depressured | IC Inbox (Purgastory)

Ah. [ this makes more sense. also? he hates this, actually. ]

... hard to avoid when it's literally looking you in the face. [ that sounds hellish actually. though he does have to ask: ] Were they true?

At first, yes. She reminded me of the pain I'd caused my mother... and called me a coward. She said my true self wasn't what anyone wanted. And that I didn't want to be alone.

It made me remember... how scared I still am of being rejected.

[ Basically she did indeed meet her shadow-- ]

[ again, he's going to blow up purgatory. unfortunately though he's been keeping his emotions in check around her there is a brief little spike of worry and also anger when she says that before he puts them back in check. ]

... am. As in currently? [ he has a lot to say still about all of that, but he's not going to jump in and say "that's not true!" until he gets a better sense of where her head is at. ]

[ It's brief. It's not as intense. She doesn't wince this time, at the very least. ]

... Yes. I'm still afraid of that.

[ She might always be afraid of that. She's lived the reality of the pain of rejection. From the one person she'd wanted to understand more than anyone. ]

[ he's going to be the last person to tell her to get over it. ]

Sometimes I think the bravest and the scariest thing in the world is being yourself and showing people who you really are. It's... always in the back of your head a little, thinking about the people you care about and if they'll still love you if they really knew the real you. At the same time, you always want the people closest to you to really see you.

One of those situations where you have to decide how far you're going to run away. [ he has more to say on this, but he lets that hang for a second. ]

What did you say to her?

[ He says it and that really is the honest truth. To want to be seen. To want to be loved, for her true self. Even if that self is imperfect. To have that self chalked up to a "passing fancy", the bad influence of her friends...

Mafuyu closes her eyes briefly. ]

I told her I've met a lot of stubborn people here who wouldn't leave me alone. Even seeing the non-perfect me. And that I had to try... to believe I was worthy of being cared about. Moving forward.

[ this is where they differ because he's never experienced the pain of a rejection from a parent, and it bothers him that a parent could actually say these things to their child. some of his friends have neglectful parents, sure, but this is...

that's neither here nor there, because she continues and he grins faintly. ]

Impressive, Asahina-san. [ a little teasing, but then his expression softens again. ] You aren't wrong. People aren't going to leave you alone, even seeing the parts of you that feel imperfect. People like that person for everything she is. I'm glad that you're willing to keep trying. And that you can tell yourself you're willing to try.

I don't know how well I'll do. Not everyone will want to accept me. Or like me, when I'm blunt and hard to approach like this.

[ And she accepts that. She has to accept that, rather. ]

... Anyway, then the statues started to move on the attack and Lucian sang to explode them.

[ he opens his mouth to say something to that, but he decides they should get through the story first and he can loop back around to it. ]

You're not even the most blunt person here. [ he will say that one thing though before dropping it for now. we will come back. anyway, moving statues sound creepy and annoying. ]

Oh. So that's what you meant about a singer who could shatter stone. [ ... ] Wait, if he was with you the whole time, why did you end up fighting him?

[ double-wait. ]

And didn't he tell you he couldn't sing anymore?

He can't sing normally anymore. His singing voice is a destructive force.

[ Which would be a problem in a normal performance. ]

He was with me the whole time, including arming me with a bow, since I know archery, but then shortly after that... we were attacked by a bear doll in a coffin and the collar he had around his neck went off. Like, electrocuted them both. He got the collar off, but then there was a voice in the walls that called him a centerpiece and a murderer and called for an encore, and he...

[ ... ]

He went into some sort of trance. I tried to stop him, but he threw me to the side and entered a mirror like it was a door.

I regrouped with Tsukasa and Edamura-san shortly after that.

[ he is picturing the idea of exploding heads, yeah, and that's not good. there's a brief ? at her saying she knows archery but then he's more focused on the. bear? electrocution? all of this is a lot actually, he's taking a few moments to process as she's telling him this. ]

So he was with you and helping you defend yourself up until something... hypnotized him? And then he vanished and you had to find your own way. [ this is starting to sound bad. ]

What happened after you found Tsukasa and Edamura-san? Did you find where Lucian went through the mirror? [ ... ]

One of his friends explained the situation to us and helped us prepare for an inevitable fight. She said he had something on him that this troupe's Mouthpiece was using to control him. So we gained access to weapons and more defensive things to allow us to protect ourselves and try to slow him down.

And then we went to the theater to fight on the stage.

[ This is the abridged version. She's still tired. ]

[ there's a long, tense pause. ]

None of you are combatants. [ sorry, he's just saying this. none of you? none of you!!! ]

None of us are combatants.

[ She agrees! ]

But it was the only way to save him. We had to fight.

[ he's rubbing a hand over his face slowly. ]

Right, I get it. You wanted to save him from himself, and from being under the Troupe's control. Is that where most of the injuries came from?

[ how did the fight go... ]

Yes. There were mannequins dressed like people we knew, who acted like people we knew, and more of those bear dolls... and then Lucian showed up.

Edamura-san was... preoccupied, I think, so Tsukasa and I faced him.

[ She hadn't wanted to. But they'd had to stop him. ]

I realized the mask he had on was the same mask his reflection did, and so I tried to hold him back so Tsukasa could get the mask off. [ it went about as well as you would expect a teenage girl holding off an assassin with just her body to go. ]

He did it. And then we had to deal with the Mouthpiece, but Lucian was back to himself by then, so it wasn't really that hard at that point.

[ he scowls a little at the idea of mannequins looking like people they all knew, but he figures she would know why that makes him mad (because it's shitty.) but he thinks on this, trying to visualize it. ]

That couldn't have been easy on either of you. Any of you, even. So when you got the mask off of him it broke the mind control... what happened to the Mouthpiece and the rest of the troupe then? Are they statues now...?

We fought... one final push. And Lucian dealt the killing blow.

[ Like a bamf. ]

And then we had to run because the stage was falling apart.

... I think I'd want the final blow on somebody who was manipulating me, too. [ lightly. but hm... ]

That seems to be a common thing. Getting near the end and everything falling apart, I mean. Did you get out of the castle then? What happened after you left the stage?

We said goodbye. The lobby itself was fine. But it seemed to be the best time to part ways.

And then we ended up back here.

And on a dumb dating show. [ seriously what the hell. ]

... does it bother you to not know what happened to Lucian after you guys split up to come back?

A little.

[ he went through a lot. ]

But he's back where he belongs, with his organization. So I think... he should be able to live his own life now.

[ there's a nod of agreement because whether any of it was actually "real" or not, it doesn't change that part. ]

... you guys did a good thing helping him, even with such a high risk. I'm just sorry it had to go like this.

We weren't killed.

[ Which is the most important part. ]

So I'm glad we made it back. All of us.

Yeah, that's sort of how I felt after we got back, too. [ they didn't die, so that had to count. he lets that hang for a bit, reaching forward to poke at his shoelace just to busy his hands and not put her on the spot immediately. ]

I know this may be hard for you to answer [ for... multiple reasons... ], but how are you feeling now?

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