By: Daiyu Tang with typo corrections by Yua
Dear reader, let me get this out of the way first (otherwise Ryder will pop up).
I am only human and allowed to have feelings and opinions.
Those of you who follow me properly (and don’t cherry pick my words for your particular point-of-view) will know that I have investigated gangs, investigated police and done my best to report on the crimes, perversions and troubles in our City.
I am coming up to my third year at the University in Columtreal where I study journalism and as part of my course I started as an intern at the Hathian Observer. Now, I am still an intern but because of the predations against journalists and former editors, I do what I can to keep this town informed of the dark and if I can, to banish some of the dark as the ‘editor’.
Why am I saying this? Because I need you to know that what I write below may have some errors or gaps in it. It may contain things people have tricked me with and it certainly contains my strong feelings; and why the hell not? So many of the people in the dark have power over the innocents that I would surely be remiss as your newspaper’s editor, not to warn you, using what emotions I have and what little power that is reserved to me to do so…
I am only human and allowed to have feelings and opinions and I am also privileged to have some form of power. This platform is ‘power’. It is vehicle to tell you the truth as much as I and my reporters can and to warn you whenever we can. Those who try and discredit the Observer, my staff or myself do so because their point of view is not parroted. The HPD attack the Observer because we do not become their mouthpiece. The gangs attack the Observer for the same reason. Does that not tell you, honest citizen, that we are doing something right?
I am only human and allowed to have feelings and opinions and that makes me the right person to tell you the truth. I am not a sociopath, or a psychopath. I am a student, trying to graduate and to make my money fairly and to love freely, without the shadow of corruption or violence.
I also feel for everyone. I wish that I didn’t – I wish that inside I didn’t feel this way, or that my heartstrings cannot be played like a harp. I set my mind to report on one thing and during the course was thrown to a storm. I continue now as I intended, but… maybe I will have to finish differently. Perhaps, saving me, maybe even my life, you won’t read all the way. But I had to write.
There is a Video
Floating around the dark corners of the internet I received enough clues to allow me to find a highly disturbing video. I won’t be linking it here, but suffice to say by the end of it an innocent woman had been thrown from the building by someone who themselves then jumped in an act of repentance. Normally I would of course be providing details on the individual who had thrown this woman… But… But…
But Depth…
By this I mean reader, the Ouroboros. The never-ending cycle, the violence I have written about time and time and time again.
Later, after I publish this, some whether those I indict for the criminals they are, or others who delight in throwing stones will accuse me. They will say:
“Daiyu didn’t get the whole story. Daiyu glossed over something. Daiyu is biased. Daiyu is in the pockets of someone. Daiyu slept with someone.”
I’ve heard it all before. The people who say it have an agenda. To obscure, to distract or to bring up their issues and grievances as if they MUST be told in order for the current thing to have validity.
It’s false readers. The Hathian Snake has been eating itself for a long while. Should I follow our protagonist from their formative years and trace each blow against them (and struck by them) in order to give you a warning about them NOW? No. Should I take up what-about-ism and say to you reader, ‘But she only did it because she was attacked a few months back?’. NO. We control what we do. We control our actions and we can choose to walk away from it. Some people don’t and they are therefore accountable now for their crime. If I, or the police, or you as a Hathian Citizen missed some trauma they suffered BEFORE, we must ask; did they even try and get justice or communicate it? Probably not, they will claim they have no faith in justice, but that’s because they don’t keep faith with justice, just chaos and their own pleasure. It was hidden and now they really really don’t like it when their victim(s) don’t keep the next segment of Ouroboros hidden.
Finally, I am not stupid. Those who go on record now may be doing it to strengthen a hand, or something. So, let me say this before we get into what happened more: Remember the victim. Memento Mori.
She Died
Thrown from the building. Thrown because of the person on the other end of the phone, manipulating, forcing and holding a knife over someone else, miles away.
“Please make him stop. Please. I’ll do anything!”
