[To say one catastrophe inures you for another is the reasoning of a fool. As her life slots back into place Toko remembers enough of her own horrors. Waking up in the blood of boys, in parts of town she'd swear she'd never been to. The Reserve Course students leaping from the roof, the carnage spilling from their halls and out their doors. The world ripping itself apart for nothing. Hope's Peak, and all its titillating murders and executions and suicides, broadcast live for the world to mourn. The slaughter in Towa City, and the underhanded plot beneath it.
She knows death and she knows betrayal.
That doesn't prepare her for the fire. The blitz. The way fright freezes this too small body as she watches a tutor lose his head. A tent consumed by flames, the shrieks of horses as their manes and coats follow suit. Glenn, the one-man salvation, the pride and joy, now spilling blood and screaming, his flesh crackling into leathery scabs.
They save her father for last.
His father.
He calls for vengeance. It's on her shoulders now. She has to claim the price every cutthroat present must pay. She's only a child.
The sword swings, and her Father is in two parts. One rolls over the sour ground and blinks still. The other slumps and bleeds.
The blade comes for her next—]
Hhhsh!
[Toko seizes in Dimitri's arms. She almost falls loose of him, but snags his silly leather jacket and stamps her feet wider, determined not to bowl over.
Instead, she wheezes. Clings to him. Folds her face into the crook of his shoulder and attempts to stem the flow of tears. It wasn't her family. It wasn't real.
No no no. It had been real. Just far away and long ago.]
...D-dimitri... [Deep breath. A sniffle. Her fingers twist tighter in the unyielding fabric. There's only one thing to say, and it hardly means anything at all.]
Happy Birthday to a man who murders women. Not kills, murders.
She knows death and she knows betrayal.
That doesn't prepare her for the fire. The blitz. The way fright freezes this too small body as she watches a tutor lose his head. A tent consumed by flames, the shrieks of horses as their manes and coats follow suit. Glenn, the one-man salvation, the pride and joy, now spilling blood and screaming, his flesh crackling into leathery scabs.
They save her father for last.
His father.
He calls for vengeance. It's on her shoulders now. She has to claim the price every cutthroat present must pay. She's only a child.
The sword swings, and her Father is in two parts. One rolls over the sour ground and blinks still. The other slumps and bleeds.
The blade comes for her next—]
Hhhsh!
[Toko seizes in Dimitri's arms. She almost falls loose of him, but snags his silly leather jacket and stamps her feet wider, determined not to bowl over.
Instead, she wheezes. Clings to him. Folds her face into the crook of his shoulder and attempts to stem the flow of tears. It wasn't her family. It wasn't real.
No no no. It had been real. Just far away and long ago.]
...D-dimitri... [Deep breath. A sniffle. Her fingers twist tighter in the unyielding fabric. There's only one thing to say, and it hardly means anything at all.]
I'm...I'm s-sorry...