it's a grand room, like the kind of place you'd go to see broadway. the walls are painted the same way, with splashes of color, swirling around aimlessly. big curtains hang on either side of the stage, pulled back so that you can enjoy the show.
this castle - it takes the shape of your deepest desires. it could be a place to call home. don't you want to stay here forever?
the carpet in front of you slopes downward, with one long aisle leading right up to the stage itself. on either side of the aisle are rows of seats, and some of them are filled. with what? you can't say. they just look like someone is sitting in them, heads turned at an angle that isn't quite possible. staring right at you.
the show is about to start, what are you doing? maybe go find your seats!]
that didn't take long. immediately, vax is moving to stick to the shadows, protectively putting an arm out to keep the others (that he can, anyway, damien might be out of reach and also protect the genkis) to being stealthy just in case something immediately tries to leap out at them.
...and then nothing does.
well! vax has always said that he doesn't trust anyone that hates the theater (?) even if the uncanny feywild vibes here are terrible, and that shivery don't you want to stay here forever hasn't left, and there seems to not be much to do but move carefully towards the seats, i guess. ]
you don't recognize the people being shuffled on stage. but they don't seem like they want to be here - they're pushed and shoved and halfway dragged to their marks by figures in black bodysuits, arranged as necessary. like puppets, almost.
the first, a man with wavy brown hair and a long brown coat, blearily looks up from where he's been positioned. his right arm hangs loosely by his side, and blood leaks slowly out from under the patch over his right eye. for a moment, he just stands and stares into the distance, and then the figure in the black bodysuit jostles him. he winces, and takes a deep breath.
and steps forward. the second he does, there's the sound of barking dogs in the distance. he stares out over the hall, not making eye contact with anybody, and then snaps his fingers. a noose falls from the ceiling, right in front of him. he steps up to it, and hooks it around his neck. and as he does - the floor falls out from underneath him. there's a sharp crack, as his neck breaks. he's still alive, though, you can see his eyes move. and then - the lights flicker. in the span of the dark, his body falls through the hole in the floor, and there's a sickening crunch. the sound of dogs, snarling and yelping as they fight each other for food.
this is…
the second, a young woman with long dark brown hair, is pushed forward. she instinctively kicks at the figure pushing her forward, but doesn't connect. her hair comes undone from the braid it's in, and as she turns her head, you can see the pointed ears. she spits blood, and wipes it from her mouth with fingerless hands, shaking. she is less eager to follow the first act, but she has to. she doesn't have a choice.
so she steps forward, and stares out defiantly into the dark. and as she does, a thousand arrows fly through the air and pierce her body. thud, thudthudthudthud - they hit every part of her, head to toe. some go through her entirely, leaving holes and bursts of blood. one of them hits her in the throat, so she can't even scream. and then, as she drops to her knees, eyes wide and shocked, she starts to disintegrate. slowly, agonizingly. it looks like she's in horrible, awful pain, writhing, gurgling... until she's gone.
who…
you cannot get on the stage. you can only watch. but why would you want to do anything? you don't know who these people are.
[ it's the sound, first - the dogs, the man. vax doesn't know him, but he knows what a noose is, and he jerks up from his seat immediately, on edge, because no one else is moving. no one in this fucking sham of an audience is doing anything. he starts to yell, a - ] What the fuck -
[ and then the woman steps forward next.
and it's.
it's strange. vax'ildan is no stranger to torture or violence or suffering. he's seen it all, experienced it all himself, even, but this feels impossible to watch. this - just seeing this woman sends a bolt of lightning that roots him to the spot, and makes his heart wrench in his chest. for a moment he's just stuck there like he's frozen in time, breath caught, silenced.
and for a brief moment, he doesn't recognize this person. does he?
does he?
he's looking at pointed ears. he's looking at a face that looks just like his own.
the first arrow hits and vax makes a choked off noise before he even realizes it. then the second the third the fourth the fifth and they keep coming and coming and
the name rips out of his throat before he even realizes, the scream of a wounded animal more so than a person, of a name, a person, vax could never forget - ]
VEX'AHLIA!
[ no.
no, no no no no no no no.
by the time the arrows stop, vax has leapt over the seat in front of him and tries to move further, but he can't. he slams his hands up against whatever's in the way, against the people in this fake audience, and it doesn't matter that it might be an illusion because vax'ildan knows her, and that's vex, and every other sight in this room narrows down as he watches his sister, his other half, his heart,
fade powerless and gurgling into dust, into nothing, his eyes locked with hers until she's gone
and vax is just standing here. useless. powerless, shaking with rage and despair and fury and agony all at once.
[ damien just looks... pained by that first act. he doesn't know them, so he doesn't care. that's the way the world works! why would you care about someone you don't know?
whether it's an act or not is kind of unclear to him. reality can be a hard thing to figure out sometimes. especially in a place like this. but even if it was real he feels too frozen to move. his hands are on his knees, clammy.
and he just watches vax lose it, because. well. what else is he supposed to do? what else does he ever do but watch other people's breakdowns? ]
Death is all he's ever known, after all. It's what he's made for, in the most literal sense--and unlike the older swords, or the treasured keepsakes, Yasusada has only ever known war. War, sickness, isolation, and more war.
On occasion, he knows, death can be made performative--assassinations and sacrifice are all things he's familiar with, even if he doesn't particularly like them. It's never been like this, on the sort of stage he's come to associate with peacetime and laughter, but that just leaves him more confused than alarmed or infuriated. Is this--should it be like this? Truly? Something doesn't feel right.