The victim, identified as ‘Sunny’
How Sunny had been found, or why was never discussed, but it was clear that she was meant to look similar to the woman held captive on the other end of a phone line. She had been captured for a reason by the Yuugen to play in this game they had and now her fate was in the hands of someone else, someone doing what they could to protect the one they KNEW, even if it meant sacrificing the one they didn’t. Sunny was that sacrifice.
I know why she died. Some will say I only got one side, that I choose to only write about a particular point of view. But these segments of the snake, where am I meant to cut it? Should I cut it at the betrayal… should I cut it at the unimaginable loss that when spoken about hurts me, should I track back and blame that loss on something else? Where do I stop readers? I can’t process it… the tapestry of hate and hurt… So all I can do is take one segment at a time. Sunny. Her story that was snuffed out.
They Died
And they died, and they died and they died in droves. Often women, sometimes men… Prey for those bigger, tougher or more ruthless in the city.
Reader, do I think that you don’t know this? No, you are aware of what goes on. Do I think that Tori and her Yuugen, the latest instigators are somehow tougher, bigger or more ruthless than others? Not really. But what I do think is that when Tori came to gloat in hospital and see the outcome of her plots… was she strong? Was it strong to set this up? Was it really a game; trying to one-up some other group? Maybe… but perhaps I agree with the witness below; it is and was a sign of weakness. Someone said to me that empathy is weakness, but I disagree. Empathy may make us a victim, but it doesn’t make us a monster. We choose to be that. But why do we choose? Because we are a victim who thinks that their empathy is a weakness. It’s… just a different cycle.
“They are reeling, they are getting desperate, Tori is desperate and they are getting more and more stupid by the minute, visiting here thinking somehow she could blend in! Cowardly…”
Witness
Whether true or not… whether the Yuugen have stretched themselves and gone too far in this case, I cannot be certain, Tori was spotted in HGH perhaps to ‘confirm her game’ or otherwise rub salt into the wounds before she was ‘chased away’. But I can say that they (the Yuugen) are awful and while I cry for things, because I can’t fucking help it, I will do what I can to warn you. Read these names and learn…
Names – Valar Morghulis
Valar Dohaeris: All men must serve. For those of you who haven’t read Game of Thrones (or watched the series) there is a character with a list. This list has on it those who have wronged ‘A Girl’ or her family. In that way she gains agency over those who have tormented her. As she grows and changes she shortens the list, delivering (in the world riven by fire and ice) justice. Here, in Hathian, we have other options than beheading or murder. We can break the segments and stop the cycle. It just takes time and people with a desire for justice for victims and punishment for their oppressors. While we can never offer our victim that same chance for justice, we can make it a little easier for those with Power to take action.
The Observer, after research, presents a list as far as we have it of the member’s of Yuugen. While there may be associates we have not yet discovered, we will and we will update photos for those missing. Speaking of which, there is a $200 bounty for a photo of Junko or Naruhito and $500 for Takeshi. Good quality photos please.
Some will sneer; “We knew this” or the Yuugen will sneer; “We never hid who we were…” but this isn’t for them, this is for the girl who died and for all of those that we should want to protect from that fate. Look below and remember them. They could be (they are) at your local comic store, they might be in HGH or they might just be around the street and they will kill you if they want. Don’t be their victim.
Tori – Valar Morghulis. No introduction needed to the leader of the Yuugen. If by now you haven’t realised that her road will lead you to ruin then you have not been following just the published news.
Whether you’ll die in her service like a Viking, or be hurt through her indiscriminate terrorism, it’s a wonder and a mystery how she remains alive.
Elben – Valar Morghulis. The Yang to Tori’s Yin as he has been described, Elben goes with and supports Tori in her murderous endeavours.
Little is publicly known about his full background, but his handsome looks cast a shadow from the sides as he directs, protects and perhaps in some way controls Tori.
