maskormenacelogs | I can move mountains, I can work a miracle [OPEN]

[Japan in this world would be easier to visit - a passport (why the hell?!), a lot of money, a ticket... and that's it. But Tetsuo's not thinking of the Japan of this world. He's only gotten occasional glimpses and hints it may be better off.

It had internet. You could buy fish, albeit in America - was that normal for America? It had better tech than it ever would. And Qubit once said something about going there...

But he still remembers the infinite checkpoints between districts. The sanctions. The metaphorical wall between one city erected in the bay around a ruined island, and the world that destroyed it. And he slumps down further in his seat, both angry that he almost doesn't miss it, and incredibly homesick.]

Not Japan. No one visits there.

[There's a quiet gasp into Kaneda's shoulder. It's the sound that comes right before someone's about to cry, and Ken's just the same. Kaneda's embrace -- his warmth, the sound of his voice, the sound of his breathing, the faint beat of his heart he thinks he can feel through their coats -- wraps around him like a cocoon, shielding him from the harshness of the winter around them.

It melts away the wall Ken had built around himself these past few months. He had secrets to keep and fights to fight, and after people like Crane and Pan, he couldn't feel safe to let his guard down. He was vulnerable; Ken knew that well. But here, with Kaneda, he can be safe. And he doesn't have to leave his side.

Brothers... that's what they think we are.

Kaneda is not the only person to treat him like family, nor is he the first. But in this moment, he's the one giving Ken this love when he needed it the most, and his are the words that knocked right into him as his shell was crumbling. The dam holding back Ken's feelings doesn't stand a chance.

Kaneda will hold him. Kaneda will be here. Shinjiro and Minato, his mother, are all dead. They're already gone. One day, he'll part ways with Kaneda, too. But he's here right now, and he's safe, and it's knowing that he'll still hold him together that allows Ken to finally fall apart. The soft gasp turns into a soft, mournful wail and nothing can stop his tears now.]

[It's funny, really, how he never wanted to hear that until he learned it was gone forever. Maybe had been for ages.

He can't look at the kid suddenly, eyes narrowing at the carpet, picking out nonexistent shapes from the shadows cast by fibers. It's what he wants to believe now, which is why that cannot be the truth; life's not that generous. Kaneda even told him, head buried in his hair, ruffling it with every shaky breath, that he'd needed him all along. Called him his brother.

Soaking Kaneda's shoulder with tears, Tetsuo accepted it. The fear of losing whatever he had left was too strong.

But with Ken Amada come other memories, dug into his mind like splinters. It wasn't Tetsuo's defense that Kaneda came to. Which was fine, he hadn't needed it, he lived.

Until Kaneda came to Amada's instead.

Suddenly, the doubt's weaving itself back into his mind, seeping poison into anything until he's left miserable and painfully unable to hide his shame. Tetsuo doesn't seem aware he's retreating back to older behavior patterns, shifting uneasily as he listens.]

Don't.

[He won't deny, now, that he thought about Kaneda a lot. He would deny he thought about him more than he had Kaori, but there was truth to that statement as well. Even then; it was one sided. He'd been so sure that when Kaneda said they were done... they'd been done.

Not looking back up, he continues in that strange, subdued manner he'd adjusted to. Quiet. Defeated.]

Kaneda never had a problem finding people. It's what he does.

[Except Kaneda didn't find him. Why was that, Amada? If you've got all the answers? ...But Tetsuo doesn't ask that question. He couldn't handle the answer right now, if the kid knows.]

[Warily, like the bag could come alive at any minute, Tetsuo gives one look to Bull, then edges closer. Small, hesitant steps. Every step instinct screams at him to go the other way, but he keeps moving mechanically forward. Fear's slowed every moment down, hammering the seconds with his heartbeat.

Sure, it's fine with Bull. But this wasn't meant for him.

It takes him a while to silently pad over to the waiting bag, darting his hand out quickly to grab it and bracing for an impact that doesn't come. Nothing happens. The bag's got it contained. Steeling what little courage he can find, he looks back up at Bull.

If this kills him, he knew it'd happen.]

[He could take his word for it, leave it at that and go. That would be easy, wouldn't it?

Then Tetsuo would be like the thousands of other humans he passes by with the same amount of apathy. But it's not easy.

So just to humor the human and say there was nothing more to discover to this human possessing something monstrous that was tearing him in an invisible way? Then there really is nothing to him.

There's nothing to Mewtwo.