Yasusada doesn't know these people, doesn't know what they've done or who their enemies are; when it's the woman's turn, he jumps to his feet, too, but it's a reflexive response to the sound of arrows, an ingrained reaction to the potential threat of battle. He reaches for his blade, but of course, it isn't there--and he, too, briefly freezes.
It's Vax's voice that spurs him--that raw agony, the sort that Yasusada is painfully familiar with. A tone that's left his own throat more than once, even before he had a voice to scream with.
What does he do? What can they do?
Is there a threat, still? Will Vax get shot, too, if he stays up there?
That thought is enough to get him moving, leaving the aisle to try and run to where Vax is.]
[Atsushi doesn't yell. He doesn't scream. He doesn't do anything at all but stare, wide-eyed and trembling, as that man in a brown coat goes through the motions of stepping up to that noose and positioning it around his neck.
He's seen these kinds of actions dozens of times before. Throwing himself into a river only to be fished out later. Eating questionable foods and throwing them up later. Drinking glass after glass of alcohol while cheerfully talking about the harm it does to his liver. It's morbid, but it just...is. That's how it's always been.
Except this isn't the same as those actions. This isn't flirting with death and singing songs about how lovely it would be to die with a beautiful woman. This is raw, emotionless, and lacking in the usual mirth that shows that Dazai is just playing around, he's not being serious. (Or at least Atsushi assumes it's not serious, because of how much he jokes around.) This is different.]
Dazai-san...?
[His voice is barely above a whisper, and it comes moments before the floor drops from underneath the man on stage, leaving him to his fate.
In contrast to Vax's efforts, Atsushi doesn't scramble onto the stage. He sits there, eyes wide in horror, hands covering his mouth. He's not screaming anyway, but it's like he's trying to keep everything in and locked away tight.
It's not real. It can't be real. It has to be some ability, an illusion, some kind of trick-
Nothing covers up how badly Atsushi is shaking in his seat though. He's strung up tighter than a piano wire, and looks just about ready to snap.]
the third, a man with black hair, stands tall and unyielding. he is missing an arm, but that doesn't seem to bother him. he doesn't wait for the figure to push him forward. he moves, himself. slow, but steady. he awaits his act.
and it's short. brutal. the third act is always snappy, right? have to get to the end. what happens is he's standing, standing, silent, and then, there's the sound of metal on metal. terrible teeth grindingly awful. there's just tension, and then - the man is ripped in half, through the middle. from his belt drops a sword, right to the ground. it shatters, into a million pieces, the shrapnel flying out into the audience. the two halves of him drop to the stage, and there's silence. the floor gives way, the halves vanishing, but there's no sound of a body hitting the ground, this time. demanifested.
wait, but…
the fourth, and final act. a man of asian descent is thrown to his knees by a figure in black. he frowns, but he doesn't fight it. just slowly shifts forward on his knees, incapable of arguing. like he's being controlled. moved forward, without his consent. his eyes dart back and forth, frightened. he opens his mouth - but how does one speak with no tongue?
and it's not much a of a finale. it's more of a whimper, than a bang. time seems to freeze, on stage. the figures in black suits go still as statues, and the air itself feels still and stale. silence. and then, there’s the sound of a heartbeat abruptly stopping. but not just stopping - exploding, in his chest. there’s a sickening splat sound, as his chest caves in, and without any fanfare, he drops, facefirst into the wood below. you wait. you wait longer. the sound of the ocean, inexplicably, echoes through the hall, the tide rolling in and out. and then a rope slowly descends, looping around the disfigured body, and pulls him away, off stage.
oh.
you might have known before, but now, without a doubt, you know who these people are. dazai, vex'ahlia, nagasone, mark. you know them and they are gone, and what are you supposed to do now? why did you leave? this is what happens when you leave. your friends will die, your closest loved ones, the people you cherish - they'll die, brutally, unfairly, because of you. you will be alone. forever. it is your fault. you should've stayed.
[ the world has narrowed down to nothing. for vax'ildan, it's tunnel vision. he's still just staring, as the gore and violence continues - as the third man is torn asunder, as the fourth one's chest caves in.
yasusada's yell of his name sounds like it's coming from underwater.
vex'ahlia.
vex'ahlia.
vex'ahlia.
his breath is short and shallow. it's your fault. nothing had to say that, nothing has to influence vax to think it, because he's already thinking it. you couldn't save her. you did this, you did this, that should've been you.
vax grabs the knife from the room before. his hand wraps around the handle, trembling.
give her back. because he is fucking terrified that something could happen to vex because of him.
but he was afraid then, too. he was afraid when he held her body in that tomb. (when he looked away for just a second, and vex was gone, snuffed out like a light.) and it was fear that made him reckless. fear, and absolute, knife's edge courage.
(take me instead, you raven bitch)
and the minute vax is able to, he breaks free - leaping over the audience with a wordless shout and despair and fury as he rears back and throws the knife with more precision than he has any right to as fear is blinkered by fury and just bottomless, endless grief.
he'll take it out on every figure on this stage. tear them to pieces the way they tore her.
[ i'm glad we are all having solitary trauma breakdown experiences. this does not need to be a communal experience.
damien watches the rest of these deaths unfold, still frozen. all he does is make out a sort of choked sound at the back of his throat.
he understands the way that people move when they aren't in control of themselves. it's a little bit groggy, a little bit sleepy. they obey like it's subconscious, but it's not their subconscious.
but he doesn't want this. so why is it happening? this isn't how things are supposed to work.
