[Visas remains calm as the strings fly towards her. Echo is cutting through them capably. Visas is not worried about coming to harm.
Rather, it is Duldee who should worry. Coldly, calmly, Visas shifts from a grip to a squeeze.]
Your power is broken. [Even if she should find and capture Echo in future, the power is broken. Once freedom is tasted, the desire for it remains.] You cannot bind her. You can only die in the attempt.
[Ange's question snaps Scott out of his trance, the mutant shaking his head in some automatic reaction. He's okay.]
No, it's fine, I... Alex?
[Scott trails off, something tightening in his throat as he takes note of the strange state of his brother. While his earlier thought only lasted for a few seconds, it's cracked something in this strange little dream, because Alex's suddenly frozen, face stuck in a small worried frown as he looks down at the two teens. The sight's enough to get Scott to panic slightly, letting his feelings guide his movements as he reaches up to shake his brother's shoulder.]
[Is it strange that Ryoji's answer doesn't surprise him? With how friendly and silly he's been, this sort of serious response should be shocking. Upsetting. There's some of that, yes, but Scott just lets himself stare at his friend for a few seconds before turning his head away.
'Nothing lasts forever.' Not this peace, not his relationship with Kotone, his friendships... and it all hurts. And it's not because they will all grow old and pass away at some point, but because of something else. Something more violent will separate them.
Why does that feel inevitable?]
No, but what's wrong with wanting something like this to last as long as possible? [He sounds hurt, almost bitter. The pleasant air from before is just a little more stiff now.]
Scott pictures Yukina as someone that always uses the stairs. Probably Kuwabara?? Kurama too, hopefully. He can see Yusuke as someone that jumps down, based on their prior conversations. He likes the other teen, but he definitely has That Energy. Kind of like how it makes complete sense that all of this is Kurama's design. Yeah. Hard to really imagine the others designing a place like this, despite not knowing the fox demon all that well. He just seemed like... the smartest. What?????]
Yeah. I smell it.
[Maybe because of Hiei's words that it really adopts the smell coming from Yusuke's room, a certain stench of general uncleanliness hitting Scott's nose and making his face scrunch. Shit, tell him he was never this bad before Kotone got on his case for cleaning his room.] I don't think I'd go there even if I wanted to.
[ Most of the time here he hates that he can hear so well too, Scott. Don't worry. In their world his Jagan and demonic heightened senses are a boon and here...
He hears a little too much. More than he would like to most days, which is why he ends up in trees, napping, to shut his brain off for a little while.
At any rate he's chuckling lowly as Scott confirms he can smell stinky human teen, giving Kuwabara at least a moment's compliment as he gestures the opposite way. ]
Kuwabara hasn't been here long enough, yet.
[ When asked about his room Hiei simply points to the tree central to the house and then... up. He's indicating some of the taller branches where he prefers to sleep, of course, slouched down in the crook of a tree bough with his hands behind his head. ]
I don't need a room down here. I sleep in the tree.
[ and persists in leaving his shit everywhere around the house. ]
[It's the other girl who responds to him, as Oz is too busy struggling with his lack of control. She crosses her arms proudly.]
Oz doesn't need anything!
[Hopefully she really is just that oblivious somehow. Echo tenses and her expression turns more hopeless.]
No! This is...it's all the same...
[She starts shaking a bit, but tries to regain her composure. It would also be nice if she could stop crying just enough to at least function. But Echo knows she doesn't have time for that. Oz is starting to swing the scythe blindly, and the other girl still doesn't show any recognition. Echo tries to shake off Rion's hand and run toward her.]
[He shoots the other girl an aggravated look as Echo murmurs her regrets, though he knows the figment might not even react in a logical way. Still—]
What does that mean? [is his accusatory answer to the black-haired girl. He doesn't have long before Echo's trying to pull away from him, however. She won't have full success shaking him off, but that's partly because he's coming along with her, closer to the obvious danger, as his hand closes around her wrist. He doesn't like being stuck in a situation with so little information...]
[Echo hadn't realized just how much she apparently had in common with Ange, although it certainly explained why she could be so helpful when she was just starting out as an actual person.
Not that it's something she can mull over much at the moment. The profuse bleeding has Echo panicked enough as it is, and the memories that are being brought up by what she's saying aren't helping that any. And they're not just her recalling what she used to be like.
She shakes her head as she begins speaking.]
That's not true! You are not just some thing! You exist, which means the things you feel and believe are meaningful.
[She's definitely getting more upset than she would normally allow herself here. Echo reaches to grab Ange's shoulder with her free arm, obviously not concerned about getting blood on her.]
[ She stops. It kind of sounds like she choked up mid-sentence there. Like maybe the blood really is having some sort of effect on her, and surely not a good one..
Ange sucks in a breath, but it sounds uneven, like she's even getting breathless from the blood loss.
