Day of the Dead [S.S. Star-Crossed]

It was fucking horrible.

Cleaning up the mess from the main city square was a chore, from the crack of dawn to the current time during noon. Needless to say, there was a good amount of wrought and destruction, as well as a lot of calls that had to be made to unfortunate families.

...The rut of it all was that it was all a normal occurrence, as horrid as such an idea was.

Alas, however, it was what needed to be done. During that quieter, more tense day, there were several groups of cautious yet willing groups of people in the main square of New Serenity that worked together in order to clean the ordeal that had happened the day before. ...Albeit, a few of the volunteers did have to catch a breath or two to get away from all of the damage and blood that they had to be faced with.

But that was besides the point.

With most of the dirtiest work done, Matthew Aaron Sanctum sat within another area off towards the borders of New Serenity, somehow at a little sanctuary that served as a sort of central point between all districts. It was on the brink of what seemed to be one of the last, blossoming forests in the dying state of the U.S.A., and was guarded carefully by Phenomenon soldiers. Unlike the normal type, though, they all seemed...neutral. Perhaps peaceful, even.

As the guards stood watch, several civilians from the unified city sat around quietly, giving their respects at the occasional spire of names congealed into a single one of many memorials in the area. Needless to say that, even if you were just looking at this area for the first time, you would know for sure that the bliss and tranquility in this area - known as the Garden of Serenity - was pure all the way through. It was one of the only, truly neutral grounds in all of the nation.

Beneath the shade of one of the trees and inside the general area of a small, miniature garden complete with a little pond would be the Revolutionary leader himself. He was laying down on the ground, his hood pulled over enough so that it actually stayed on his face and covered his eyes. With the gentle rise and fall of his chest, alongside the small amounts of movement other than that, it was safe to assume that he was catching a much-needed nap after helping out in the city square from earlier in the morning up until just ten minutes ago...give or take a minute or so.

They say if you come close enough to death you can see your life flash in replay before your eyes. They say it's a survival function built into the psyche. After the Phenomenon it changed slightly. It started to say that a Necro could see the shade of their past life wandering around their grave on the Day of the Dead. Most Necros passed it off as superstition.

But for those who have already lost everything, having any sort of connection to their past selves was a gift beyond imagination.

And so today, as she did each year, a hooded girl stood in front of a grave in the far reaches of the Garden of Serenity. Her pale hand resting gently on the gravestone as she looked down at it with an emotion akin to grief.

This was her time to herself. Her time to wallow in whatever sentiment had built up over the past year so that she could go back to being her usual self.

Although Satsui Bloodborne didn't honestly know which face was real, and which was not.

As she stared down at the tombstone marked with the name "Marilyn D. Yuusaka", she felt a single tear roll down her cheek. Wiping it away, she let out a heavy sigh and turned her gaze skyward, inwardly wishing for her Shade to appear and give her back what she had lost.

"Hold on, Holy Ghost. Go on, hold me close..." Satsui began, trailing off after a moment before reaching a single hand up towards the sky. She could almost see every life she had taken in the petrified state of her flesh. This was her time to grieve. Not just for herself, but for those lives she had taken, and would take, over the next year.

Look at me, getting all sentimental. This isn't how an Elite member of the Phenomenon should act... Satsui thought weakly, trailing off in her thoughts before she came to the words she had avoided ever since she woke up in that laboratory.

I can't rejoin them anymore. I'm on my own... Whether I be Marilyn or Satsui, I'm always going to be on my own. That's what's been ordained for me. In a few days I'll be lobbing the head off of some innkeeper or runaway Experimental that tripped over the wrong rock. Everyone dies at some point. I'm just the instrument they die from.

As the small scene afar commenced, a faint beeping noise would begin from the sidelines; the sounds of an alarm. To its start, Matthew gave a single, instant movement in reaction to it before falling motionless for a bit. Sighing soon afterwards, though, he shook his head while slowly reeling one of his hands up to his ear and silencing the earpiece from which the beeps came from. In the process, he pressed another button while beginning to sit up, and then went on to sit idly with his hands rested over his knees and his head bowed down. His hood was still up.