"when I was resistant, she would tell me that if I didn’t exercise my power, it would rot me from the inside out."
is that what happened? but how can it be his fault? it can't be. it's not his fault, because he didn't want this. and if you don't want something, there's no follow-through.
if you don't want it bad enough, the control doesn't hold. ]
["i'm glad we are all having solitary trauma breakdown experiences" haha
Yeah! That's exactly what's about to happen, actually. Yasusada ran this way with the adrenaline of an impending battle, but all thoughts of Vax, of the safety of the others here, vanishes from his mind at the sight of Nagasone.]
Nagasone-san--!
[His voice tears out of him, raw and horrified--but there's nothing he can do. Nagasone breaks, and then he's gone, just like that.
You make that offer to many people?
The answer to that question doesn't come in words. It comes in the short, rasping breaths Yasusada's struggling to pull in. In the way his eyes haven't moved from the spot on the stage where Nagasone's broken pieces fell. In the way his whole body shakes, tears spilling from his eyes as he shakes his head, over and over.
He can't do this. He can't lose Nagasone--not the way he lost Kashuu. He can't go through this again.
No, no, no--
He watched Okita die already. Kondou. Hijikata. There's a permanent hole in his heart for them--but he'd thought it could get any wider. He'd thought the pain had faded into lingering melancholy. But now, it's like he's the one who's been broken, and the fear has an easy foothold into his heart.
Nagasone, their leader, their beloved captain's beloved sword--if he can fall, then couldn't anyone? Horikawa? Izuminokami? Kashuu? No--not again. He can't do that.
Yasusada is friendly enough, for a weapon. He'll hold out his hand to humans, to spirits, to monsters. But his focus is, ultimately, very narrow; his experiences have not changed that. Right now, his world is down to his family, and them alone.]
[Dazai's death was first, and that's thoroughly distracted Atsushi. He's only vaguely aware of the three deaths that follow. But even that vague awareness of the scenes before him and the screaming around him is enough to make him finally snap.
Luckily he's already holding onto Charles, because that's his emotional support cat. But Atsushi is a coward, unable to accept the deaths in front of him. So he's going to try to get up out of his seats and bolt from the room, running for the door they came in.
Maybe if they can get out, then all of this will just be a bad dream.]
[on the stage, vax makes his way through each of the figures. they don't fight back. they just watch, blankly, as he stabs and rips and shreds them apart. and once he has, they crumble to ash, dissolving into the wood floor beneath vax's feet.
bad, bad. this room is bad, it's hard to be in. it's hard to breathe. you are drowning. all of you are drowning.
you are panicked.
well, all of you but atsushi. he runs from the room, and charles the cat yowls for just a second, before trying to headbutt atsushi gently. the cat purrs, snuggling close, trying to get atsushi to pet him. it's okay, it's okay.
... but it hadn't worked last time and it won't work this time, for the same exact reason: when he gets to the last minute, he doesn't want it bad enough.
whatever or whoever is trying to drown him can't overpower something as strong as his own wants. and despite everything - drowning is scary. anyone would panic. anyone would want it to stop.
he stands up and a part of him says: go check on sherlock. that would be the right thing to do. or go check on excalibur. or go check on vax. just do fucking something for anyone. anything. anything.
but instead he panics, and he freezes, and he watches other people break down and still doesn't do anything about it. he never changes. ]
when the knife hits one of the black figures, vax catches up to it like a blur. he doesn't need whisper - he just follows through, slices across, down, bursting the figures into ash one by one by one. mentally, he's not there - the motions are mechanic, automatic, driven by rage and grief and panic as he lashes out, thoughts narrowed down to a single point.
vex, vex, vex.
and he keeps going, and going, until he's just standing there, covered in ash and blood and nearly hyperventilating, tears in his eyes streaking down his cheeks.
he has to get out of here. he has to find something to make it pay for that because that wasn't enough - he has to slaughter every single fucking creature in this fucking castle, has to, for vex, has to, has to, has to.
when she dies he's supposed to be there. he's supposed to be the one on the other end of the thread, waiting, when she's old and wrinkly and has lived a life full of love, he'll be the one to take her hands and say welcome back, stubby, you're so old now and bring her to their mother. not like this. not like this.
so this can't be right. he can't accept it.
vax takes a breath that's forced, deeper, and whips his head around, away from the carnage and the ash on the stage.
he sees, just vaguely, the exit. he sees yasusada, damien.
this isn't fate and i won't let it be. he has to do something. a panicked, grieving creature who can't just stand still. vax leaps off of the stage, and lands near yasusada, and says - ] Find them. Come on.
[ we find them, we find whoever did this, find this fucking castle, and we destroy it. that's what he has to do. squish the spider. get out. get out. vax rasps a - ] Damien! [ too and puts the single minded goal of vengeance in his head like he's a revenant again.
[Deep down, Atsushi has always been a coward. The world is a scary place, and it's so easy to cry and run away from the hard parts of life. Even if he's told himself over and over again that he has to be the one to stand up and help others, it's so hard to do. And in moments like this, he just can't.
The Headmaster's words are ringing in his ears as he runs out the door and collapses to his knees just outside of it. 'You're worthless! Someone like you has no place in this world!' That man is dead and gone now, but his words still haunt Atsushi's every move. What good is he if he can't overcome his fears and save others? Dazai is dead, those other three who were up on stage are dead, but three more people need saving right now. What right does he have to even be here if he's just going to cry?
But the sadness is overwhelming, and he can't do anything else at the moment. He just hugs Charles and presses his face against Charles' black fur to quiet his sobbing.
He knows his friends(?) are in there and he has to help them, but he can't yet. Not until he gets a hold of these sads.]
