[Elsa will drink whatever Hakkai makes. (How could she release him, or even think of it, when he hasn't done anything that merits that? They have fallen into a good rhythm together, wordlessly working in sync like this. Despite what she knows of his past, she doesn't believe he could do something so terrible as to deserve being released, not now, not the Hakkai she has been getting to know.) The simple act of his making tea right now steadies her, balancing out Sanzo's anger, and canceling out her guilt, at least for now.]

Isn't this the afterlife already? I may not have been taken at the moment of my death, but for all practical purposes, who I was no longer exists. [Now matter how strongly she feels like she is still mortal, like her old life is only a breath away. Her friends, the people who'd saved her--]

You haven't been here very long. You haven't seen what can happen here, how wrong things can go. There was a very costly mistake about two weeks ago, and all of us took part in it, feeding people chocolate poisoned with ayakashi. [As she emphasizes the word, there's a surge of white-hot anger in her that almost makes her want to march right back into Yomi for answers.

Almost. All she needs to do to turn away from that thought is remember Hisoka, and how close they'd all come to dying, and how Hakkai's blade had chipped, how she'd feared she was going to get him killed.

The feeling passes, and she sighs, grounding herself. Her voice is lower when she speaks again, but no less firm.] We helped kill innocent people. Who we helped is a mystery, but I'm more concerned with the system that let this happen.

[Heaven. This place. Whatever has brought them here. Yomi yielded no answers, and that frustration bubbles below the surface, keeping her from collapsing into a chair despite how tired she is.

She's not so tired, however, that she doesn't notice the pack of cigarettes in Sanzo's hand.] No smoking inside.