He kind of just looks at her for a moment, remembering what he saw.] You-- [he starts to say, but the screen clicks and then flickers.
A familiar little boy with dark hair is walking along the grassy jut of a hill with a lighthouse. There's a lump in the distance, and the boy rushes over to see. Another boy with blonde hair is lying on the ground in only a long tunic. The dark-haired boy reaches a hand out.
Are you okay? he asks.
The blonde boy sits slightly up, looking at the hand. Then he reaches out to take it. The dark-haired boy kneels down and wraps his arms around the other boy's neck and shoulders.
It's okay, the dark-haired boy reassures. It's going to be okay. Don't be scared.
The same familiar, dark-haired boy is hovering over a cardboard box. It looks like a smaller, softer version of Akira. It is Akira. Inside the box is a black kitten with patches of missing fur, breathing shallow.
Beside him is another familiar little boy with blonde hair. There is no timeline in which it is not Ryo. In a stoic voice, Ryo says, It's going to die. He grabs Akira's shirt to pull Akira away, but Akira clings desperately to the box on the ground.
No! Akira cries. Don't!
It's going to die, Ryo reasons, taking a box cutter from his pocket. It'll die anyway. Give it to me.
No! Akira cries again, resisting.
Let me kill it! Ryo says, extending the blade of the box cutter and raising it over his head.
Akira clings to the box. No, you can't!
Why the hell not? Ryo asks. Let me put it out of its misery!
The same two boys are now lying on the ground of craggled rock, side by side, looking up at the night sky. Look, Ryo, Akira says, pointing up, a rabbit!
There's no rabbit, Ryo says. Those are shadows on the moon's surface due to elevation. The moon has no atmosphere.
Akira stretches taut in worried surprise. Then we've got to save them! Akira says.
The same two boys are now in yellow primary school uniforms, in a room with green carpet in a building. Ryo has a doll in his hands, but it's missing its head. An older woman is leading him away while Akira tells a crying girl nearby it'll be okay as she clutches the brown-haired head of a doll.
The fish in the tank of the school aquarium are all floating on the surface of the water and unmoving. Akira is standing at the glass, sobbing profusely while Ryo stands beside him, watching him.
Akira's feet are dirty from walking across the hot dirt of the playground. Three boys jeer and toss his little yellow shoes back and forth, but Akira doesn't bother trying to get them back. Later, Ryo comes up to him with four pairs of little shoes, including the yellow ones belonging to him. Akira bends down to take the yellow ones.
The two boys are soaking together in a hotsprings. Ryo sits in the water, watching, while Akira gets out to toss himself face-down into the snow nearby while laughing and squealing. After getting back in, a family of capybaras ventures over to soak in the warm pool on the opposite side. Ryo reaches back and gets the box cutter, but Akira grabs his forearm and shakes his head.
Tiny circles of lights dance on the shadows of the ground beneath a tree. The wind blows the leaves, and the two boys are together, looking.
Why does it form circles? Akira asks.
It's the pinhole theory.
Theory...
Since the spaces between the leaves are small like pinholes, they act as points of symmetry, and reflect the sun upside-down on the ground.
The two boys stand in front of the brilliant sun with metal face masks attached to a metal pole. They stand there in silence and watch as the moon overtakes the sun, their shadows dancing, until it covers the sun completely and an eclipse forms. It drowns the whole world in darkness.
Outside the school, rain is pouring, and Ryo stands at the door to watch Akira race into the dark and the water with the cardboard box. After a moment, Ryo takes an umbrella and goes out after him. On the hill, Akira sits on his knees and sobs with the box, covered by an umbrella, and a plate of untouched milk. Ryo appears and extends the umbrella so it covers Akira from the rain.
Why are you crying? Ryo asks. You knew it was going to die.
You're wrong.
The weak ones die, Ryo says.
Akira shakes his head over and over and over. No, no, no! You're crying, too!
Ryo looks surprised, then neutral again. Why would I cry? he asks. I'm not sad. It was going to die anyway.
You're crying, too!
In front of the screen, Akira swallows down the tight burn in his throat.]
[did ryo murder those schoolchildren. burning questions...
this memory makes her sad, too. she never had a friend growing up. she and gideon hated each other violently, though in a way that was friendship for them. akira is so gentle, always has been, and it hurts to see, but she understands a little more about ryo now from watching this. not that he's obviously a psychopath. she was a pretty unhinged little kid, too. but how much someone so gentle must have meant to him, despite his belief that the weak ones die.]
Not at first. He didn't know. It was just me not knowing if I should keep being angry and pretending not to be. This somehow hasn't happened for him yet.
But... I finally told him the truth. He didn't want to believe me, then he saw... [Gestures at how the screen happened.] Now I don't know what we are.
[He turns his head away for a moment so he can draw in a breath, then he turns it back.]
He betrayed me to get the humans to turn on one another, and they did. Some of the most important people to me were taken away because humans were scared everyone else was a demon.
[yeah listen she has an impression here that ryo was simply too pragmatic in a dangerous time for akira's tender and gentle heart to understand.
but despite that, she has some opinions about manipulative and controlling behavior, the kind she sees in herself, too.]
I will not insert myself in a personal matter between the two of you. But if you are angry with him for these things, then perhaps it is because you ought to be.
I do not think you do someone a service by shielding them from seeing the pain they cause.
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
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[sometimes god is just a guy.]
He is who tasked our House to ensure the tomb remains sealed forever, and what has been sealed inside never awakes. She is what is sealed within.
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He kind of just looks at her for a moment, remembering what he saw.] You-- [he starts to say, but the screen clicks and then flickers.
In front of the screen, Akira swallows down the tight burn in his throat.]
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this memory makes her sad, too. she never had a friend growing up. she and gideon hated each other violently, though in a way that was friendship for them. akira is so gentle, always has been, and it hurts to see, but she understands a little more about ryo now from watching this. not that he's obviously a psychopath. she was a pretty unhinged little kid, too. but how much someone so gentle must have meant to him, despite his belief that the weak ones die.]
Are you alright?
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He thinks about Ryo bringing up they did a lot together as children, and he runs his hand back through his hair slowly.]
Yeah, I'm okay. Sorry.
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[...]
Are you and he still, hmm. Fighting?
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Not at first. He didn't know. It was just me not knowing if I should keep being angry and pretending not to be. This somehow hasn't happened for him yet.
But... I finally told him the truth. He didn't want to believe me, then he saw... [Gestures at how the screen happened.] Now I don't know what we are.
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[she saw one of ryo's memories, and has an impression of their relationship that is 100% true and accurate, but she still hesitates.]
...I don't recall all of the same things Gideon does. [she's the early canon point bitch here.] The things he's done, did they do you harm?
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...
[He turns his head away for a moment so he can draw in a breath, then he turns it back.]
He betrayed me to get the humans to turn on one another, and they did. Some of the most important people to me were taken away because humans were scared everyone else was a demon.
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but despite that, she has some opinions about manipulative and controlling behavior, the kind she sees in herself, too.]
I will not insert myself in a personal matter between the two of you. But if you are angry with him for these things, then perhaps it is because you ought to be.
I do not think you do someone a service by shielding them from seeing the pain they cause.
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I know.
[He runs his hand back through his hair.]
After this week, I don’t think I have to worry about shielding anyone. Especially not Ryo.
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[a heavy sigh.]
I suppose sometimes that is for the best.
[even though she's so sick of it!]
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[Unfortunately, he has seen. Some things.
He is also sick of it mainly because he has so much terrible baggage that it’s what everyone usually gets.]
He didn’t believe me, so I guess it just shows him what was true.