The last time he'd felt anything like this, he'd still been no more than a spirit. His anguish had been real, but he hadn't been trapped in this corporeal form, hadn't been reliant on lungs and limbs and awful, awful hearts. He wants to rip it out. He wants to--
Find them...?
Vax appearance startles him out of his own head, though it's difficult to see him properly. Yasusada stares at his face, blurred by tears though it is--because if he doesn't, he'll just see broken pieces falling over and over again.
Find them...
...Maybe--maybe he means their pieces. Their bodies. Maybe if he finds them, he can bring Nagasone home, and Aruji can fix him.
(But what if he can't?
What if, what if--)
The call of Damien's name is enough to drag him out from his thoughts--at least a little. He draws in a shaky breath, turning back towards the seats; Damien's still there. The door is open. They have to get out of this room.
Shakily, he nods at Vax, and starts towards Damien--his limbs feel stiff and cold. Like death. Is he dying too? Does it work like that? He doesn't know. All his years, and he doesn't know a thing.]
[first, as you all struggle... a violin plays painfully, overhead. it wriggles into your ears, wraps around your mind, makes it hard to breathe.
blood and ash litters the stage. vax sees the exit. and he jumps.
the room around them glitches, statics out. the violin gets obscured slightly by - something, you can't tell, it's just interfering. tearing. the walls are melting, and reforming, over and over, the seats rattle angrily, there's whispering. the people in the seats all start to writhe, and scream, and then - disintegrate, slowly, pieces of them fading away. there's something you need to remember, but you can't touch it. you won't. it's locked behind so many doors that you don't even remember the way to it anymore. so you hide, in that white space, and you forget.
but that's not the way you should do things, right? someone... someone said to face your fears. but you don't want to. it's easier to run. the back and forth makes you feel sick.
for those of you in the stage room, still, you are now stressed out.
outside, atsushi holds charles, and charles purrs, soft. licks at atsushi gently, tries to comfort. and the walls, outside - the chalk drawings? they dance, a little. sketchlike. a reminder of something good. shhh, shh. it's okay, it's okay. things will be okay, and you will move on, and you will heal.
you're the only one who can, dreamer.
atsushi now feels neutral. enough that he can try to stand, if he wants.]
the noise is horrible - the violin, discordant and screechy - matches their surroundings, and vax's ears twitch as he drops to the ground. the ground? sort of the ground. as the world around him falls apart, instinctively, his hands slap up to his ears and he grips, hard, staring, heartbeat ratcheting.
face his fears. face his fears? he already faced it. he saw it. he saw- he saw someone? he saw someone, someone important die, horrifically, he died, the raven queen with her hands reaching for him, pulling him in -
fears he's overcome are realer than ever. he swears, still gripping the knife so tightly his knuckles are white. ]
Fuck - fuck --
[ the urge is there, still, because his first reaction to stress has always been the same. leave, leave, leave, leave, leave, get out, get out, run away, get out -
he tries to stagger forward, tries to force himself to remember, gripping hard in his hair, the sides of his head, remember, remember. ]
[ is this what it's like for people? damien vaguely wonders - is this what they feel like when he makes them forget? this awful collapse of everything around them, memories trying to push through the cracks in the world? he's getting real fucking tired of having things turned around on him. having the things he does to other people mirrored back to bite him in the ass. having to face consequences.
when vax yells his name he jolts in place, regaining the ability to fucking move. this place is falling apart around him and he thinks it's better not to push back against whatever is fucking with his head. but...
where did atsushi go? he lost track, a little bit. but vax is moving. barely. yams is moving.
mark died on that stage and he didn't move, and as always: it's too little too late. it's never enough, it's never when it counts.
but he does reach out towards yams. and say, very very unsteadily: ]
[It's a bit of a sensory overload--this is nothing like being in a battle, nothing like he's used to. Blood and screaming and steel on steel? That, he knows. But this awful music, these melting walls, none of that is familiar to him. It's almost overwhelming. It is overwhelming. He dropped the sketchbook on the way to the stage, but even if he hadn't, his hands are too shaky to hold anything right now.
But--
More than anything else, Yasusada has always been drawn to people. His people, specifically. Vax and Damien aren't his, not really--but Damien's reaching for him, and Vax spoke to him a moment ago, and. And. It's enough to grasp, albeit just barely.
He reaches back, and grabs Damien's hand, clutching it like a lifeline and stumbling after Vax--with the other, he reaches for Vax, trying to grab at his sleeve, or--anything, really. Anything he can hold onto, while the room is falling to pieces around them and his chest is crushed with terror in the shape of a phantom illness.]
Vax-- Vax. We have to find--[God, he can't think. They have to--] --bake... no, the... cat?
[Right. There's a cat. Okita had to--wait, no, the boy. Atsushi? Atsushi has the cat.
[It feels easier to breathe once he's outside. The purring helps soothe him, and soon his sharp breaths even out to something more mellow, more controlled. Fear isn't driving him anymore. He can actually think now.]
...thank you.
[A quiet murmur to the cat who helped calm him down. Cats really are the best.
When he lifts his head up, he sees those chalk drawings on the wall. They're right there, close enough to touch. Reminding him of happier times. They celebrated a birthday together, didn't they? And they made a cake all on their own.
One red, two blue, and one orange...
But there's only one of the four out there right now. The rest are still facing that nightmare. They couldn't escape when he did, they need help.
His gaze settles on the dancing orange scribble, a thought forming in his mind.]
Amber...
[Atsushi lets go of Charles, letting the cat go where he pleases. Down to the ground, up to his shoulder, wherever. And once Charles has settled, Atsushi will stand up and face that open door again. It takes a couple seconds and a few shaky steps, but once again he's at the threshold, standing just barely outside that door.
