shimmershimmer | Lost Souls

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dead

Lost Souls

[You don't wake up, exactly, but at some point you come to. There's something wrong with you, a numbness and translucency. Should you try to touch something, your hand will pass through it. Why, it's as if you were a ghost. So that's the bad news. Sorry about that. The good news is that mentally, you've woken up entirely. You remember the real truth of who you are, your relationship to your so-called "family," and all the other lies you've been fed by the Shimmering Lady.

You can move freely around what you will soon realize to be the village. The reason why it may take moment of realization is simply because it doesn't look anything like you remember it. The sky is black, the grass is dead, and the cottages are run-down and shoddy concrete buildings. The pond is dirty, and there are no animals whatsoever, anywhere.

And the temple. It's more like a storehouse than a temple. The Shimmering Lady is there, or that mass of flesh and tendrils that calls itself the Shimmering Lady...

She doesn't seem to see or hear you. When the others exit their "homes," neither will they. And there's some strange force keeping you within the walls...]

((Popcorn, mingle, curse the Lady, etc! Also! There will be a special thing for you to do here once Night 01 starts. Watch for it~ :>))

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[This is not what he'd been thinking the dreams would look like. Not at all. It's actually more of a complete and utter nightmare.

...and now he has to hope somehow he can avoid running into his "brother" because that is one conversation Banjou wants to avoid entirely because the man has spent the last few days being brainwashed by a writhing tentacle monster and he'd very much like to not be anywhere near Tsukiyama right now.

He's not strong enough to deal with an angry S-Rank ghoul.]

Hey. Sorry you got taken out. Though I guess you get to see what's really going on and you don't have to deal with the brainwashing so that's kind of good.

[...WOW HE TRIED]

It probably goes without saying, but Tsukiyama's really pissed at you.

[GOOD LUCK]

[Isaac why.]

I'm a little surprised they didn't burn me to death, to be honest.

[He's going to, um... try and avoid Tsukiyama.]

He's spent the last day ranting about me, hasn't he?

So am I. I figured you, me, and Kimblee were all goners, but I guess the people here had mercy on us.

[He's not sure if that was Kimblee's doing or not, but boy did Kimblee try.]

He... well, it hasn't been the whole time...

[Just most of the time.]

If you can call this mercy.

[...]

I was an idiot. I can't believe I thought I was helping people.

[He's completely unsurprised that Tsukiyama has spent the entire time being angry. That conversation they had together was pretty.... intimate... considering the fact that they don't actually like each other at all.

Banjou is fairly content pretending he didn't spend the better part of a week thinking Tsukiyama was his brother, actually. Maybe they can avoid this entirely by ignoring each other.]

Thanks for the warning, McDougal-san. I appreciate it.

I know.

[Though if he's completely honest with himself, this wasn't solely about helping people. It was a challenge to overcome and while he's not sure when it happened, Isaac had slipped back into the same mindset he'd had during the Ishval War. He'd been fighting for his own survival, not anyone else's.

It's kind of disgusting to think about, actually.]

I can try to keep the peace, but don't expect any miracles.

[...]

Oh, and you can just call me Isaac.

[McDougal's kind of an awkward name.]

[Honestly, Banjou hadn't expected all of the demons to have the same motivations he did.

Being a pacifist when you're supposed to kill people to survive kind of sucks, but he's sadly used to it.]

I don't know if there's much you can do. I'm already dead so Tsukiyama-san can't do anything worse to me.

[But being asked to call him Isaac makes Banjou smile.]

Isaac-san, then.

...Yeah, I'm not really sure what he can do to you here, but I'll see what I can do.

[That gets him to smile as well, though it's sort of awkward like he's not really sure what to do with his face. He tried, so that counts for something, right?]

[Worse comes to worst, Banjou can survive having someone shove a fist through his chest, so

He's pretty sturdy.]

I'll be fine, Isaac-san. I've always been a good "shield."

[Just not Tsukiyama's shield, good god what was wrong with him?]

That's good. I'd hate to see anything else happen to you.

[You're a pretty cool dude, Banjou.]

[tbh if Banjou wasn't such a terrible liar, he'd probably be awake right now and still clueless about the giant tentacle monster that's tricking them.]

The same to you, Isaac-san.

[Admittedly, they're pretty screwed at the moment but Banjou can pretend they aren't.]

[Well, you can't avoid him forever, Banjou - that's the difficult part of still being trapped in an enclosed area, after all! You're also at the slight disadvantage provided by Tsukiyama actively looking for you - something he is still rather good at doing, "dead" or not.

So after a while he will approach, and he'll stop a reasonable distance away with his hands on his hips; he isn't all up in Banjou's business, but it's rather plain he doesn't intend to let him go anywhere, either.

He's smiling, but it isn't a nice expression; his eyes are incredibly hard, and there's a brightness to them that is probably...not a good sign.]

Good morning, Banjoi-kun!

[Wow, he sounds cheerful. Alarmingly so. The sort of tight cheerfulness that implies that this is probably not...anywhere near where Banjou wants to be right now.

...Good luck.]

