I always put myself in destructive situations [W5, Friday]

[hydrokinetics]

[It took time. Everything took time as it always did. It took time for them to all calm down, it took time to heal physical wounds, it took time to properly remove the evidence of obscene crimes...but in the evening they were able to gather in one place away from everyone else. It hadn't been easy coordinating everything, but it was necessary.

And so here they were. All seven of them.]

...I don't really know where to start. [His voice is tight, but determined.] But we need everybody on the same page. Who wants to go first?

Comments

[hydrokinetics]

Yes. [He hates this!] ...yes. I know she's dead back home, I know what she is, and I know she had a job she was supposed to do. We talked about this...about if she's real or not here.

Natalie's the one who told me she was dead back home. Everything else came from Xion.

[insincerely]

I've had that talk with her too.

[... Something about this hurts, knowing that Xion didn't even tell Percy what she told him.]

.... Apparently, she made her best friend kill her. That's how she died. She wasn't sure if even Riku knew that.

[...]

She brought it up because apparently, Riku told her that she could be a light in the dark for everybody, but she didn't think he was right—citing to me that incident as one of the reasons why. She doesn't consider herself to be a good person.

... This was also when we were talking about "playing the game".

[hydrokinetics]

[...he just buries his face in his hands, sighing to himself.]

Poor kid. [And yet.] ...she told me that because of who she is and what she was created for, it's why she can somewhat understand the Sheriff. What it's like to be him. But that she also didn't understand because she ran away from where she came from.

I'm wondering if she's just...conflicted. And that's why this is happening and why she hasn't acted yet.

[elemancy]

...She told me some of that too, about the Sheriff, that part.

[and he kind of yelled at her for it, oops. but. you know, minor details?]

[hydrokinetics]

Did she say anything else about it?

[elemancy]

She got mad at me for saying that him and his should be taken out because they're trouble. Started trying to tell me I didn't know what it was like to exist for a purpose I can't escape.

[which.]

Kind of wrong about that. A prince... a king... they don't get to run away from their duties. She calmed down a little after that.

[hydrokinetics]

How long ago did she tell you that? It just seems different from what she told me last week or so.

[He makes a face.] Yeah I...kind of told her something similar about myself. [Prophecies, man.] She was rational with me.

[elemancy]

A while ago—the night before our second trial.

[so, things could definitely have changed, but he's not sure. at least noct remembers specifically when it was because of the circumstances.]

[hydrokinetics]

...she said to me that she understood what it was like for everyone to hate the Sheriff for what he is and wondered if he runs the game because his employers would destroy him if they didn't.

On the other hand, she said that she ran away because she couldn't keep doing what her employers wanted from her. She wondered if Hal felt that way. This wasn't long after Riku died.

[insincerely]

[He's... pretty sure he has an idea of what Percy's talking about.]

... I asked her if she would kill me. She couldn't say no.

[He shrugs.]

Then again, even if she did, I would've thought she was lying anyway. Either way, her answer was... well, she implied that if it came down to it, she would rather have me kill her.

[But she still didn't say no.]

[hydrokinetics]

...I really, really hope it doesn't come to that, dude. Why would you even ask her though?

[insincerely]

[He shrugs, which is a sign that he was running on Shinnosuke-logic.]

It was during one of those moments when she was getting mushy on me, so I needed to put an end to that.

[hydrokinetics]

Would it kill you to maybe be a little nicer to her?

[...I mean after all of this, yeah, it might.]

[insincerely]

Nothing good would've come out of getting attached, both ways.

[...]

Anyway, I've stopped doing that, since she was stupidly stubborn and a week later I ended up telling her that I'd let her walk beside me. [...] Which, from the looks of things, might've been a mistake.

[hydrokinetics]

Don't think of it as a mistake yet. She's still a good person even if she might be doing things for the wrong reasons. That's what we have to remember.

[insincerely]

... Yeah. I know.

[He thinks of Kiri, who literally stabbed him in the back and then started crying, and how he forgave her even in that moment.]

[hydrokinetics]

...it's going to be fine, Shinnosuke. We're going for my experience here, remember? [It's light, but it's a reminder. He's not going to let anything bad happen to Shinnosuke if he can help it.]

[insincerely]

[That actually gets a smile out of him (and he hates that it does).]

... It'd be nice if that could happen.

[hydrokinetics]

[Gods. Thanks, Shinnosuke...]

We're going to do our best to make it happen. That's guaranteed.