deercountry | (no subject)

What- who made you do that?

[mob doesn't emote much. typically his face is blank, some find unpleasantly so. here some genuine horror manages to crack through his expression, in the thin line of his mouth and the furrow to his brow.]

... The last fight each world has to do is basically the 'tutorial' for whatever version of Earth is going to get the robot next. He lied to us - said it was a game he was making. He didn't... tell us we would die after piloting. He didn't say that our world would be destroyed if we didn't fight. He didn't let on that he was even from another world.

He lied to us a lot. We're... we were just kids. We were supposed to be on a special science school trip. We didn't know anything.

[mob goes very quiet listening to all that, the faint frown still in place. that is... so cruel. he thought the trench was kind of a lot, that's worse.

and jun was dead in his world, so.] That's how you died?

[another pause.] I'm sorry he did that to you.

It is. ... There were plenty of others who died before me, so I knew what was coming, but still...

Are any of them here too? [he can hope, more second chances at life would be nice.]

No, they aren't. My adopted little sister was involved too... she was only ten. I keep hoping at least some of them will wash up on shore, even the ones I didn't get along with.

But no luck so far.

[oof, that hurts him to hear. he has a little brother himself, jun's age at that. imagining this situation-

no. better not to. he looks down at his hand a moment before looking up to offer pretty much the only thing he can,] If you wanted company going down to check the shore sometimes I'd go with you.

I...

[Would they even want to see him? He's not sure. But he recognizes the gesture for what it is.]

... Thanks. I've been looking, but... I don't know if most of them should... most of them deserve a rest. Not... a place that's going to drag their histories up over and over. Some of them were a lot worse off than me.

[Even if their battles were different, maybe less brutal... he pieced together enough information on most of the other kids to know what they were dealing with.]

Hm... [a moment and mob says,] In my world when people aren't ready to move on they usually become spirits. Sometimes it's bad but sometimes they just want a little more time before they rest, even if they don't realize it yet.

I guess I mean maybe it'll be the same here. If they aren't ready to rest maybe those are the ones who might come. Everyone here seems pretty full of life like that.

Maybe. I don't think I was ready to move on at all. I remember being... calm but terrified, if that makes sense? I'd just started to do the right thing, and then...

[Well. Yeah.]

I don't... no matter what you prepare for, facing total oblivion is... terrifying.

That makes sense. Sometimes you just have to accept something is going to happen, even if you don't want it to.

[a pause.] I've seen a lot of spirits. Most of them don't handle having faced that sort of thing well. I think you should be proud of how well you did, and still are.

I... thanks.

[He wants to deflect the praise, but at this point... yeah, he'll just take it.]

I... knew what I had to do. I knew the price for it. But if she could believe in our world even after all I did to her... it was a world worth saving.

[he isn't sure who 'she' is, though there was one girl mentioned before...] Your sister, you mean?

Yes. Though there was another girl, from the previous world... she came along and... ended up dying for my world, too.

Both of them... didn't need to die. Neither of them did.

[mob nods in easy agreement there, going quiet a moment as he lets a lot of this information settle in his head. how... terrible, just all of it. cruel in the sort of way mogami tried to insist the world was.]

What were they like? [another pause and he says,] If you want to talk about them.

Kana - my sister - she was... kind. Young, but very mature for her age. Brave and selfless and always putting others above herself. I thought she was stupid but... she was smart. Just... in a different way than me.

Machi was kind too, but she teased people. She was a good person even if she was a pain sometimes. She... was the first person who liked me, I'm pretty sure. She liked all of us, I guess... but she liked me. I just... wish I hadn't been a coward who fumbled about it until it was too late.

My master says being young is about fumbling and making mistakes. It's supposed to be when it's safe to do that.

[unless assholes start world ending robot shit. he takes a moment just to imagine the pair though.] I wish I saw a memory of them instead, I would have liked to see them.

It... can be, I guess. There's less room for mistakes here, where you could get hurt or killed depending on what you run into.

[He shakes his head and frowns.]

You would have just seen me being horrible to Kana probably. And Machi... I've had someone see a memory of her before, and it was from when she got shot. So knowing this place it would have been horrible anyway.

[a nod] We have to figure things out a lot faster. Honestly it's kind of daunting.

[ah, of course, the trench can never just be chill about these things.] I don't understand why it does this. Why only bad memories?

I don't know. I honestly thought I might be in some kind of hell for a bit, but that's not true.

People wouldn't be this kind. [said very quietly, if it were hell that is.]

What do you think it is now?

No, they wouldn't. This... is another world. Not one where the 'game' is running, but one where we're toyed with nonetheless. The pthumerians jerk us around, monsters go after us, our blood's different, and all sorts of insane things happen... but it's too nice to be an afterlife that I'd end up in.

[that has mob pause a long moment before he says,] You don't like yourself much, do you?

I guess that sort of thing is pretty complicated.

[He snorts in amusement. The question is blunt, but accurate.]

Not really, no.

But yeah, I imagine it is. I don't mind it as much. There's... people who care about me here. That's... enough for me.