[He'd been hoping to avoid this, he really had.

There's something about being brainwashed into loving someone you can't actually stand at all that's left Banjou entirely unsettled. At least they were brainwashed into thinking they were siblings and not married.

He really feels sorry for those people.

But mostly Banjou feels sorry for himself because he's about to get Tsukiyama's wrath.]

Tsukiyama-san. If you're going to try and kill me I think you'll just end up disappointed.

[He laughs a bit.]

Oh, no, don't worry about that - I think the attempt itself will make me feel much better. A piacere. You understand.

[He tenses noticeably.

There's really nothing he can do about it, especially if Tsukiyama has his ghoul skills here in deadland, but...]

If you think I'm going to stand here and take it, you're mistaken.

Is that so.

[Oh, now he's amused, good lord.]

Tell me what you intend to do about it, Banjou-san. I could use the amusement right now.

[HE'S GOING TO BACK AWAY FROM YOU, THAT'S WHAT

Banjou is... look, he doesn't even have a rating because the CCG are barely aware of his existence. He's not exactly willing to get into a fistfight with Tsukiyama until he has proof he's not going to be torn in half by Tsukiyama's kagune.]

...How laughable.

[Oh, if he had access to his kagune at the moment, Banjou would have been torn in half already. There wouldn't have been any leadup, he wouldn't have bothered with the greeting. If he were feeling generous he would have alerted him to his presence just so he could see his face before ripping into him.

As it stands, he's not sure he could use his kagune even if he wasn't feeling strangely out of sync with it; he'd forced himself to eat in front of Siebold immediately before "dying" and he hasn't exactly been right physically ever since. That seems to be less of a concern here, but still...

As it stands, he simply palms his closed fist, not hard enough to crack knuckles but enough to make it plain that if he's capable of harming you here, your face is going to be the first thing to go.]

Anything to say to me before I ensure you can't say anything, brother dearest?

[It's suicide to go up against Tsukiyama, but if he's dead anyway maybe it won't be so bad. He'll be a crumpled heap on the ground in about five seconds flat, but if he's lucky maybe he'll get one dodge in first.

Banjou's fists clench. He's hopelessly outmatched here, but he doesn't care now.]

I wonder how that thing made you care about someone other than yourself, Tsukiyama-san.

Please. You've been mourning me all day - if I didn't know better, I'd say you'd been spending too much time among the humans. Beginning to feel like one, were you?

Or were you just too pathetic to be able to live with the consequences of what you'd done?!

[And even if Tsukiyama doesn't have access to his kagune he's still obscenely fast; he seems to have change his mind about going for Banjou's face, so at least that's...arguably good.

...He seems to have shifted his focus into trying to knock the wind out of him instead, which is probably less good.]

You should have been the demon. You would have enjoyed it.

[...what's wrong with mourning someone, anyway? Banjou had spent time mourning his followers for dying because of something he'd done, why wouldn't he--

Well, he wouldn't mourn Tsukiyama now.

Banjou is also an idiot. He's not exactly capable of dodging the attacks of an S-Rank ghoul at all.]

Edited 2014-12-09 08:49 (UTC)

[No. No, he really is not.

That said, Tsukiyama draws up just before hitting him, his fist stopping barely before making contact; rather than indicating that he's decided to feel merciful today for god only knows what reason, he just looks incredibly annoyed.]

Would it kill you to try to intercept me? Fight. Back.

[He tenses.

Banjou hadn't been expecting Tsukiyama to give him a chance to fight back, honestly.

But he does raise his fists finally, at least looking like he's ready to defend himself. It's stupid and going to end with him severely injured, but if he's being given the opportunity to fight back before ending up in a heap on the ground, he's going to take it.

Actually successfully hitting Tsukiyama, however, is only going to happen if he deliberately takes the hit. Banjou's just too slow to fight effectively.]

[...Good. He'll write off his hesitation to just beat the shit out of the guy with no resistance as lingering effects of the brainwashing earlier; for the time being he's not sure what's wrong with him mentally, he just knows it's making him angry as hell and he has absolutely no direction for it.

Of course, the fact that he can't fucking hit you in any sort of meaningful way isn't going to really help matters. I mean it connects, but it's in a strange, disconnected-feeling way that he's not sure he trusts, and he backs off immediately once he's done it.]

...Ah.

[No seriously WHAT THE HELL WAS THAT

WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU

...WHAT THE HELL SHOULD HE BE DOING WITH HIS FACE RIGHT NOW]

[Banjou braces himself for a blow that will land him crumpled on the ground. It's not like he can die like this, he doesn't think, but he could be wrong. He'd spent the entire day waiting to be burned to death, after all.

And he'd spent a lot of the day feeling actual grief for someone he can't stand, and that... it shouldn't still bother him.]

I...

[Banjou moves to touch the spot where Tsukiyama has punched him. At full strength, that would be an injury to worry about, but apparently that all goes out the window when you're a ghost.

He really... doesn't know what to do so he just sort of stares, wondering if maybe he should go be around the rest of the group, but not wanting to turn his back to Tsukiyama.]

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