Nyx – Valar Dohaeris – Manager for Security at the Prohibition, Nyx wouldn’t perhaps have made this list except for recently passed on intelligence of how ‘close’ she is getting to the Yuugen. Whether her boss at Prohibition, Zoey (‘Z’) approves of this link, or perhaps is even in on it, we don’t currently know.
Yua & Kenichi – Valar Dohaeris – Yua who has been pictured in the Observer after being a hostage in the Yuugen destruction of HGH is… unexpected. Maybe she was never the hostage she claimed to be, maybe she has been flipped.
Kenichi – Her partner… little is known to this paper about him but his inclusion on the list provided to the Observer seems plausible.
Mayli – Valar Dohaeris – Mayli, who appears unassuming in this picture is reported to work at HGH, although we understand she has either travelled back to Korea or will shortly do so.
Naruhito… Her/His face is unfamiliar… and so far we just have this name. Maybe it is familiar to you?
Takeshi… His face is unfamiliar but he surely exists… reported to be Tori’s second in command, (if Tori and Elben can be considered first among equals). His Twitter has no real pictures, but surely some exist on security feeds or in events… they will out in time.
Junko… Her face is unfamiliar but she surely exists… an axe and other weapons are often on her person…
Update: The Yuugen were nice enough to send me the picture right, which is apparently Takeshi and Junko. I am not sure on the girl – she kinda looks like she’s mouthing a plea for help.
Update: The Yuugen were nice enough to send me the picture right, which is apparently Takeshi and Junko. I am not sure on the girl – she kinda looks like she’s mouthing a plea for help.
Source: Yuugen Twitter
We Lost Humanity
“There is no winning. No matter where I go the world is the same, it’s just more obvious in Hathian than it is in most places. I don’t hide. I don’t run away. I face the truth of what I am as it is my reality. Maybe that’s why I like it here. Hathian doesn’t hide either. Hathian is the open book on what human nature really is.”
Tori
“I didn’t want to see people hurt or see them suffer”
“I was forced and falsely accused”
“Then I grew up”
“Empathy attracted the predators”
“Humanity made me a target”
“They chipped away at me”
“Again and Again”
“Then one day…”
“I struck back, again, and again, and again.”
“Then I was feared”
“And the fantasy? Your fantasy? It collapsed around me”
“And I learned… it was FUN. Not empathy or humanity that made them do it… it was because it was fun. I like that fun now”
And now reader, I sit here in my office, with a shattered window that cruelly feels like the reflection of myself and dare I say it Tori and others. I started with an objective to warn you about the monster and I have done so. She (and the Yuugen are monsters).
But Gods… like a fork in a train track, she went one way and I have clung onto the other track, but I can still see her across the distance, taking a different route and every now and then our trains cross, out of control. I wonder fear whether one of us shall obliterate the other? But deeper down and more embedded in my psyche… Are either of us screaming to switch trains? I would like to think Tori is. I would like to think that she knows, deep down, that wanting to get off the ride, isn’t weakness; it’s just time for a new game.
So reader, apologies, this turned into whatever it is. Yes, the Yuugen are bad and via their game, a young woman died as a result of the catastrophic nature of Hathian. But before that an unborn child never had a chance and before that… and before that…
Readers, I ask you to remember; remember Sunny, but also keep in your mind all those who have been lost to this senseless game. And for the players, what ‘wisdom’ do I have for you? Especially those who take innocent lives that have yet to be lived… change your track before it’s too late. Last station to love, hope and kindness is approaching and people there would welcome you stepping into their midst.
Daiyu Tang – ‘Editor’ Human
((While I don’t claim to be a great writer, just wanted to say that if typos, or some things that don’t make sense here, more than usual (perhaps 😀 ) then some, may be on IC purpose, or reflect IC feelings Dai has, or distress leading her to make mistakes, or leaps of logic. Sure there are probably a few typist errors as well, but I did just want to say there are some on purpose as well 🙂 ))
