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It's funny, Eiji thinks, how there aren't any working vehicles in Mobius. He'd had to drive almost every day in the real world and spent his earlier years on the train so often that if he wasn't paying attention, he'd start wandering towards the train station without realizing it.
But here in Mobius, any areas that don't just so happen to be filled with chattering people are deathly silent, with no vehicles cutting through the air in the distance, near or far, to provide background noise. It's peaceful, in a way, and it's nice to be able to cross the street without any worries. But it's unsettling as well, unnatural and somehow foreboding, like the world has ended.
The Ostinato Musicians have come out with new music recently, advertised in a shuffled playlist playing over hidden speakers at Honmachi Station, in particular. Eiji is sure they're playing the songs elsewhere too, but this is the area he frequents most, so he notices it more easily. Whenever there isn't a live concert, it tends to be mercifully quiet around the station, but a new release is a new release. Of course they want the brainwashed masses to hear them.
Stork has an interesting new song about mercy and double lives, the message twisted heavily by his true nature even as μ, the singer, remains pure. Sweet-P has a duet with Shadow Knife about how hiding one's true identity can be a noble or innocent thing; the first duet he's heard out of the Musicians! It's rare enough to even hear them sing rather than just use μ as an instrument, but the covers he has heard have been solo. He's surprised it took this long.
Kuchinashi's song begins playing, and he can just tell it's hers even before he can make out any lyrics. He listens closely, intrigued to hear if there are any references to himself now that Kuchinashi has met him in Mobius.
Alas, the song has nothing to do with Eiji. That's a good thing for him, as Kuchinashi could easily rat him out in song form-- though, it'd be too late. The Go-Home Club already found out about him somehow, which he also suspects was her doing. Now that he's had no choice but to flee from them, he's stuck figuring out a way out of Mobius on his own.
I want to take a trip with you
on the train to the future.
Will you take me there?
Will we meet again?
I need to escape, just this once.
The lyrics confuse Eiji. They sound to him like Kuchinashi has decided she wants to go back to the real world. What, to pursue charges against him? Please.
"Hey, this song reminds me! Did you hear they're blocking access to the trains?"
What trains? There are no vehicles in Mobius.
"Ehhh? They're only freight trains, why even bother?"
"I bet troublemakers were hitching joy rides, so they had to say something. Now it's forbidden to even go near the trains."
What trains?
A life on rails,
miserable and blurry.
Let's take a turn,
now hit the switch.
It seems lots of people around the station are having their nonexistent memories jogged by the song.
"Did you hear the rumor about the train?" one girl asks the boy she's latched onto the arm of, voice slow and whimsical. "I hear it's forbidden to board because it takes you to another world."
Eiji doesn't even pay attention to the boy harping on his girlfriend for being "creepy again", he's much too focused on what that rumor implies. It can't really be as easy as boarding a train, can it? Would it really just take him straight out of Mobius?
But it's not like he has any other options. What is he supposed to do, find and break μ on his own? He wouldn't stand a chance now that he can't manipulate the Go-Home Club anymore. He can't even try to infiltrate the Musicians either, because Kuchinashi is there and she knows everything. Both sides would lock him up at the first opportunity they saw.
So, he decides, hunting that train down is his only option.
Just one trip
and it'll finally be over.
You already know,
and you've seen it rush by.
The past is gone,
and we know what's left,
so take a trip with me.
Kuchinashi doesn't listen to music often unless fine-tuning her own songs counts, but sitting in the corner of the train car, she plays her newest song through a pair of earphones. μ does a surprisingly good job of imitating the emotions felt by the composers when she sings, and it gives her voice a certain rattle for this song, the barely hidden rage and fear and deep history of misery sprinkled with inviting glitter over a thin veil that anyone could see through if they decided to look. She knows μ doesn't even understand it, can't possibly comprehend the feelings that she herself embodied for three brief minutes.
Apprehension crawls under her skin, skitters across her bones as the scheduled time of departure nears. She knows Biwasaka frequents the station. She knows he wants out of Mobius. He has to take the bait. He has to.
Fear still makes her breath catch, makes her legs curl closer to herself when she hears an unexplained thud and several smaller, quieter noises. She has enough presence of mind to stand in the middle of the room, to make sure she isn't already cornered from the start.
When the door slides open, Biwasaka is only briefly surprised to see her. He smiles sweetly.
"Good evening, little lady," he greets, his words rotting her teeth right out of her head. "I'm sure I can't imagine why I'm meeting you here."