Breathing in quietly, the Necro snaked the same hand that he used to silence his communications device upwards, slipping in behind his neck and rubbing it gently before brushing it through his hair tiredly. God... Time's flying by so damn quickly today... he thought to himself. Another sigh left his lips as he finally dragged his hand down his face slowly and stood up.

Slipping his hands into his pockets, Matthew Aaron Sanctum walked towards another memorial spire- pretty much unknowing of the fact that he was quite near the very person that he encountered the previous day. Without much of a sign of noticing exactly who she was, he slowly crouched back down and gazed upon the smooth engravings of the marble figure before him. His gaze stopped maybe three fourths of the way down, and he reeled out of his hands back out to trace his fingers across four names in particular.

...He glanced in between the names with a somewhat blank stare, his fingers following the direction as he traced over an all-to-familiar name.

...God... Even when you're stuck in that hellhole, I guess deaths still make it out to the public either way... Closing his eyes, Matthew shook his head. His tail swayed calmly behind him as he maintained his crouched pose, using his hand as his primary source of balance as it remained secured gently on the memorial. ...It's horrible, but... At least they're still remembered...

Satsui closed her eyes for a moment as a shimmering mist materialized in the air in front of her for the first time in a while. The girl in the mist had brown hair and stunning blue eyes, with features so alike that the two would almost always have been taken for twins. They mirrored each others movements, even when Satsui reached a hand up and pressed it against the air when it met with the Shade's.

"Take a good look at me now," Satsui sang softly as she gazed at the Shade with wondering eyes. "Do you still recognize me, am I so different... inside?" she continued as the mist in front of her shimmered. In her mind, Satsui found herself gazing at a mirror, one which was cracked and dirty. In the mirror she could just barely see her past self, and a memory she could never regain.

"This world is trying to change me, and I admit... I don't want to change with it...." Satsui trailed off as the Shade vanished without a single word. Clicking her tongue in annoyance Satsu swept her hand up to her mouth, biting hard enough on her index finger for a single drop of blood to come to the surface. Waving her hand in the air, she turned it into a single crimson rose before gently setting down on top of the gravestone.

Guess that's it then. At least part of the rumor was true, Satsui sighed in slight disappointment as she turned to walk away, either not noticing or not caring that Matthew was so close nearby.

While Satsui seemed to be finishing her own business, Matthew himself was nearing the brink of his own, internal world. A few seconds after arriving at the little memorial that he and his family shared with several other people, he had closed his eyes, and, although he could still hear the things occurring around him, his attention may or may not have been at one hundred percent as he crouched in his location. Instead, his mind was a bit occupied with the occasional memory and flashback of what little childhood he had, and the few times that he was legitimately happier.

...Albeit, it was because he was a blissfully ignorant kid back then, but still.

Near the end of his trip down memory lane, Sanctum opened his eyes - for he had closed them midway through his little dream state - and gazed upon the stone a final time before gradually reeling his hand away. Giving a quiet sigh, he shook his head as he stood back up, smoothing his clothes down a bit before slipping his hands back into his pocket. "Watashi wa sugu ni saido homon shimasu~..." he spoke softly under his breath as he closed his eyes again and began to walk back towards the spot that he had taken his little time off in.

...Watashi wa sugu ni saido homon shimasu... I'll visit again soon... I promise.

The repetition and instant translation of the self-oriented remark he said cycled through his mind as he stepped forward a little bit. Due to his lack of sight and the fact that he was a bit off-put at the moment while still making the final strides out of his memories, he didn't quite notice where he was going. As a result, he may or may not have ended up bumping into Satsui a little bit. The moment that he realized the close quarters, he opened his eyes and quickly spun around and stepped away, glancing at her with a sort of surprised, yet apologetic look at first, regardless of whether or not he actually made any contact with her. "Aaah...geez, sorry about-..." he began with a friendly smile, a laugh beginning to form within his throat as he spoke up. Once he seemed to notice the person, however, he trailed off, and his smile did actually falter a bit.

Not from rudeness, though. More because he was a bit caught off-guard.

