Mirai SMP (SMP Live AU x Future Diary)

➸ ᴄʜᴀᴘᴛᴇʀ 46: victim to his darkness

[ I know I always do this but aaa please play the music whole way !! ]

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NUMBER 13 — JOKO

XX HOURS BEFORE

One by one, the goobers all begin to disappear, signifying that their disappearance is due to Joko's nearing death. His sword God had given him disappears, too. Of course. They were created for him to dodge his death after all, right? But now that he's failed to dodge his death, his punishment is this.

Laying sprawled and helpless on the concrete rooftop, he cranes his head around to look at his now-torn off arm. Blood is pouring like an endless cascading waterfall from his open wound.

Without blood supply, I'll inevitably die. When an arm is amputated without blood supply, the victim can last between 1 - 6 hours. I learned that from being in the police force.

He closes his eyes as he reminisces over his past days of working at a policeman. He hadn't been working in the force for too long.

In fact, he joined the day after he found out Amanda's mother had passed away.

Seeing her miserable — seeing her feel so lost and alone — he couldn't bare it. So he joined the police force realising that if he didn't know how to protect her that time, he'll learn now. And if anything else were to happen to her, he'd know how to protect her.

And not just her, either — but anyone whose ever felt that. Anyone who's felt like they were weak. Lonely. Afraid. Being part of the police force was a reminder that he does have the power to change people's lives for the better.

But now he's the one who feels that — now he's the victim. Weakness, loneliness, fear. It's building up inside him and he can feel himself breaking.

Footsteps silence his thoughts. He opens his eyes drowsily, and sees a man walk towards him, past Techno's collapsed body.

"Well how the tables have turned."

Schlatt.

"Good job, Schlatt." Joko murmurs weakly, attempting to crack a smug smirk. "You managed to fool me into keeping you alive. I give you props to that."

Schlatt stops walking, until he's only a few metres away from Joko. His entire face is bleeding, coated and painted with wounds and slashes. And not to mention his entire arm is gone— he's never seen him look so weak before. Both mentally and physically.

Schlatt turns around slowly, glancing at Techno's fallen body in horror. Joko picks up on this.

"Don't worry, he's not dead." Joko says. "At least, don't think so. Received no critical injuries, just blacked out."

Schlatt relaxes a little, but his confusion's still there.

"Why aren't you going to kill him?" Schlatt asks, turning back to Joko. "There's still time."

"Because I'll die anyway. None of it will matter," Joko frowns, voice lowering. "It won't be long before I bleed out to death. I'm just stalling for the inevitable."

"Dead end?" Schlatt asks.

"Yeah."

He smiles, not smugly this time. This time, it's a smile of sadness.
A few seconds of silence pass, of neither one of them moving nor speaking. All the while Joko's head spinning:

Why isn't he killing me? He could kill me right now. Why isn't he doing it? He could kill me and Techno right now and win. Does he not want that?