And yet she speaks. She tries to speak anyway, even though it sounds like it pains her to just do that. ]
[ At least Ange doesn't seem to have trouble answering his questions. The girl still isn't looking over at Yu, or even at the sigil he's pointing out, her eyes still fixated on the corpses. But she still speaks all the same. ]
It was a cover. Someone is trying to make this seem like magic. Like a witch did it. [ And what is better to make a murder scene look spooky than to draw some sort of demonic-looking sign near it, right? ]
But it's just a human culprit trying to cover their tracks. It's-- [ She pauses. Despite the way Ange's voice is relatively emotionless, though quiet, right now she seems to be hesitating a little.
Like it isn't that easy to speak about after all. ]
It's the person I have been chasing for more than twelve years now.
[It's no better than being trapped within the makings of a certain book. Once upon a time, it's expected of him to play by the rules to get out of it, but there's just one problem with that. He never plays by the rules others set for him. Sleeping Beauty's in for a rude awakening in the way of finding that out.]
"OI! I ain't playin' the role of some guard dog for a damn ghost that haunts you."
[He yells it as a promise. Fingertips press into a wall that dares to rise up before him to cut off line of sight with the ghost of precious loss. A blink and it begins to splinter, crack, breaking off into multiple pieces that float by him as he wills it. If the rules are beset against him to begin with... he'll just make his own. No, he'll tear his way through!!
He flings his arm up, a storm brewing in the way those pieces float and swirl around him. All before he casts his hand down and sends them flying ahead to bring the first thing in his way down.]
[There's a pause as Scott takes a long, good look at the tree once more, head tilting up to take in its overall height and the branches that come out from it. Impressive, yeah, but still just a tree. And sure, Hiei mentioned that this was his favorite, but he didn't think he'd actually sleep it in all the time. He sort of assumed that he would still have his own room.
Suddenly, this explains why he saw some of Hiei's items in Kurama's room. Uh-huh.
He slowly looks back down, head tilting over to look at the short demon and--]
[Perhaps it’s because of Akutagawa’s actions, or perhaps it’s because of Dazai’s truest wishes, but Odasaku doesn’t run away this time. Instead, he points the blade towards Akutagawa, a threat that lies at its edge.]
Then why do you keep following me?
[He asks, still unperturbed from the hurt that lies at Akutagawa’s feet. He doesn’t have the time for this, but perhaps something keeps him back. Perhaps it’s the knowledge that Akutagawa, too, is an orphan that he could have saved.
(But it was not him that saved Akutagawa, not in this world. It was Dazai, as twisted as it may have been.)]
[Yu isn't the type to linger on thoughts of last moments. It's never something he's had to consider, really; even in times when maybe he should have...he has always refused. Always tried to find another way. Uncompromising, dedicated -- it's just another way to say he's stubborn. And here, he stubbornly waits until Ethlyn has her back turned to face what is likely to be a brutal and early death.
Instead--
The world narrows to a sliver, slows to a crawl, as Yu lays eyes on the woman. It's as if his vision doubles, seeing at once two different figures: the first, Ethlyn, but that-- it's not possible, she's retreating into the distance, and the second...
(... Big bro ...)
He sucks in a sharp breath. The visage of a woman, brown-eyed, brown-haired, and for a second, her face is overlaid with a child, even more impossible than seeing Ethlyn in her eyes. It's only for a second, that vision of Nanako all grown up and facing him down like an enemy, but he can't deny that it rattles him. He clutches the spear for more than just its use as a weapon; for a moment, it anchors him in this reality. In this understanding of what can only be a dream. Her face returns to normal -- the maddening normal-not-normal that looks and sounds so much like the woman he's trying to protect, here.
He shakes off the feeling. It isn't easy. But no matter what...he has to stand steady, here and now.]
Sorry, [and the more he speaks, the more he finds himself, confident and certain. She'll find some surprises if she tries to fight him.] I can't do that.
[Akutagawa doesn’t move when the blade is pressed close to him. Eyes widen, with a mix of confusion and anger. The blade though, is what drew his attention first, fixated and confused. The onyx eyes looked up to the man, the man he still respects as this man boomed a question.
Something dawned in him as his eyes fell down, back on the blade. What came next was something not even Odasaku could imagine.
A low chuckle erupted from Akutagawa. Whether he finally lost it or found something more interesting, it was hard to tell. The vulgar chuckle grew louder as it continued.]
[ Toph is afraid, but Toph does not react to fear by running away. Far from it.
The fear slips to outrage so easily, things around her not conforming to the way Toph thinks they should be, the way they make sense. ] You're not dead, [ she says loudly, almost shouting. ] And you don't get to tell me what to do or what I'm fine with!
[ The obstinate insistence on determining her own actions is a ragged edge of comfort amid the chaos. Toph snaps back to herself and into a bending pose. There's a cave network far below them, she can feel it, and the only thing she can think to do is remove Ange from the situation. Being near her dead family is obviously not doing her any good.