And the pokemon can only hope to hold up a mirror and find it reflecting nothing or worse becoming a prism, bending light away from him. There'd be never any hope to understand himself. That's worse, and that dread hangs from his telepathic pushing when he reaches out.

< I don't believe it. What point is there to both of us then? >]

[Kaneda blinks for a second. He considered asking why, shutting the door behind them and learning just what Qubit would show up on his doorstep for. He would, but he really has no reason to distrust him...not after everything.

He fixed Tetsuo's Comm.

He offered to confront Tetsuo when Kaneda couldn't.

He joined in with Pan's forces, and most of all--wanted Tetsuo to genuinely turn out okay.

The door opens a little bit, giving a peek into the living room, which, if you looked past the stairs, you'd see a figure huddled underneath a large red coat--familiar to anyone who knew Kaneda.]

[There we go, there's the Ken Amada he remembered. After the night before, it was good to see the kid's eyes light up like that. With everything out in the open between them, there was a certain...lightness to everything. He didn't have to play himself up around him.]

Oba-chan's been giving me tips. Says it's the way I pour it in, or something...I don't know. I just copy what she does and--

[His fingers shoot out, like jazz hands.]

Magic.

Edited 2016-01-19 10:00 (UTC)

...

[This makes him think, pacing back and forth while he runs his hand along the wall. Something that won't disappear...

His first thought was a city. Ironic, how after everything back home, he still considered Neo Tokyo in existence. He knew of its destruction. But everytime he thinks about it...it's not the ruins that come to mind. It's the lights...colours...everything you'd find beautiful, with a rotten core.

...And yet...]

A city. A GIANT city. The whole wall!

[It's an ease that comes from having nothing to hide. From now, Ken won't feel the need to hide anything from him, positive or negative, but he isn't thinking about that as he starts to walk forward with a spring in his step. He laughs lightly at Kaneda's demonstration and clutches the box to his chest.]

It's not that easy to just copy. You've been working really hard.

No, nothing like that.

I'm a healer of the magic kind. I can heal most trauma wounds.

[He's certainly smart enough to understand what she's saying, and his doggy smile fades immediately in a wuff. Small as he may be he's undoubtedly an old man rolling his eyes at the young whippersnappers' drama, and his paw lands on her knee in a tiny smack before he gets up.

Walk to the door.

And starts scratching at it.]

[Normally Barnaby is quick enough on his feet to avoid getting bumped, but that also assumes he's on the lookout for short children too preoccupied with thoughts of delicious food to watch where they're going.

Eyebrows raising in surprise, his gaze darts down, only to find none other than...]

Ken. Are you alright?

[The words come out a little faster than he would have liked, but it's also not unusual for Barnaby to need a few moments to regain his bearings during unexpected social situations like these.]

[Ken's usually more alert, too, although today he definitely had his heart and mind stolen by the delicious looking pancake in the window. He's a bit relieved that the person he collided with was someone he knew. Barnaby's pretty nice. Right?

Ken, at least, is used to talking to people who aren't the best at socializing. After a year with Minato, Shinjiro, Akihiko, and also himself, Ken's not afraid of a little awkwardness at this point. He smiles, the first step to politeness.]

Yeah, I'm fine. I'm sorry, I wasn't watching where I was going -- are you okay?

[Ken could've been in a lot worse shape. Being able to talk to and come clean about his feelings to Kaneda had lifted a lot of weight off his shoulders, and he's more cheerful than he has been in a few months, perhaps in all the time that he and Manolo had known each other. His smile has a faint but new brightness to it as he looks to the cases in his arms.]

Uh, I think I got them! I might drop them if I move them around at all... I was actually going to visit Jaime-san and Minato-san's-- uh, your place?

Yeah, but you're never the same once you die. And it's not like it'd reset that cancer of yours.

[the minute that tank rolls onto the scene Hazel is forced to pause the game for a moment. she leans her head against the bed behind her, screws her eyes shut, and lets out a softly strangled scream. why this? was it because she was playing a freemium game without making any purchases? was this her karmic vengeance??

but even if it was, that didn't mean she was going to give up without a fight. tantrum finished, she unpauses and returns grimly to her work. this game isn't an endless runner - it has a finite number of levels and she's approaching the end of them - so she'd been saving something for a particularly dire turn in the last or penultimate stage. this isn't either of those, but did it matter when a loss here would mean setting herself back two or three levels?

