Vash the Stampede (the_stampede) wrote in marinasylum, @ 2009-09-23 14:13:00 |
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Entry tags: | :action, conrad weller, vash the stampede, yuuri shibuya |
[Action, closed]
((ooc: Forward dated to evening just because I'm home to write this now. If your character wants to tag in, just drop me a line over aim or via ash's HMD.))
Characters: Vash the Stampede
Location: in the computer lab in the educational center
Time: Late afternoon into late evening
Warnings: depressingness
Vash had never dreaded doing something so much. He'd wrestled with the idea of putting off this review to another day, trying to distract himself with other things but he'd known that the dread would just continue until he went though with this and watched the disk.
Besides- anyone who Vash really did hurt deserved better than his own willful ignorance.
Vash had gone to the training center late in the afternoon, a good while after any chained prisoners had been herded out of the facility, and hopefully at a time when no one was around. It looked like the computer lab was empty, but just to be sure Vash took a machine in the back corner, screen facing the wall. He sat down, put the disk into the machine and watched the loading bar appear on his screen. There sure was an awful lot of information on this disk- that didn't feel like a good thing to Vash and he had to steel himself against the urge to get up and walk away.
Before he could lose his courage completely, or build up the nerve to turn his back on this information, the fire director appeared and prompted Vash to select a case file.
There were so many, it was mind boggling. Fear rose up in Vash before he realized that the majority of them were related to damages.
Vash knew he was as hard on people's property as he was the people themselves. He told the filter to exclude personal injury and public and private property damages. The list dwindled to just one page of cases, all sorted by the verdict and charge the system reached in chronological order.
Assault with a deadly weapon - Guilty, unable to prosecute minor.
Vash had to think for a second before he could remember what that one was about... Oh Rem. Vash still felt so guilty for raising a knife against her like that.
The list continued.
Accomplice to Genocide at July City - Guilty
Evading arrest – Multiple counts – Guilty
Negligent homicide of Monev the Gale – Can not be implicated
Negligent homicide of Dominique the Cyclops – Not Guilty
Negligent homicide of E.G. Mine – Can not be implicated
Negligent homicide of Rai-Dei the Blade – Not Guilty
Negligent homicide of Leonof the Puppet-Master - Can not be implicated
Negligent homicide of Hoppered the Gauntlet – Not Guilty
Negligent homicide of Nicholas D. Wolfwood – Not Guilty
Second degree homicide of Legato Bluesummers – Guilty
Accomplice to the escape from capture of a felonious murderer – Guilty
The list stunned Vash. For several long minutes he just stared at the screen where pixels spelled out the river of blood that flowed in Vash’s wake. One name in particular chilled him, making his heart sink down deep into his chest. ...Not Wolfwood. How could that even be?
He selected the case in disbelief, and before long tears were running down his cheeks. Even though it was in the future compared to the timeline Vash knew, he felt responsible even if Sentience had determined Vash innocent. Maybe if he’d gotten there sooner, or would have done something differently. ...Maybe if he’d even known about Wolfwood’s problems before hand he could have helped, but no. Vash was a fool and he doesn’t even know enough about the person he calls his best friend to save him.
Vash buried his arms and wept bitterly for Wolfwood while the remaining part of the file played though. The screen returned to the list of crimes and lingered there for a long while until Vash wiped his face and sat back up again. He hesitated again before selecting the file containing the details of Legato’s murder.
The information contained there made Vash’s stomach twist. Legato coerced Vash into taking his life, by making him choose between Legato’s life and the life of another. Vash felt so angry and so sick by the thought of it. It was funny... Wolfwood was right, and Vash was wrong. He would have to choose; he put a value on two lives and took the one he valued least. Vash hated himself so much for it. There could have been another way to do it, someone along the line a choice that could have been done differently, but instead Vash took the easy way out. He wanted to smash something, feeling so angry at himself and humiliated. A white hot sensation began to gather in his right shoulder as the rage took a physical form.
It took a while for him to sit there and calm down enough that he stopped shaking and digging his fingernails into his palm. The heat in his shoulder faded without incident.
He took deep breaths and decided that no, that was not something he would ever let happen. Even if he couldn’t change the future of another timeline, Sentience already took care of that and it would be Vash’s responsibility to never choose in the course of this new future ahead of him. It didn’t make up for it, but it would keep him from betraying his ideals like that again.
He was so tired by now, he already lost track of how long he’d been in front of the computer. There was one more thing he needed to know, and that was the main thing he’d been dreading.
He needed to know what happened at July. It’d been haunting him for the last 10 years of his life and as much as the idea scared him, deep down he knew he had to be responsible.
Reluctantly, he selected that file and began to watch the events of Lost July unfold.
Hours later, Vash was still sitting in front of the computer which had long since gone over to a blank screen as the monitor entered sleep mode. Vash looked dead as he was paralyzed in fear and overfilled with grief and guilt. There was a terrible weapon in his body, and he used it while fighting with Knives. Hundreds of people, lives with names, faces, kind hearts and dreams all vanished in an instant.
Vash recalled every last one of them.
There was no way he could ever even start to make up for that, and the weapon was still in his body. It could happen again.
Vash was crushed, frozen, and unable to move.