The floor beneath them suddenly crumbles to pieces and shoots downward in a wide circle around them, an earth elevator plummeting them down swiftly, the ground closing up after them.
Maybe it's silly or childish, but Toph has a strange instinct to keep all of Ange's fleshy pieces together in one place like she can put her back together. She's breathing heavily not from exertion but from emotion, and she angrily punches her fingertips upward to make airholes all the way up to the church they'd left behind so they don't asphyxiate in the otherwise dark cave they find themselves in. ]
I'm not going anywhere, [ she says bullishly, ] and neither are you until you get it together.
[Whatever her reason for saying it, it sparks something familiar in Yu's mind; some realization he both seeks and refuses at the same time. He knows what this is, after all; he knows how wrong it all is, beneath the sheen of hazy acceptance that lets him not think too long or hard about it. Part of him is so hard-wired to seek the truth, now, that he can't wholly stop thinking about it. No matter how hard he tries.
And yet...]
It's the same for me. Sort of. [... he plays along.
That's an odd way to phrase his response, though -- he's never actually made it that far, when it comes to timing. Something always comes up. And as much as he wonders if this place might be the exception, he still speaks in an apologetic tone. Sorry, senpai. Your stellar tour might be wasted, if he has to transfer later.
In spite of that, he finds himself asking,] ... what do you like about it here?
[ What an impressive change in Tsuna's aura and the air around him. Now he understands what the boy meant and how the King intrigued him. He would indeed make a good leader. ]
Now then. Shall we begin?
[ Gilgamesh crossed his legs and arms as he looked down at Tsuna. The words out his mouth would scare most people. ]
[He accepts it, the ire and the bitterness. Who would want to tell you that the peaceful happy times you have wouldn’t last? And yet, he feels like that Scott must accept this truth. That he needs to know that what they have around them wouldn’t stay, because…
Because what? Ryoji doesn’t know. All he could do is to follow his own instincts.]
There’s nothing wrong with it. [He responds, voice quieter than it was before.] But no matter how much we wish for it, it will not happen.
[It’s not like Ryoji doesn’t want this peace to last, either. This place is great! He wishes he could stay in here forever! But just like that he knows this is all but fleeting, like sand pouring inbetween his fingers.]
[His jaw tightens hearing Ryoji's response and suddenly, the laughter of children around them mutes, just leaving them as the only audible voices. More than that, it's like everything has slowed to a stop, maybe making it clear that this moment isn't entirely real either. At least, it doesn't exist in reality, just a cumulation of Scott's wants and hopes until it was poked apart.]
So, what, we're supposed to just accept that we're going to be sad and lose everyone we love? In just a few years?
[...] We're supposed to fight as hard as we can for them. N-no matter what.
[His breath hitches at the end, the mutant doing his best not to crumble in front of him. Even now, that feels embarrassing.]
[He looks up to meet Morph's eyes when they tower over him, but the thought to back away from them never even crosses Douman's mind. He knows them too good already.]
Okay.
[Something about being called "Shroud" doesn't sit right with him, but at the same time it's also perfectly normal - what else should they call him here, when they're not in private? So he doesn't follow that thought any further and instead nods toward the furry blue mutant.]
His fur is going to catch fire if he isn't careful.
[Another raised eyebrow as he turns back to Morph.]
Who is 'she'?
[Another one of those demons tries to attack him from the back. Douman simply side-steps and grabs it out of the air. Seconds later the thing is on the ground, writhing in pain as the spot where he touched it sparks with spiritual energy and makes it contort and shake as if it were getting tasered.]
[ He remembers that fateful night atop Tartarus. He remembers the entire weight of Nyx's power and humanity's desperate pleas for destruction heavy on his shoulders. The odds seemed insurmountable that night, and yet, Minato struggled against that fate.
He nods as he grasps onto Ange's hand a little tighter. ]
Yeah.
[ It's at least worth trying.
Minato squeezes Ange's hand. Warm blood stains her palm, but he doesn't care at all. ]
...then I'll hold onto that hope for you, as long as you need.
[ After all, he's used to facing down odds skewed so heavily against him. ]
[A storm that shouldn’t be there swirls and coalesces around Dazai before he enters stage left. It wills him out of unconsciousness before his turn in this neverending play comes to fruition. His eyes widen at the sight of the intruder in front of him, bewilderment twisting his expression — mouth agape, Dazai begins to yell,]
What are you doing here?!
[After all, Chuuya was never here in the first place. That stupid hat rack was off elsewhere, doing some who-knows-what mission from Mori, and by the time he came back there’s a bomb in his car and it’s all too late.
This is absurd. This is absolutely absurd and uncalled for. But perhaps that absurdity is what is needed to turn this tragedy into a comedy.]
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expiationlogs2025-01-13 12:39 pm
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