With a hand gesture she'd discussed beforehand with μ, the doors automatically shut and lock themselves. Only she can open them back up. Biwasaka is quick to turn around and test the door behind him, and his facade crumbles away as soon as he realizes he's trapped, incessantly yanking at the handle so hard he's liable to break the door.
She wants so badly to turn that gesture from the courtroom all those years ago back around on him, to tear her mask off and press a finger to her lips. To wink and giggle like the motherfucker himself did, in all his hubris. To take this pyrrhic victory with all the manic energy in the world. To see the fear in his eyes for once, if he can even feel such a thing.
But it isn't a joyous, triumphant moment. Even though Kuchinashi's confidence in her plan hasn't swayed, hasn't had any reason to, the journey to the end is nothing short of harrowing. Her hyperventilating, amplified by echo of the mask, is so loud to her that it deafens her to the rest of the world. There's nobody around for him to lie to anymore, and he's trapped, and he's angry. The thought that the slightest bit of relief from her constant panic attack might allow her to hear his voice, doubtlessly threatening her and becoming more and more unhinged by the second, just like last time, keeps her so on edge that she feels lightheaded.
She almost slips on an iridescent puddle during one of her many unconscious, stuttering steps backwards. As angry as he is, he's still slowly approaching her, still hasn't attacked yet. The thought crosses Kuchinashi's mind for a split second that he must have figured out her plan if he hasn't fallen for her trap yet, that what he's been saying this whole time has just been taunts and insults to her intelligence.
Biwasaka's voice starts to slip through her muffled hearing and she screams wordlessly and covers her ears, horrified to hear any of it. His face twitches in a way that tells her he's clicked his tongue, and she shudders violently when she thinks this might finally be the moment, when he raises his whip. Surely, he won't resist the urge to set the train car on fire?
But he does. He does, and Kuchinashi is struck by the whip, and the end of it hooks around her ankle and slams her to the ground. She feels gasoline splash up onto her thighs, and her hands get drenched in it. She screams again, automatic, at the realization that she's more susceptible than ever to her greatest weakness.
And then, still running her throat raw, she manifests her stun gun and smashes it into the floor of the car. The spark ignites the gasoline and the fire spreads quicker than she's ever seen, making its way over to him before he can even understand what's happened. She always thought seeing Biwasaka alight, his own brand of panic finally setting in as he frantically tries to escape the fire, would cure her fear. She thought it'd be cathartic, it'd be magical. She thought she could smile, even.
It makes her sick. Genuinely sick to her stomach, that a singed sleeve weakly wraps around. Biwasaka can't get the door open on his side, and now he's running past Kuchinashi to try to get through hers, to jump off the train, to save himself.
God, no.
With all the strength she can muster, she grabs him by the calf, and he stumbles at the sudden stop but doesn't fall. His free foot connects with her jaw, and she feels the jostle, but she's entirely too far removed to feel pain anymore. She holds onto his leg for dear life until the train hits a bump that disturbs his balance, and she topples him to the floor. She brings her stun gun down onto his legs as hard as she can, over and over. She knows he's hitting her, but she can't even tell where anymore. She hasn't heard anything in a long time, either.
When she scrambles out through the door, the handle burning into her hand twice as she slips when opening it, she doesn't even check to see if he's gotten to his feet yet. She doesn't check her surroundings when she jumps off the train onto unprogrammed land, rolling along the uncannily smooth ground and throwing her jacket off to god knows where and finally, finally smothering the flames.
She lies there for several minutes before all the pain finally hits her. It's not as excruciating as she would have expected. She still feels numb inside, watching the train take off further into the off-limits distance of Mobius. Biwasaka isn't anywhere to be found. He must have stayed inside the car. Even if he does get out, he'll be even farther from Mobius than Kuchinashi currently stands, having shakily risen to her feet in a grueling, two-minute process.
The environment here is like a broken game. All sorts of textures are laid near and on top of each other, some finished and some not, grass and concrete mingling unnaturally, trees and buildings splicing into each other, some cutting off randomly despite not being interrupted by anything.
Some of the fixtures can be phased through, and invisible walls block where they should be. Yes. Even if Biwasaka makes it off the train, he'll never make it home.
Kuchinashi might not, either. At this point, she doesn't care. Her sole meaning in life has been fulfilled-- anything else would just be a bonus. A delightful fantasy.
When she trips and falls onto her knees, she doesn't get back up for a while. She's tired, and hurt. She's lost. But she won, and that's all she can care about. No emotions like joy cross her heart, but she won.
Even if she were to die here, she won.