To Judge and be Judged
3nd of October 2006 A.D.
it would be simplest to kill them. Oh how you wish you could blame Usum for that thought, but you cannot really, it is not born of some careless act of malice or desire for vengence against the servants of Emma-O. All akuma are bound to the will of their maker and do his bidding in the world, that bidding is a dark and twisted thing fueled by the blood of their victims, how many more would die if you turned a blind eye? Mon's words come back to you all too clearly: kindness to the guilty can be cruelty to the innocent. Should I be the one who decides guilt and innocence? Looking around at the faces of the people who had helped you fight this battle you wonder what they would say,.
From the frown between his brows you guess dad's guessed you are thinking of something more weighty than what Detective Murphy can put on a report while Gard had turned away to organize her companions for a quick getaway, Harry's busy trying to clean himself up, not that you think there's much hope for that White Sox t-shirt. The only one whose thoughts you can guess at easily are Brother Divisimar from his stories of his order. While they do their best to deal peacefully with shen when they can the servants of the Yama Kings cannot be in harmony with the world for their masters are the world's ruin.
As for sending them to Lady Eiko it risks her plot as well as whoever else might be involved in it. If Emma-O's thoughts would settle on her with suspicion even for a moment their fate would be much worse than death. Is it worth it just to spare torturers dying? Faith would push one to say yes, to trust that for them too there is salvation, but the knowledge of how tight and insidious the chains on them is like a lead anchor to that hope.
I should have just killed them in the fight, your thoughts spiral down to helplessness.
You are halfway though marshaling the arguments you are going to use on Detective Murphy, starting with 'they are already dead' and continuing with 'they have to eat people and their master has no reason to command restraint' when the answer comes to you.
"We should call the Library of Congress, maybe they will take the prisoners. Harry you could make circles to keep them in once I stitch them back together right?"
After a moment's thought he nods, but Brother Divisimar speaks up against it: "They are dangerous now, not only fingers on a hand that had been broken. Send them to the heart of another's power and their master might make more of them, toold fit for a subtler, darker purpose."
Remembering Von Trier's cold eyes and whispering aura you shake your head. "I think they can deal with it, I'll... write down some pointers. It's the only way not to..."
As the words trail off dad comes up to you and squeezes your shoulder, managing somehow to make cold metal a comfort. "Surely it is wroth asking," he says looking around, in what is very much not a questioning tome.
"Closest thing to a legal option we have," Karin Murphy sighs. "Jesus Christ," she mutters so low you practically have to read it off her lips, more a prayer than taking the Lord's name in vain that's for sure..
It only takes you about a minute to unceremoniously entomb the body of the lesser Akuma under concrete for later, by the time you are done the lieutenant is still on the phone. "Yeah he's agreed to hold them... He's sure... That's right lesser, I have Harry's conformation and..." she looks over at you and Lydia, not quite sure if she should be giving teenagers as her sources, but eventually she does so.
Whoever is on the other side of the call has to talk to their superiors leaving you to stack the dismembered prisoners in the back of one of the Monoc vans. In the silence that follows you approach the detective. "About J and the body you could just not explain things say J was out of town, the case if just going to be classed with bigfoot and aliens."
Both of which exist, you don't add aloud as you manage to invoke the ghost of a smile at least , a very tired ghost from the look of things.
"We know how to make bodies vanish," Bones speaks up from the back, the first words he had spoken since his rescue. The rest of the ghouls had cried and hugged, fretted over the people they had been separated from, but the two elders had not joined in. They had known Adam best you know...
Everyone grieves different, you remind yourself and offering professional services is reasonable enough.
It takes Detective Murphy a moment to realize what they had offered. "That will not be necessary." To her credit the tone is well practiced professional courtesy like she gets people offering to eat inconvenient bodies all the time A moment later her phone goes off. The Library of Congress had agreed to take the prisoners off your hands tomorrow, but for the rest of today you have other matters to settle.
***
As you lead the Jade Dogs back through the tunnels to the last station you ask Lockjaw how Adam had died. It's not good... but then you had not been expecting good, only bad and worse.
"Burned 'im he did, the big bone head you killed with dark fire, or darkness in the shape of fire, don't rightly know I'm not a wizard, but there wasn't nothing left of Adam when he was done. The screams... fuck I thought the screams would go on forever."
"Did Adam have any particular faith or spirituality? What would he have wanted done?"
The old ghoul looks down as though to find some insight in the cracked concrete. "If he was killed in a fair fight by another ghoul he'd have liked the winner to eat him like it's... traditional I guess. With the way he actually went I figured you already did what he would have wanted to have done." At your confused look he snorts and gives a tight-lipped smile. "Revenge."
You nod.
Somehow it doesn't feel like it's enough.
"Figure the young 'uns are expecting something more," Lockjaw says after a moment. From his tone it's clear he is not just thinking about the other Jade Dogs and just as clear eh has no idea what to say. Room to grieve is not something that had been afforded to him before and now it yawns before him like an undiscovered land filled with pitfalls.
How do you memorialize Adam?
[] A eulogy, you have not known him long, but for that time it seemed to you he was doing the best he could with what life had dealt him
[] Action, you will make sure something like this cannot happen so easily in the future
-[] Write in measures to make the Last Station more secure, particularly complex changes will add to the number of actions needed to refurbish it
[] Write in
OOC: This is a culture-building moment for the ghouls and, to an extent, for the Jade Dogs as a whole. 
