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[chokuto]

UN: 火
𝐓𝐄𝐗𝐓 / 𝐀𝐔𝐃𝐈𝐎 / 𝐕𝐈𝐃𝐄𝐎 / 𝐀𝐂𝐓𝐈𝐎𝐍 / 𝐎𝐕𝐄𝐑𝐅𝐋𝐎𝐖
𝟖♣ ( 𝑬𝑰𝑮𝑯𝑻 𝒐𝒇 𝑪𝑳𝑼𝑩𝑺 )

Comments

[chokuto]

Are you using humor to deflect, or is this just how you are?

I have more questions, but I won't ask them now. Think about what you want my own honesty on sooner rather than later.

[so he doesn't have to agonize over it... #bossy]

[hallowing]

if i cared abt actually deflecting u wouldn't know a thing abt me as an FYI.

man there's not a statute of limitations on questions, go ahead and ask whatever u want. if i don't wanna answer i'll tell u to fuck off.

as for my question @ u, u never know. maybe i'll just forget abt it 😌

[chokuto]

Then I'll remind you.

If I ask how you became this way are you going to answer? Or will that require another promise of honesty to be paid at some ambiguous time?

[hallowing]

well, i wouldn't NOT answer

[chokuto]

[???]

What does that mean.

[hallowing]

do i need to use smaller words, or...

1/2

[chokuto]

[chokuto]

Then, how did you become this way?

10,000 years is an unfathomable amount of time. Your condition isn't enviable. I would guess you are unique to your dimension, but I can't know that for sure.

There was something... else that I sensed in your presence when I first saw you. Does that have to do with it?

[hallowing]

i'm a god. little g.

but i was born human. or humanish, i guess. i don't actually remember much from then.

（ he has one clear memory from that time. his wife, with their daughter on her hip, silhouetted by a setting sun. it's the only thing he's managed to hold onto, to claw back into being. and he has done his best to forcibly memorize that moment, reburning it into those pathways again, and again, and again. like any document that's been faxed too many times, he's sure he's lost detail. did he know her eye colour, once? their daughter's name? did his wife smell like clover, or herbs, or bread? he thinks she might have been a soldier, but maybe that's just a false memory that's slipped in through the cracks of his mind, given his current affinity. ）

the 'ascension', if u wanna call it that bc gods are dumb actually, do not pass go, do not collect 200 dollars and certainly do not adulate those motherfuckers, got fucked up. that's rly all there is to it. i guess u could say im unique in that it hasn't happened to anyone else before or since over in my neck of the woods, tho tbf i don't spend a lot of time giving a fuck abt Celestial Affairs.

[chokuto]

[It's not like he is expecting a good story.

Still, it seems impossibly unfair. A mistake made by whom—the gods themselves? An undeserved fate, certainly, if it means living forever and being unable to die while shackled to an unreliable mind. The divide between life and death is so significant to the identity of a shinobi that it's difficult to comprehend something like this. But he is used to difficulty, at least.]

Was it willing? The 'Ascension' as you called it.

[hallowing]

nah. but what's one life, right?

for legal purposes that is a rhetorical question steeped in gallow's humour

[chokuto]

And the other gods, the ones who did this to you? What happened to them?

[hallowing]

( if you are planning your revenge, dig two graves. he doesn't know if he'd kill iantha if he had a chance, but to neatly solve for that paradox of emotional trauma he's just refused to be in the same room as her for roughly nine millennia.

could he sacrifice a world and its peoples in the name of vengeance?

probably not, but half the battle, when dealing with addiction, is removing the temptation in the first place. )

idk. presumably they're out there doing god things.

mysteriously, i do not get invited to the family reunions.

[chokuto]

[What does he say after Cyram was willing to share that?

Does he even trust it? He has no reason to. Yet it doesn't feel like a lie, and nothing this man has done feels particularly malicious. Still—he's admitted himself that his brain is damaged.]

I didn't actually think you would answer.

[just say thank you????]

What is it that you do, if not 'god things'? In your dimension.

cw for whatever this is, idk how to warn. (cy things)

[hallowing]

fuck, man, what DON'T i do. shorter list.

rn i'm a civil engineer. math's a constant, so anything that uses it is p easy to pick up.

i play most instruments and write music. i am PISSED that i don't have a fucking guitar, im gonna start tanning human skin to make a drumset if left to my own devices much longer*

*my skin, it's a renewable free range resource

anyway that's p much it.

i like ppl, so it's not rly abt what i do, it's who i meet along the way, u know?

cy wtf actually

[chokuto]

[What a normal list. And he likes people? Cannot relate.

Time to be overdramatic about this, because it's been a rough fucking week and something has to tip him over the edge.]

I see. Your outlook is surprisingly carefree despite what you've endured.

If we meet again, don't approach me.

jazz hands

[hallowing]

okay h/o actually im calling in my honest answer credit.

why not?

（ suffer 😌 ）

[chokuto]

[this is an anime betrayal????]

Right now?

[hallowing]

well if i respect ur wishes and leave u alone i wouldn't get another shot, would i? as good a time as any.

[chokuto]

[ughhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhHHHHHHHHHHH

Then again, maybe this confession will further enforce the distance between them. If nothing else it means this card can't be pulled on him at a more crucial time. What is a little humiliation, after everything else he's endured?]

I asked if you'd seen me before. Do you remember? [An important question, bearing Cy's condition in mind.] I did that because I was trying to determine if you were also experiencing this.

I've been having dreams. About you.

[hallowing]

（ well, aight. ）

important q how was dream-me hung

[chokuto]

Shut up.

[can he block someone on his Watch]

[hallowing]

nah, you're right, dick move. shouldn't have said that. wasn't trying to throw the honesty back in your face.

look, for what it's worth i think it's probably just a side effect of this stupid system. i wouldn't do anything, anyway. big on consent 👍🏻

if you're worried.

[chokuto]

I wasn't worried. [Or maybe he was? His mind feels too tangled, lately, around everything.] I just don't know why it's you.

[There were other people—but Cyram has been the most frequent haunting.]

I won't play this game, no matter what they do to me.

[hallowing]

（ well, that's a macabre lightbulb moment over here. he'd assumed trauma — but it's not the sort he was considering. he does remember, with a clarity that's alarming in his mind, the press of the kid's bloodied fingers against his chest and realizes his reluctance is actually borne of desire and the self-denial to accept it.

there are things he could say. lectures about how suffering for pride gets you nowhere and leaves you with nothing at the end. there are offers he could make, or promises, or jokes.

instead, he just remembers how strongly something in this boy had called kulo vayn out of the depths of his ruined mind, and swallows it down. ）

well, sometimes that's the right move.

i'm sorry. for what it's worth, i hope you don't have to.