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( Cut for non-interactive part. )

Zack Fair has gone home.

[ The woman's voice is flat, her face expressionless but unhidden for the journals, her pride refusing to allow anything else. Even so, there remains an all-too-telling pause after she's gotten that most important part out, her tongue tied by the knowledge of just what going home means for him in particular. It takes her a moment to press on towards the rest of what she intended to say, but then- ]

The leadership of Brave Vesperia is left to Sokka, Luke, and Emil... under the concession that the name remains as it is. Everything else will need to be sorted out... as well as his bar shifts.

[ ... Another brief pause, but then there's just nothing more to add without prompting; lips turning down for just a moment, she cuts the initial message off right there.

And once that's done, there's not much else to do aside from what she probably should have done before gathering up all her belongings: scoping out somewhere else to go that's not the house she shared with her friends here for so long. Accompanied by her doggy shadow, she wanders the village with apparent purpose but... without an actual goal in mind.

At least a conscious goal, that is. By the evening, she's there at Good Spirits anyway, even though technically she doesn't have a reason to go any more. She simply slips in and finds a table to frown at, eventually wondering herself why she feels a need to be in public at all, when most people in her position (especially with a personality like hers) would be hiding away.

The answer's not too hard, but it keeps her mind occupied well enough. ]

[ Whenever there's an experiment, it always seems like Lightning gets a few days to contemplate the rest of the village going mad before anything happens to her too, doesn't it? It's not very amusing to her at all, especially considering she's spent the last few days fretting and waiting. She's been trying to stay out of trouble, but...

A Farron is not easily cooped up for long. Before she knows it, she's pacing her entire residence, messing in the kitchen for no reason, sitting on the floor with Baldr while staring at the ceiling, and-- ugh, stepping outside for just a minute won't hurt, right? Just as long as she avoids any weirdos who might attempt to pull her into something. Besides, everything seems normal right now. She feels normal.

With marked determinated, she walks out the front door and-- FGFDUAGFA, SOMETHING IMMEDIATELY FALLS ON HER HEAD??

And yet as soon as she leans down to see what it is, the woman goes stiff, looks up to gape at the cloudy sky, and then takes off at a sprint in the direction of the village square. Shortly afterward, if you happen to be anywhere outside: ]

Oh! Don't go!!

[ Hello, there is a woman with feathers stuck in her hair and dressed all in horribly clashing yellow trotting up, looking quite upset. And a little annoyed too, but... that's to be expected, given who this is. STOP BEFORE SHE FORCES YOU TO!

(Lightning is imitating Chocobo Loco/Chicken Little/Henny Penny for the event, sooo... characters are welcome to be either an innocent or the Fox in the story, if you wish. Alternatively... she will also probably play along as well, for those already affected by their own thang.) ]

[ It's really just the icing on the cake that, after everything's that happened to Lightning here- trapped away from her home, failing her Focus by force, conscripted to fight in a war she has little stake in, turning Cie'th on the battlefield of all things... she's finally returned to Luceti, not a week following her eventual death like what's supposed to happen, but ten days after the fact instead. It's not as bad as it could be, of course, but it's definitely enough to cause worry in a way she really wouldn't approve of at all.

And not only that, but it's raining as well. It's quickly approaching evening, and huge drops are heard landing heavily on the pages of a 'recording' journal laying open somewhere outside... and then suddenly a shriek- not unlike another one heard two weeks earlier, although this time it's localized not far from the center of the village. A minute later, and anyone then paying attention to this particular 'video' will get treated to a rather erratic view of the sky, an overhead structure of some kind in passing, and the occasional fleeting glimpse of Lightning, wearing a white dress and with most of her hair plastered wetly to her face.

There's also the sound of ripping, as someone in a state of acute distress begins tearing the pages out of said journal in handfuls. Overlaid on that is the sound of heavy, uneven breathing, what sounds suspiciously like the occasional sob, and-- ]

Stop it. Stop it!

[ ... Obviously, Lightning is not well right now- a fact that is not only apparent over the journals, but in person as well. It's certainly not normal for a woman in what looks to be New Feather garb to be sitting in the middle of the school's playground in the rain, hunched over and trying her best to destroy her own journal. Please help? ]