chiyu. She was already feeling vulnerable after losing her own autonomy, after being forced to kiss someone she never saw in that way, and now this. Perhaps had things gone differently in there, she’d be more composed, but somehow the perfect storm had gathered and broken the grasp she’s been keeping on herself all this time. This was designed specifically to hurt her. And it worked.

Her ears continue to ring with the sound of a gunshot, a scream, even as the silence of the projection room envelops her. Her fingertips feel like static and her blood feels like ice and her breath is caught in her chest and her head feels like it’s spinning and her stomach is churning and–

--she can feel a faint prickling in the corners of her eyes.

“…”

She hates this place. She hates this place so much she can’t stand it. Being the first one out of the projection, Akemi finds herself standing in a mostly empty room, only able to see Suzune strapped down into that horrible, cruel machine. She wants to run out of the room, to go to her cell and shove her memories of this place well and truly out of her mind for a while, but her body is frozen in place and she cannot will herself to move.

All she can do is push it all down, as hard as she can, in the hopes that no one else has a chance to see her like this. She probably only has a few more seconds by herself before someone else comes back from the projection alongside her.

She squeezes her eyes closed and turns her head where she hopes the others won’t see it, fighting to wrangle back some sense of self-control while the others gradually come to.

She’ll reassure Suzune later, or at least she’ll try to.

Chula - Suzune

As Suzune comes to… Well. She doesn’t, actually. There, in her chair, Suzune seems to remain eerily still. Ah, no, her steady but small rise and fall of her chest reveals she is simply peacefully sleeping, rather than waking up with any particular emotional reaction. A brief, and tiny snore emits from her as her head rolls to the side in search of a pillow.

Robert McCay

Robert comes to next, gasping for air. Being literally smothered by affection from what he now saw as a strange, pitiful doppleganger of his beloved partner was– that was a way to go, for sure. Much to think about. At least it was physically painless, though it left his heart aching more than ever for the real Tony, wherever he was by now.

He sees Akemi… and looks away, for her sake. Emily seems more stunned than completely distraught, at least, though she’s leaving pretty quickly. Kaoru’s still out cold. And Suzune… Mrs. Gikou…

The wardens half-heartedly try to usher him away, but Robert stays put for a second.

“I know we need t’clear out, but she needs the rest… Shall I, er, take her t’her room?”

He gently mimes scooping her out of the chair and looks around for objections.

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