It's scary, and it might not work. But he has to try. He can't leave them to get lost.
So he takes one final step in, just barely stepping past the doorway and stopping once he's on the other side. Then he holds up one of his hands palm-up, like he's cupping a bit of water in it. Then, he focuses on his hand and pulls on his magic, letting it spark to life. He doesn't focus on any set form, though: instead he's just trying to draw on his amber magic, forcing as much of that warmth into the space above his hand as he can. If it takes a form, then great. But it's the magic itself that matters more than the object right now.
Warmth. Comfort. Coziness. Safety. Follow his magic.]
Guys, this way!
[It's less of a shout and more him urgently speaking, trying to drag them towards him. By voice or by warmth, he wants them to find their way.
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
saturations) wrote2022-02-21 11:38 am
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it's a grand room, like the kind of place you'd go to see broadway. the walls are painted the same way, with splashes of color, swirling around aimlessly. big curtains hang on either side of the stage, pulled back so that you can enjoy the show.
this castle - it takes the shape of your deepest desires. it could be a place to call home. don't you want to stay here forever?
the carpet in front of you slopes downward, with one long aisle leading right up to the stage itself. on either side of the aisle are rows of seats, and some of them are filled. with what? you can't say. they just look like someone is sitting in them, heads turned at an angle that isn't quite possible. staring right at you.
the show is about to start, what are you doing? maybe go find your seats!]
no subject
that didn't take long. immediately, vax is moving to stick to the shadows, protectively putting an arm out to keep the others (that he can, anyway, damien might be out of reach and also protect the genkis) to being stealthy just in case something immediately tries to leap out at them.
...and then nothing does.
well! vax has always said that he doesn't trust anyone that hates the theater (?) even if the uncanny feywild vibes here are terrible, and that shivery don't you want to stay here forever hasn't left, and there seems to not be much to do but move carefully towards the seats, i guess. ]
no subject
he is going to just go find an empty seat.
like, fuck this, but also: could be worse? ]
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Yasusada looks like he's ready to head up onstage--but then the others are going towards the seats?? Okay. He will follow them instead]
no subject
Atsushi will find an empty seat too! He has no idea what is going to happen but surely it's just a fun play right?]
cw: suicide
regardless of where you are, the show begins.
you don't recognize the people being shuffled on stage. but they don't seem like they want to be here - they're pushed and shoved and halfway dragged to their marks by figures in black bodysuits, arranged as necessary. like puppets, almost.
the first, a man with wavy brown hair and a long brown coat, blearily looks up from where he's been positioned. his right arm hangs loosely by his side, and blood leaks slowly out from under the patch over his right eye. for a moment, he just stands and stares into the distance, and then the figure in the black bodysuit jostles him. he winces, and takes a deep breath.
and steps forward. the second he does, there's the sound of barking dogs in the distance. he stares out over the hall, not making eye contact with anybody, and then snaps his fingers. a noose falls from the ceiling, right in front of him. he steps up to it, and hooks it around his neck. and as he does - the floor falls out from underneath him. there's a sharp crack, as his neck breaks. he's still alive, though, you can see his eyes move. and then - the lights flicker. in the span of the dark, his body falls through the hole in the floor, and there's a sickening crunch. the sound of dogs, snarling and yelping as they fight each other for food.
this is…
the second, a young woman with long dark brown hair, is pushed forward. she instinctively kicks at the figure pushing her forward, but doesn't connect. her hair comes undone from the braid it's in, and as she turns her head, you can see the pointed ears. she spits blood, and wipes it from her mouth with fingerless hands, shaking. she is less eager to follow the first act, but she has to. she doesn't have a choice.
so she steps forward, and stares out defiantly into the dark. and as she does, a thousand arrows fly through the air and pierce her body. thud, thudthudthudthud - they hit every part of her, head to toe. some go through her entirely, leaving holes and bursts of blood. one of them hits her in the throat, so she can't even scream. and then, as she drops to her knees, eyes wide and shocked, she starts to disintegrate. slowly, agonizingly. it looks like she's in horrible, awful pain, writhing, gurgling... until she's gone.
who…
you cannot get on the stage. you can only watch. but why would you want to do anything? you don't know who these people are.
do you?]
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[ and then the woman steps forward next.
and it's.
it's strange. vax'ildan is no stranger to torture or violence or suffering. he's seen it all, experienced it all himself, even, but this feels impossible to watch. this - just seeing this woman sends a bolt of lightning that roots him to the spot, and makes his heart wrench in his chest. for a moment he's just stuck there like he's frozen in time, breath caught, silenced.
and for a brief moment, he doesn't recognize this person. does he?
does he?
he's looking at pointed ears. he's looking at a face that looks just like his own.
the first arrow hits and vax makes a choked off noise before he even realizes it. then the second the third the fourth the fifth and they keep coming and coming and
the name rips out of his throat before he even realizes, the scream of a wounded animal more so than a person, of a name, a person, vax could never forget - ]
VEX'AHLIA!