"Hey! Watch where you walk you fucking-" Satsui started, stopping as Matthew apologized and staring a him for a few seconds as he too realized who he had ran into. Satsui silently cursed herself for the slight dampness under her eyes, and her hands curled into fists on either side of her as her gaze sharpened into a glare.

"Tsk. Figures I'd run into someone like you here. You're lucky I'm not having anything to do with the Phenomenon right now, or you'd be dead. Sanctuary or not, you're still on the list, Satsui warned, aiming a deathly glare at Matthew as she took a deep breath and exhaled.

"Can't blame you though. Not today at least, so just don't cross my path again. It's the best thing for you right now," She added, taking a step forwards as if to continue walking away. As she moved one would hear her mutter. "...and probably for me as well."

In an oddly calm yet amused manner, Matthew just let Satsui speak her part as she went on. While she talked, he took the moment to quickly and silently observe her, so it was a given that he noted her little expression before her anger seemed to catch on. He just sighed and rubbed the back of his neck for the meantime, though, and merely shook his head in a seemingly non-minding way towards the venom in her words. "Yeah, yeah. I know, still a top target. No need to remind me-" he responded quickly and casually, though cut himself off as the girl turned away and began to embark upon her way yet again.

"...Waiiit a moment, there," he said quickly, and actually proceeded to take a single, large stride after her before sweeping around her flank and just looking at her. "I got a couple of questions since you're here - including one along the lines of "Holy shit, you're taking a day off? Impossible!" - but that's weirdly the least of my interests and worries right now. ...The one at the top of the list would actually be something that I'd at least get punched for, given the situation...and...stuff."

He just tilted his head a little bit as his eyes softened a bit, and he crossed his arms gently.

"...Why the tears?"

"Yes. I'm taking the next few days off. What's your point?" Satsui snapped, continuing to glare at Matthew as he finished his phrase and paused. "It wouldn't get you punched. I don't punch, I kill," Satsui stated matter-of-factly shortly before Enfield phrased the aforementioned question.

"Tsk. Why does it not surprise me that you'd ask a stupid question like that. Let me remind you then: You aren't the only one who has regrets, Matthew. I have some things I didn't get to do before I died, and most of those I still haven't done. Don't think for a moment that I was crying. Just some leftover sentiment that I haven't managed to get rid of quite yet." Satsui said, her glare ceasing only when she closed her eyes and crossed her arms. She had shifted her weight to one side at some point during her little speech so that she was tilted more to her left side than usual.

In what could've been amusement, Matthew smiled softly and chuckled. As he heard Satsui's first words, he actually shook his head and lifted his hands up in an innocent manner, taking what he thought was a threat oddly well than others. "Okay, yeah, how could I forget that? After all, when on duty, that's how almost everyone is," he sighed quietly, shrugging. "Whatever, though... No matter the cause, I guess the best of the best still needs breaks sometimes."

Slowly, he lowered his arms a little bit, allowing them to move towards his flanks yet again. While one of his hands slipped into his pocket of his pants and seemed to be searching for something, the remaining simply mimicked the movement, except towards one of the pockets of his hoodie before staying in there. "Heh...so even the great Satsui Bloodborne has her share of bad instances that still get to her sometimes, huh? ...That's good to know," he said. Once he said this, he seemed to absentmindedly tilt his figure to the side, as well- although in the opposite direction that the girl had earlier. "Don't mean that in a bad way, of course... After all, it pretty much proves that you're not all you say you are nowadays. Not all the way through, at least."

At the end of that statement, the man glanced down towards his side as he finally pulled his hand up from his pocket, bringing what seemed to be a small bandanna - or some type of cloth, at least - with it. He took a moment to fold it once or twice before just holding it out to his former companion. "Sure, sure. You weren't crying, just getting over the sentiment. Try using this to help with any sentiment that's still possibly there right now." Despite what happened earlier, he still showed kindness and whatnot. It was in his nature to. So, it was no surprise as he added on, smiling softly and winking a bit, "If you don't do it yourself or reject for whatever reason, then I'll probably take matters into my own hands~."