Chapter Text
Close…
Your eyes,
You’ll be here soon.
Mari blinked in horror as she watched her little brother, her beloved little brother, take one hell of a 3-minute tumble off of a hospital roof. Seriously, how high was this thing? How long was it going to take him to hit the ground? Oh, shit. Her brother is dying. Oh no.
一 二 三 四 五分
時々 本当に寝たい
でも このワードできない…
If he knew what was good for him, he’d like- jump back in time or something. Mari, as a charismatic girl overall, made her name pretty known in every… Place? In the afterlife? Do Heaven, Hell and Purgatory count as nations? Oh- wait, no! She needed to stop Sunny before he killed himself, and pondering her popularity wouldn’t do a thing.
As of right now, no matter how many times she got distracted, her brother is (luckily) slowly dropping to the ground. Any faster and she’d already be out of time. She didn’t want him to kill himself, but now that he’s already in the act, she needs to stop him! Seriously this time!
O ya su mi…
O ya su mi…
O ya su mi…
O ya su—
Even though, technically, he already is killing himself. For what reason? Guilt? Fear? Cowardice? Calling her brother a coward didn’t feel too right, but it’s not like that’s not what he is. Nevermind, now isn’t the time. He’s not just her brother right now, he’s her suicidal and literally dying brother. Her suicidal and literally dying brother that she loved so much she was going to try time and time again to break the rules of time, space and mortality for. What would she do? Not even she knew, but she knew it might not end well.
Oyasumi, oyasumi-
Close your eyes and you’ll leave this dream.
Oyasumi, oyasumi…
I know that it’s hard to do.
Mari’s mind is racing. Everything she knows is running circles around everything she doesn’t, and she’s a lot more clueless than she’s used to being. Breaking the rules of time, space and mortality… Well, starting with time, she could try to conjure up some “popular girl blondie Y/N powers” and… God, what was she even doing? No, she was trying to… Stop… time? Actually, that might work.
Mari puts her best foot forward. She closes her eyes, squeezes them so tightly she can almost see every color of the rainbow beneath her eyelids. Now is not the time to be distracted. Stop it. Stop everything, she begs. Just stop everything. If this doesn’t work, her beloved brother will die. Please, if anything can hear her…
Mari begs as hard as she can, praying to gods she doesn’t even know exist, and learns how to HALT.
Days go by,
しょうがない…
Moments pass,
Shattered glass…
Holy freakin’ crap, did that actually work? Now, her little brother is simply sitting in midair. Falling? Did it count as falling if he wasn’t moving? Oh, wait. No, she didn’t know how long this new HALT Skill would work for. She’d had her run-ins with Skills, so she knew well how to use them, but as of right now she wasn’t aware if HALT had a time limit or not. She needed to get going. Maybe she could beg again, as belittling as it was. Okay, let’s try that…
Mari closes her eyes. Clutching her hands together over her chest, she prayed. She needed to be face-to-face with God himself, maybe, so he would let her save her brother. Her brother, her dear little brother that was still mentally twelve, didn’t deserve to die this way. No matter how much he wanted to die, Mari wouldn’t allow it.
Begging is not what Mari needed to do. No, Mari needed to demand. She took as much of a deep breath as her ethereal form could handle and remembered how to COMMAND.
Hands of time,
Where’s that chime?
In my head…
I’ll just-
With such ease it was almost stupid, Mari suddenly appeared at the pearly gates of what probably would be Heaven, if not for the inky black substance plaguing the expanse. She sat at a table, across from who she assumed to be God, though He was disappointingly ugly. Now wasn’t exactly the time to insult the Creator, though, so she’d have to wait until she was out of His not-so-holy plane to be snarky. She couldn’t risk rejection, after all.
“ Well, if it isn’t my favorite Suzuki. Mari, my child, what is it you need? ”
Mari had to legitimately stifle laughter. She didn’t know what it was about the way He talked that cracked her up so much, but god, (no pun intended) was it hilarious! She had no time to waste laughing, though.
“We… Might have a problem.”
“ Whatever do you mean, my child? ”
“Pffftttt—“ She quickly straightened up. “My brother. You know, Sunny Suzuki? Yeah, right now I really need your help because he’s TOTALLY about to-“
“ I am aware. ”
“I know you are! But, I can’t let him be taken out this way! Please, it couldn’t have been your choice, right? He doesn’t deserve it, so you’ve gotta help me.”
“ Mari, he’s dying right now for a reason- “
“I DON’T CARE! I don’t care that he’s dying for a reason! I’m so sorry, but fuck that reason! Please. Please, I need my little brother alive, or all that I’ve done to help him will be in vain!” Mari exclaimed, ghostly tears threatening to escape her eyes. Oh. Wait, no. She’s talking to God himself and she just disrespected him. Oh, no. Oh no, no, no. It’s totally over for her.
“ I see. You’re quite passionate…”
“ Mari, you’ll have to take the steps to help him yourself.” Mari was, suffice to say, shocked at the fact she wasn’t immediately crucified or burned at the stake. She needed to be more careful.
“Then what are the steps?! I need my brother alive. He needs to outlive me, or I swear I’ll kill him twice when I see him again!” She half-yelled, looking down. She could feel her eyes lose color just like she could feel herself losing hope.
“I really don’t have time to negotiate with you… Just, please. Let me save my little brother.”
“ Of course, my child. But first, I need you to do something for me. Do not worry. You are not being timed.” God confirmed, much to Mari’s relief. Hey, she was too distracted to laugh at the way he spoke!
“What is it I need to do? Anything.” She caught herself before she begged again.
“ Go to your friends… And try your best to ease their pain. If you can do this, I will allow your brother to live. It should not be that hard.”
“ Damn, that’s it? I mean-“ She should not have said that.
“ Ah, run along now, Suzuki! Your time here is up! ”
“Oops.” Man, God was really rushing her out right now! Fuck Him too then! Whatever, she had a job to complete. As she was (brutally) kicked out of Heaven, a blinding white light seemed to seep through dark cracks in her vision. Shadows in shades of brilliant neon magenta and turquoise danced and twirled in her peripherals. She could feel herself hovering above what was probably the ground. She couldn’t tell anymore.
The light was far too bright. Even as she tried to close her eyes, it shined through her eyelids so brightly she couldn’t even tell she’d closed them as if it was on the inside of her eyelids, too. If blindness was what it costed to save her brother, then so be it. She could save him and her friends, right? The journey was more than worth it. She would make this count, she promised herself. She promised her brother, Aubrey, Kel, Hero, and Basil that she would make this count. A pinky promise!
She was never one to break promises.