[ no.
no, no no no no no no no.
by the time the arrows stop, vax has leapt over the seat in front of him and tries to move further, but he can't. he slams his hands up against whatever's in the way, against the people in this fake audience, and it doesn't matter that it might be an illusion because vax'ildan knows her, and that's vex, and every other sight in this room narrows down as he watches his sister, his other half, his heart,
fade powerless and gurgling into dust, into nothing, his eyes locked with hers until she's gone
and vax is just standing here. useless. powerless, shaking with rage and despair and fury and agony all at once.
no raven queen to do anything, now. ]
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whether it's an act or not is kind of unclear to him. reality can be a hard thing to figure out sometimes. especially in a place like this. but even if it was real he feels too frozen to move. his hands are on his knees, clammy.
and he just watches vax lose it, because. well. what else is he supposed to do? what else does he ever do but watch other people's breakdowns? ]
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Death is all he's ever known, after all. It's what he's made for, in the most literal sense--and unlike the older swords, or the treasured keepsakes, Yasusada has only ever known war. War, sickness, isolation, and more war.
On occasion, he knows, death can be made performative--assassinations and sacrifice are all things he's familiar with, even if he doesn't particularly like them. It's never been like this, on the sort of stage he's come to associate with peacetime and laughter, but that just leaves him more confused than alarmed or infuriated. Is this--should it be like this? Truly? Something doesn't feel right.
Yasusada doesn't know these people, doesn't know what they've done or who their enemies are; when it's the woman's turn, he jumps to his feet, too, but it's a reflexive response to the sound of arrows, an ingrained reaction to the potential threat of battle. He reaches for his blade, but of course, it isn't there--and he, too, briefly freezes.
It's Vax's voice that spurs him--that raw agony, the sort that Yasusada is painfully familiar with. A tone that's left his own throat more than once, even before he had a voice to scream with.
What does he do? What can they do?
Is there a threat, still? Will Vax get shot, too, if he stays up there?
That thought is enough to get him moving, leaving the aisle to try and run to where Vax is.]
Vax!
cw: suicide, vomit
He's seen these kinds of actions dozens of times before. Throwing himself into a river only to be fished out later. Eating questionable foods and throwing them up later. Drinking glass after glass of alcohol while cheerfully talking about the harm it does to his liver. It's morbid, but it just...is. That's how it's always been.
Except this isn't the same as those actions. This isn't flirting with death and singing songs about how lovely it would be to die with a beautiful woman. This is raw, emotionless, and lacking in the usual mirth that shows that Dazai is just playing around, he's not being serious. (Or at least Atsushi assumes it's not serious, because of how much he jokes around.) This is different.]
Dazai-san...?
[His voice is barely above a whisper, and it comes moments before the floor drops from underneath the man on stage, leaving him to his fate.
In contrast to Vax's efforts, Atsushi doesn't scramble onto the stage. He sits there, eyes wide in horror, hands covering his mouth. He's not screaming anyway, but it's like he's trying to keep everything in and locked away tight.
It's not real. It can't be real. It has to be some ability, an illusion, some kind of trick-
Nothing covers up how badly Atsushi is shaking in his seat though. He's strung up tighter than a piano wire, and looks just about ready to snap.]
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the third, a man with black hair, stands tall and unyielding. he is missing an arm, but that doesn't seem to bother him. he doesn't wait for the figure to push him forward. he moves, himself. slow, but steady. he awaits his act.
and it's short. brutal. the third act is always snappy, right? have to get to the end. what happens is he's standing, standing, silent, and then, there's the sound of metal on metal. terrible teeth grindingly awful. there's just tension, and then - the man is ripped in half, through the middle. from his belt drops a sword, right to the ground. it shatters, into a million pieces, the shrapnel flying out into the audience. the two halves of him drop to the stage, and there's silence. the floor gives way, the halves vanishing, but there's no sound of a body hitting the ground, this time. demanifested.
wait, but…
the fourth, and final act. a man of asian descent is thrown to his knees by a figure in black. he frowns, but he doesn't fight it. just slowly shifts forward on his knees, incapable of arguing. like he's being controlled. moved forward, without his consent. his eyes dart back and forth, frightened. he opens his mouth - but how does one speak with no tongue?
and it's not much a of a finale. it's more of a whimper, than a bang. time seems to freeze, on stage. the figures in black suits go still as statues, and the air itself feels still and stale. silence. and then, there’s the sound of a heartbeat abruptly stopping. but not just stopping - exploding, in his chest. there’s a sickening splat sound, as his chest caves in, and without any fanfare, he drops, facefirst into the wood below. you wait. you wait longer. the sound of the ocean, inexplicably, echoes through the hall, the tide rolling in and out. and then a rope slowly descends, looping around the disfigured body, and pulls him away, off stage.
oh.
you might have known before, but now, without a doubt, you know who these people are. dazai, vex'ahlia, nagasone, mark. you know them and they are gone, and what are you supposed to do now? why did you leave? this is what happens when you leave. your friends will die, your closest loved ones, the people you cherish - they'll die, brutally, unfairly, because of you. you will be alone. forever. it is your fault. you should've stayed.
you are now afraid.
what do you do?]
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yasusada's yell of his name sounds like it's coming from underwater.
vex'ahlia.
vex'ahlia.
vex'ahlia.
his breath is short and shallow. it's your fault. nothing had to say that, nothing has to influence vax to think it, because he's already thinking it. you couldn't save her. you did this, you did this, that should've been you.
vax grabs the knife from the room before. his hand wraps around the handle, trembling.
give her back. because he is fucking terrified that something could happen to vex because of him.
but he was afraid then, too. he was afraid when he held her body in that tomb. (when he looked away for just a second, and vex was gone, snuffed out like a light.) and it was fear that made him reckless. fear, and absolute, knife's edge courage.