(she really needed to be more judicious about saving)

the answer, of course, is no. and so Hazel drops her secret weapon, some kind of fullscreen bomb that takes a huge chunk out of the remaining forces and staggers the others. she doesn't have a lot left to place but sets them up as best she can, trying to at least slow them down so the damage can rack up-

three tiles away from her final structure, the last enemy finally melts into some sort of amorphous corpse. she did it.]

Jesus shit fucking christ almighty.

[the save is immediate because like hell she's going through that again. but Hazel lingers at the main menu rather than charging on to the next level, because man does she need a second to recover from that. stupid phone games.]

Well, it ended well a bunch of other times.

Just not that time.

That sounds like it would be a great idea. Plus, the wall definitely won't be bare after that.

[There they are, monster and person in a shifting spiral until it's unclear which is which. Eventually they'll have to settle as two sides of the same experiment- one subject grown, one found. Both abandoned.

Both there to question evolution and progress.

Both catastrophic failures, and both horrible successes.

Of course, neither knows for certain how far the parallel runs. It's just some deep, needling instinct that twines the two together, seeking answers in each other. It's that desperate plea for self that shines through, and that, Tetsuo can start to understand.

It scares him on a level beyond fear of death. That nightmare beyond his window sees him... and finds they're in some way equatable.]

Is there a point to anyone?

[He's falling quieter as he speaks, afraid of this new nihilistic hole gaping underneath him. None of this is real, part of him's reminding him. It can't be. He lived and died and fought in a million dreams. This was one of them.

What the hell can possibly matter then?

But he's talking seriously, and answering with his limited pool of information as long as the clone, freak, dinosaur whatever sticks around.]

Edited 2016-01-20 12:40 (UTC)

[Oh... Right. When they met first she mentioned she could teleport. How could he have forgotten? He'd wanted that power for himself.

Tetsuo watches her, but that's all he does this time. There's no skeptical headtilt, no sarcasm, no attitude in general beyond general anxiety. His muscles tense up, with the general air of someone watching to see what she'll do first. It could be anything.

Right now, powerless, he has no way of possibly knowing. Hell, she can teleport. So if he needed to, running's probably pointless.]

...

[Tetsuo's mouth opens briefly, as if to say something, and doesn't close back all the way when words fail to follow.]

[He leans in to look, but in reality he knew who he'd see there as soon as the door opened. It was sort of jarring. He'd been expecting hours of searching, but his first stop and Tetsuo's just ... there.

(And alive. He saw the video. Not by far the first or most gruesome death he ever witnessed, but a death just the same. And here he is alive.)

Qubit lowers his voice to just above a murmur, not taking his eyes off Tetsuo.]

... How is he?

[He could, in theory, do this himself. He has his powers back. But Tetsuo's powers are mind-based, and they run off his conviction and willpower as well as his energy.

He has so little of that left that it doesn't even hit him to lift it or do much else than wait, eyes tracking both objects. It's only when prompted that he manages to find some semblance of himself, enough to push himself onto his feet. Warily, he watches both Ken and the "gift".

So far, nothing's happened.]

[Ken doesn't know that Tetsuo has his powers again. Even if he did, in this situation he won't have hesitated even then. The 'gift' and note held in one hand, he opens the front door and holds out the long, thin bag toward Tetsuo.]

Open it. You're gonna use this.

[Inside it is a long pole with a pointed metal tip -- his spear, which he knows better than to draw in front of the scared psychic. Ken steps out into the front yard and unceremoniously drops Pan's delivery, standing beside it and waiting.]

Stab it, [he says simply.] Stab it. Don't be scared of it.

[When everyone was off to fight in the New Heropan Jungle or whatever Pan called his stupid magic curse, the fifth standard government housing unit in Nonah had been so quiet. It was just him and a stranger.

Now almost everyone he expected to see was back, some more than others. But Nonah 05 had doubled? Tripled? in size somehow, keeping Tetsuo more or less a ghost in his room if he wasn't trailing along behind Kaneda.

There've been birds here for about thirteen days. He's managed to avoid actually encountering more than one - not a small feat when they all seem to just exist in the house now.

This time, Tetsuo's not so fast to vanish. Since regaining his powers, he's been a little less skittish about being in the vicinity of anyone, a little more likely to hunch in the living room and play video games. Whatever game he's on - some kind of platformer, from the looks of it - it's got enough of his attention that he may not even have noticed if anyone else comes in.]

--Wait, you're not the same after you die?

I can move mountains, I can work a miracle [OPEN]

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

bless Ken he's so cute

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject