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lapidarius

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From:

ceasetoexist

[Thank God Kakyoin offered to let them meet at his house. Pokey didn't really want anyone in his house right now. Hell, with the hand in his fridge, he didn't want to be in the fucking house right now.

He comes bearing his usual gifts. The cherry soda Kakyoin likes. A pack of cigarettes on the off hand chance the other teen wants one. Pokey'd like to think his slightly nervous demeanor, growing over the last few days, wasn't necessarily something that had become natural for him. But oh well.

He knocks on the door, smirking a bit.]

Hey nerd, knock knock. I'm here.

From:

lapidarius

Hey. [Kakyoin's own house was...well, it was standing. He'd cut it down to just the front room and courtyard again to conserve magic, but a careful look would make to fairly easy to notice the occasional wayward emerald growing out of the walls and ceiling.]

[But he greeted Pokey with a hesitant smile upon opening the door, trying to at least look like he wasn't absolutely livid and screaming internally.]

Good to see you.

From:

ceasetoexist

Don't doubt it. At least I'm not the worst thing you've seen recently.

[He sets the soda down before taking a seat.]

Said you had something personally to talk about. What I've got can wait. What else did you find?

From:

lapidarius

[Cutting right to the point, then. That was fine--better, really. Kakyoin sat down as well and set a book between them, the cover reading 'On the Shortness of Life.']

I didn't tell the others everything. The notes we found were in this, and there was just a little more to them.

[He opened the book to a second set of notes, rather than show Pokey the copy in his own notebook.]

The second one most likely refers to Nightmares. The third, I presume to be whoever I was told arranged for the rest of you to come to Tsukudo-cho for us. And the last one is rather obvious, since we already knew Ohka and Morikawa must have vanished while we were fighting that thing.

[...]

...Obviously, it's the first one that worries me right now.

From:

ceasetoexist

[Pokey looks through the notes, skimming them at first before coming back to the top note and looking at it over again. He doesn't bother thinking about trying to hide his discomfort, his anger.]

Bitch.

[He feels his hands curl up into fists at it. He isn't sure entirely where the anger is even coming from, not recognizing the wellspring that had built up since the moment he got a hand on his porch, posed like it was the funniest response in the goddamn world.]

...She's a vicious monster. And she isn't playing with the threats she makes. We're going to have to take every thing she says seriously. Not like I need to tell you that.

Everything this bitch does is her sin. Not ours.

[Not yours, Kakyoin. He doubts that's the main worry, but just getting it out there.]

Are you going to warn her?

From:

lapidarius

...I don't know where to start. Unless someone else has talked to her, I don't think Hatsu knows any of what's going on.

[He didn't address the matter of whether or not he was blaming himself over this just yet, focusing on the more pressing issue first.]

Obviously I should have called her earlier, but I--how do you even tell someone about a mess like this when they're effectively helpless to do anything for their own friends?

From:

ceasetoexist

..I don't know.

[He just shakes his head a bit, putting a hand on his knee as he thinks.]

I honestly don't think there's a good way or right way to tell them the person keeping us here is a complete sack of trash and has decided to kidnap her friends. I guess I would have done it at the beginning. Gotten it out of the way. But that's just me. She's going to know sometime. We have to tell her sometime.

When you do, you're going to need to be honest, especially in telling her who took them. ....Reading some of the conversations the admin had with us, I'm certain there has to be bad blood on Kagaku's end at least towards Cyborg Xpress.

From:

lapidarius

No, I should have called her first. I wasn't thinking straight when all of this started, so I'll have to answer for that kind of mistake.

[Taking his glasses off, he pressed a hand to his face.]

...that hadn't occurred to me until right now. I thought she was just after whoever seemed a viable target for her desired result, but she knew everything about them. There's a clear possibility they knew her before all this, isn't there?

From:

ceasetoexist

There is. ...To be fair, she knows everything about us too so it isn't exact evidence. But I dunno. It feels personal to her, I'm not gonna lie.

Its worth keeping in mind.

...None of us were thinking straight Kakyoin. Hell. I don't know how many of us are now.

From:

lapidarius

None of us, by my estimation. I'm certain that I'm not, at least. I'll...I'll figure something out. As soon as I have a minute I'll call her, but...

[Ugh, entirely likely hypotheticals.] ...if something happens to me in all of this, can you get in contact with her or give someone else her number?

Edited Date: 2017-03-08 02:58 am (UTC)

From:

ceasetoexist

...If you give me her number, sure.

You're going in, right?

From:

lapidarius

...yeah. As long as someone else is stupid enough to risk it, then I should be there too. Since I'm the one who pointed them in that direction to begin with.

[Taking out his notebook, he wrote down Sachiko's number and tore out the page to hand over to Pokey.]

Aside from the rest of these notes, I've told everyone as much as I know. So if I end up dying--or worse, shattering--at the very least I won't be taking anything vital with me on that front.

From:

ceasetoexist

[Pokey reaches out and takes the number and, for a moment, just looks at it.]

...I can't.

I know I should. That if there's a chance, I should. But I can't go in.

[And he feels so torn between being a coward and like it's the right decision. And so much of him wants to fight the idea it's the right decision.]

I just. I keep thinking about how much the cost is if, if things go too bad in there and.

I'm sorry.

From:

lapidarius

Don't.

[He folded his hands on the table, fingers neatly interlaced--that way, they wouldn't shake if he dared to try contemplating how bad this situation really was.]

You've done nothing you need to apologize for. In fact, you're doing the right thing--I need you handling things on ground level the best that you can. [He sounded as steady as a leader trying to delegate should have spoken. The only real giveaway as to how uncertain he felt was in the slightly spreading crystals in the house that reflected his own expectations and mental landscape.]

I trust you. And I trust you to keep your head screwed on well enough to deal with a losing situation as best you can.

From:

ceasetoexist

[That shouldn't sting. The trust shouldn't sting. But in part it does. Part of him wells up, wanting to shout how he did screw up. At a point that was important, he let his anger get the best of him and one of those girls suffered because of it. Because of him. There is shit he has to apologize for.

But right now, at the moment, he'd have to hold on to it. Now wasn't the time to mention it. Hell. He didn't know if there'd ever be a time to mention it.

He just nods his head a little.]

...Right. I'll do what I can, if worst comes to worst.

...I was talking with Diarmuid a bit ago. I'm going to be honest. I'm pretty sure that the person that sent the kill order on Kagaku is Kyuubey.

From:

lapidarius

...

[And apparently, that caught him so off guard that Kakyoin's entire trail of thought derailed and several wayward emeralds popped like bubbles, leaving nothing but a brief sparkle of dust behind.]

You what.

From:

ceasetoexist

The way he communicated. It's like back in July when he was talking to us over the televisions.

Likely, he's not testing his luck after getting caught the last time. He probably sent what he could to us as covertly as he could to make sure the message got through.

I'm not saying it definitely is. Just that it fits how he talked to us before.

From:

lapidarius

But...if it is him, then why-

[This didn't add up with what very, very little they knew of Kyuubey. What stake did he really have in all of this?]

It does make sense, looking at the method of communication itself. But I don't understand what he could have to gain here. It's not like he's helped us much before, save for that one time when we lost our memories.

...Unless...that was Yamashita's work, too? And for some reason, whatever she's doing is causing him trouble?

From:

ceasetoexist

I don't know.

[He shakes his head a little.]

It'd help if we had a better idea how many parties are actually at play in pissing about with us. Far as I'm concerned, not much reason to think she wasn't responsible for that. And-

[He closes his eyes, thinking on something.]

...When I talked to him, I asked him if why he didn't tell us about witches. He told me that we weren't meant to fight them. That they weren't supposed to be here, and wasn't it better that we were fighting Nightmares.

He didn't say it explicitly, but thinking on that? I'm thinking he actively doesn't want this Witch crap going on. Here, at least.

From:

lapidarius

[Kakyoin listened in silence, thinking carefully before forming a response. If Kyuubey didn't want Witches in Nyoi-cho, and Yamashita was working to create them, then-... Something occurred to him, and he flipped through his notebook again.]

'January- A batch of magi has appeared in town all of a sudden. Is Kyuubey hoping to reclaim this place?'

I think...I overestimated what Yamashita is responsible for here. The city's barrier and the Nightmares...those aren't her or anyone she's working with. If this theory holds and what you're saying is right, then all of that has been Kyuubey from the beginning.

The way magi and Soul Gems work within this barrier is completely different from the rules of the world outside of town, we know this for a fact. Witches don't--shouldn't form within its range, and barring the interference from that fake Witch's flood, I'm sure the Doll's never would have manifested at all.

We had already theorized this city was an experiment for some unknown purpose, but it's not Yamashita's. It's Kyuubey's.

From:

ceasetoexist

Continue to work under the assumption that it was Kyuubey trying to contact us? Yeah. That'd make sense.

So looks like we are, for sure, caught in a battle between two groups. And at least we have a good idea who they are.

Gonna admit. Didn't see wanting to be on the cat's side coming when I started this.

From:

lapidarius

You're telling me. I don't doubt for a second that he's miles from anything resembling benevolent, but if that goddamn cat is the lesser evil here...

[He trailed off, glancing down at his own handwriting.]

...I don't know what his goal is, but at this point I'd rather have a thousand Nightmares than even one Witch.