(take me instead, you raven bitch)
and the minute vax is able to, he breaks free - leaping over the audience with a wordless shout and despair and fury as he rears back and throws the knife with more precision than he has any right to as fear is blinkered by fury and just bottomless, endless grief.
he'll take it out on every figure on this stage. tear them to pieces the way they tore her.
so what if they kill him next?
is there even a point to living, if she's gone? ]
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damien watches the rest of these deaths unfold, still frozen. all he does is make out a sort of choked sound at the back of his throat.
he understands the way that people move when they aren't in control of themselves. it's a little bit groggy, a little bit sleepy. they obey like it's subconscious, but it's not their subconscious.
but he doesn't want this. so why is it happening? this isn't how things are supposed to work.
"when I was resistant, she would tell me that if I didn’t exercise my power, it would rot me from the inside out."
is that what happened? but how can it be his fault? it can't be. it's not his fault, because he didn't want this. and if you don't want something, there's no follow-through.
if you don't want it bad enough, the control doesn't hold. ]
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Yeah! That's exactly what's about to happen, actually. Yasusada ran this way with the adrenaline of an impending battle, but all thoughts of Vax, of the safety of the others here, vanishes from his mind at the sight of Nagasone.]
Nagasone-san--!
[His voice tears out of him, raw and horrified--but there's nothing he can do. Nagasone breaks, and then he's gone, just like that.
You make that offer to many people?
The answer to that question doesn't come in words. It comes in the short, rasping breaths Yasusada's struggling to pull in. In the way his eyes haven't moved from the spot on the stage where Nagasone's broken pieces fell. In the way his whole body shakes, tears spilling from his eyes as he shakes his head, over and over.
He can't do this. He can't lose Nagasone--not the way he lost Kashuu. He can't go through this again.
No, no, no--
He watched Okita die already. Kondou. Hijikata. There's a permanent hole in his heart for them--but he'd thought it could get any wider. He'd thought the pain had faded into lingering melancholy. But now, it's like he's the one who's been broken, and the fear has an easy foothold into his heart.
Nagasone, their leader, their beloved captain's beloved sword--if he can fall, then couldn't anyone? Horikawa? Izuminokami? Kashuu? No--not again. He can't do that.
Yasusada is friendly enough, for a weapon. He'll hold out his hand to humans, to spirits, to monsters. But his focus is, ultimately, very narrow; his experiences have not changed that. Right now, his world is down to his family, and them alone.]
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Luckily he's already holding onto Charles, because that's his emotional support cat. But Atsushi is a coward, unable to accept the deaths in front of him. So he's going to try to get up out of his seats and bolt from the room, running for the door they came in.
Maybe if they can get out, then all of this will just be a bad dream.]
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bad, bad. this room is bad, it's hard to be in. it's hard to breathe. you are drowning. all of you are drowning.
you are panicked.
well, all of you but atsushi. he runs from the room, and charles the cat yowls for just a second, before trying to headbutt atsushi gently. the cat purrs, snuggling close, trying to get atsushi to pet him. it's okay, it's okay.
atsushi - you are not panicked, but you are sad.]
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... but it hadn't worked last time and it won't work this time, for the same exact reason: when he gets to the last minute, he doesn't want it bad enough.
whatever or whoever is trying to drown him can't overpower something as strong as his own wants. and despite everything - drowning is scary. anyone would panic. anyone would want it to stop.
he stands up and a part of him says: go check on sherlock. that would be the right thing to do. or go check on excalibur. or go check on vax. just do fucking something for anyone. anything. anything.
but instead he panics, and he freezes, and he watches other people break down and still doesn't do anything about it. he never changes. ]
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when the knife hits one of the black figures, vax catches up to it like a blur. he doesn't need whisper - he just follows through, slices across, down, bursting the figures into ash one by one by one. mentally, he's not there - the motions are mechanic, automatic, driven by rage and grief and panic as he lashes out, thoughts narrowed down to a single point.
vex, vex, vex.
and he keeps going, and going, until he's just standing there, covered in ash and blood and nearly hyperventilating, tears in his eyes streaking down his cheeks.
he has to get out of here. he has to find something to make it pay for that because that wasn't enough - he has to slaughter every single fucking creature in this fucking castle, has to, for vex, has to, has to, has to.
when she dies he's supposed to be there. he's supposed to be the one on the other end of the thread, waiting, when she's old and wrinkly and has lived a life full of love, he'll be the one to take her hands and say welcome back, stubby, you're so old now and bring her to their mother. not like this. not like this.
so this can't be right. he can't accept it.
vax takes a breath that's forced, deeper, and whips his head around, away from the carnage and the ash on the stage.
he sees, just vaguely, the exit. he sees yasusada, damien.
this isn't fate and i won't let it be. he has to do something. a panicked, grieving creature who can't just stand still. vax leaps off of the stage, and lands near yasusada, and says - ] Find them. Come on.
[ we find them, we find whoever did this, find this fucking castle, and we destroy it. that's what he has to do. squish the spider. get out. get out. vax rasps a - ] Damien! [ too and puts the single minded goal of vengeance in his head like he's a revenant again.
he has to get out. ]
cw: past child abuse
The Headmaster's words are ringing in his ears as he runs out the door and collapses to his knees just outside of it. 'You're worthless! Someone like you has no place in this world!' That man is dead and gone now, but his words still haunt Atsushi's every move. What good is he if he can't overcome his fears and save others? Dazai is dead, those other three who were up on stage are dead, but three more people need saving right now. What right does he have to even be here if he's just going to cry?
But the sadness is overwhelming, and he can't do anything else at the moment. He just hugs Charles and presses his face against Charles' black fur to quiet his sobbing.
He knows his friends(?) are in there and he has to help them, but he can't yet. Not until he gets a hold of these sads.]
Re: cw: past child abuse
(Is this what it felt like for Okita?)
The last time he'd felt anything like this, he'd still been no more than a spirit. His anguish had been real, but he hadn't been trapped in this corporeal form, hadn't been reliant on lungs and limbs and awful, awful hearts. He wants to rip it out. He wants to--
Find them...?
Vax appearance startles him out of his own head, though it's difficult to see him properly. Yasusada stares at his face, blurred by tears though it is--because if he doesn't, he'll just see broken pieces falling over and over again.
Find them...
...Maybe--maybe he means their pieces. Their bodies. Maybe if he finds them, he can bring Nagasone home, and Aruji can fix him.
(But what if he can't?
What if, what if--)
The call of Damien's name is enough to drag him out from his thoughts--at least a little. He draws in a shaky breath, turning back towards the seats; Damien's still there. The door is open. They have to get out of this room.
Shakily, he nods at Vax, and starts towards Damien--his limbs feel stiff and cold. Like death. Is he dying too? Does it work like that? He doesn't know. All his years, and he doesn't know a thing.]
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blood and ash litters the stage. vax sees the exit. and he jumps.
the room around them glitches, statics out. the violin gets obscured slightly by - something, you can't tell, it's just interfering. tearing. the walls are melting, and reforming, over and over, the seats rattle angrily, there's whispering. the people in the seats all start to writhe, and scream, and then - disintegrate, slowly, pieces of them fading away. there's something you need to remember, but you can't touch it. you won't. it's locked behind so many doors that you don't even remember the way to it anymore. so you hide, in that white space, and you forget.
but that's not the way you should do things, right? someone... someone said to face your fears. but you don't want to. it's easier to run. the back and forth makes you feel sick.
for those of you in the stage room, still, you are now stressed out.
outside, atsushi holds charles, and charles purrs, soft. licks at atsushi gently, tries to comfort. and the walls, outside - the chalk drawings? they dance, a little. sketchlike. a reminder of something good. shhh, shh. it's okay, it's okay. things will be okay, and you will move on, and you will heal.
you're the only one who can, dreamer.
atsushi now feels neutral. enough that he can try to stand, if he wants.]
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the noise is horrible - the violin, discordant and screechy - matches their surroundings, and vax's ears twitch as he drops to the ground. the ground? sort of the ground. as the world around him falls apart, instinctively, his hands slap up to his ears and he grips, hard, staring, heartbeat ratcheting.
face his fears. face his fears? he already faced it. he saw it. he saw- he saw someone? he saw someone, someone important die, horrifically, he died, the raven queen with her hands reaching for him, pulling him in -
fears he's overcome are realer than ever. he swears, still gripping the knife so tightly his knuckles are white. ]
Fuck - fuck --
[ the urge is there, still, because his first reaction to stress has always been the same. leave, leave, leave, leave, leave, get out, get out, run away, get out -
he tries to stagger forward, tries to force himself to remember, gripping hard in his hair, the sides of his head, remember, remember. ]
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when vax yells his name he jolts in place, regaining the ability to fucking move. this place is falling apart around him and he thinks it's better not to push back against whatever is fucking with his head. but...
where did atsushi go? he lost track, a little bit. but vax is moving. barely. yams is moving.
mark died on that stage and he didn't move, and as always: it's too little too late. it's never enough, it's never when it counts.
but he does reach out towards yams. and say, very very unsteadily: ]
Come on.
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But--
More than anything else, Yasusada has always been drawn to people. His people, specifically. Vax and Damien aren't his, not really--but Damien's reaching for him, and Vax spoke to him a moment ago, and. And. It's enough to grasp, albeit just barely.
He reaches back, and grabs Damien's hand, clutching it like a lifeline and stumbling after Vax--with the other, he reaches for Vax, trying to grab at his sleeve, or--anything, really. Anything he can hold onto, while the room is falling to pieces around them and his chest is crushed with terror in the shape of a phantom illness.]
Vax-- Vax. We have to find--[God, he can't think. They have to--] --bake... no, the... cat?
[Right. There's a cat. Okita had to--wait, no, the boy. Atsushi? Atsushi has the cat.
Now, which way do they go?]
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...thank you.
[A quiet murmur to the cat who helped calm him down. Cats really are the best.
When he lifts his head up, he sees those chalk drawings on the wall. They're right there, close enough to touch. Reminding him of happier times. They celebrated a birthday together, didn't they? And they made a cake all on their own.
One red, two blue, and one orange...
But there's only one of the four out there right now. The rest are still facing that nightmare. They couldn't escape when he did, they need help.
His gaze settles on the dancing orange scribble, a thought forming in his mind.]
Amber...
[Atsushi lets go of Charles, letting the cat go where he pleases. Down to the ground, up to his shoulder, wherever. And once Charles has settled, Atsushi will stand up and face that open door again. It takes a couple seconds and a few shaky steps, but once again he's at the threshold, standing just barely outside that door.
It's scary, and it might not work. But he has to try. He can't leave them to get lost.
So he takes one final step in, just barely stepping past the doorway and stopping once he's on the other side. Then he holds up one of his hands palm-up, like he's cupping a bit of water in it. Then, he focuses on his hand and pulls on his magic, letting it spark to life. He doesn't focus on any set form, though: instead he's just trying to draw on his amber magic, forcing as much of that warmth into the space above his hand as he can. If it takes a form, then great. But it's the magic itself that matters more than the object right now.
Warmth. Comfort. Coziness. Safety. Follow his magic.]
Guys, this way!
[It's less of a shout and more him urgently speaking, trying to drag them towards him. By voice or by warmth, he wants them to find their way.
Come back to him, before it's too late.]
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