Week 5

[airlockedmods]

Week 5

[In a tragic yet seemingly inevitable turn of fate, the Champions have lost Zombina this week. OsoKaramatsu and Korra, too, are gone, both having fallen in their attempts to help their fellow Champions out of terrible circumstances.

Again, the Champions will find themselves experiencing strange dreams on Sunday night, until they're awakened by C.E.C.E.'s announcement. This is all starting to become routine.]

Congratulations, Champions! By surviving your third trial, you have unlocked the fourth floor of the ship. A new mini map has been added to your P.I.P.!

[The trash compactor is completely shiny and new again. In addition, the profiles on the P.I.P.s still inticate that Karamatsu is dead. Because of course he is, right?

Fuck you.]


Sunday | Monday | Tuesday | Wednesday | Thursday



(( Welcome to Week 5! Don't forget to check in and submit your memory regains! Turn in your benefactor threads for sweet loot, too! ))

Comments

holodeck

[immaculacies]

[You know, Kaiba, for someone who told her just last week that you don't believe in reincarnation...

Well, she's not going to say it.]

Oh! Is that your Pharaoh, Kaiba-san?

[She'll still bother him, though.]

[playthedamncard]

[he's seen some shit mkay]

...Ha. Well. He's the Nameless Pharaoh from my world, yes. Not so nameless anymore. [Atem wears the Puzzle, glinting bright and held by a leather strap. It's a damn sight better than the plastic nonsense around Kaiba's neck.]

[immaculacies]

It looks like you must have remembered a lot of interesting things.

[She creeps closer, almost tiptoes, until she's near enough to reach out and give the replica hanging around his neck a little prod with her fingertip.]

[playthedamncard]

I saw a lot. I'm not clear if it was a shared hallucination or really was magic involved. And just because I don't like magic dictating what goes on in my life doesn't mean it can't exist. In some form. It's just something I can't fully explain yet.

[He doesn't stop her, but he does raise an eyebrow at her.]

It's not mine. But I'll wear it anyway.

[immaculacies]

[Manaka raises her eyebrows.]

You're still looking for ways to discount it? [pfff] Kaiba-san, you know, magic existing doesn't have to mean it controls you. At least, not any more so than any other factor in your life. Everyone plans outings around the weather, but most people don't resent the sky for it.

[playthedamncard]

But what then of the magic that suggests it knows the future? Or the magic that insists that he and I existed together in the ancient past, that we were destined to meet again? If it's an unknown factor, how do I control it?

I can't and I won't allow magic to tell me who and what I am, to tell me what I can and will do.

[immaculacies]

You have it flipped around, don't you? Knowledge of the future doesn't control your actions. Your actions control knowledge of the future.

Mm, but it really disgusts you, doesn't it? Thinking that you might not be in control.

[playthedamncard]

...I've been fighting for control of my own life and my own destiny for half mine. To even suggest that it might be for nothing is unacceptable.

What did you mean by, my actions control knowledge of the future?

[immaculacies]

Well, let's say I woke up this morning and had a vision of the future. In that vision, I saw Kaiba is going to go to the holodeck and brood. But my vision doesn't cause you to go to the holodeck; your choice to go to the holodeck, even if you haven't made it yet, is what causes my vision.

[Simple! It's simple, right??]

[playthedamncard]

...For the record, I'm not brooding. [shush yes you are]

I don't know all the rules for how magic may or may not work, if there are any. A woman had an item, much like the Puzzle, and she could see visions of the future. She could predict my every move in a duel we had. [Which also wasn't the first time honestly and that pisses him off fuck the Items for real.] But something...interfered. I knew the move I was going to make, but so did she. And something caused me to see what she saw, this vision that she had prepared for, and plotted my loss. So I changed up my game. I played something else instead, and subsequently won.

So in that case, a vision caused me to alter my actions to alter the vision, in a way.

...Like I said, I can't fully explain it yet.

[immaculacies]

Hm... It could be something like a multi-dimensional refraction phenomenon? That is, there isn't only one future, but dozens or hundreds of different timelines that could exist. "Ourselves" only exist in one of them, but by seeing a vision of one possibility, you were able to interact with it and change it... Or something like that.

[playthedamncard]

[Okay, that? That's impressive. He's impressed.] ...Those aren't the sort of theories most fourteen-year-olds would be able to come up with. What are these magicians teaching you?

[immaculacies]

Well, most fourteen-year-olds aren't taught magecraft. [She giggles. When she speaks again, there's no hint of bragging in her tone.] I'm considered a prodigy, you know. I don't think it's that odd that I could apply theoretical knowledge to your situation, though.

[playthedamncard]

Isn't it such a burden to be so smart and yet be surrounded by such...normal people. [He says it allllmost fondly. He's very well aware of the feeling of being a prodigy, a genius of a child.]

[immaculacies]

[That comment catches her off-guard, and for a moment, her cheery smile falters. Just hearing that sentiment makes her heart twist, and when she smiles again, there's a bittersweet edge to the expression.]

Mm. It's very lonely, sometimes.

[All of the time. She had been all alone, until she met Saber.]

[playthedamncard]

[Oh. Oh, that's something genuine. A tiny, terrible part of him sees getting a reaction out of her as a win, but the rest of him just feels...

Tired, actually.]

It's freeing, at first, isn't it? Knowing you're special. Right up until you realize the downsides of being set apart from others.

[immaculacies]

[She shakes her head and averts her eyes from him.]

I've known for as long as I've been alive. So, I never... I didn't understand how miserable it was, being alone, until I felt something different.

[playthedamncard]

I've at least always had my brother. But he's also several years younger than I am. So while I have high hopes for his future, I recognize that we aren't quite equals. He looks up to me for everything. And I've taught him since he was small. Well, smaller.

So perhaps I don't fully understand it. But I have an idea of it.

[immaculacies]

N— No, that sounds right. That sounds exactly right... My sister, Ayaka. Ever since our mother passed away, some of that role has fallen onto me.

But... She's too young to understand. It probably sounds cruel of me to say it, but she never will. She's very ordinary, and not cut out to be a magus at all. Really, it's a good thing that I'm the older one. I don't think she would be able to survive as the successor.

[It comes out in a rush, a little disjointed. It's still strange, seeing fragments of her experiences in other people.]

—But, that's why I said. When you told me that I was better off not feeling anything at all. That's not true... I don't want to go back to feeling empty and alone.

[playthedamncard]

It was rude of me to suggest.

[He observes her for a moment, head tilted, and then adjusts the holographic chamber. Some of the disjointed images disappear--the priest and the dead woman, the giant dragon and its rider. (Atem stays, but he gets seated on a throne fit for his station and in the corner of the room, away from them.) There's a couch now, though. So there's that. He goes to seat himself at it, on one end, legs crossed professionally.]

I have been of the opinion that emotions are vulnerabilities. That if something does not help you stride forward toward your goal, it's not useful. That if something would allow an enemy to find an opening to attack, it's a weakness that needs shut down. But when we were young and on our own, I told Mokuba to smile. That no matter what, he should smile through everything, just to show anyone who would see him hurt that they couldn't. A lesson in spite, perhaps, but maybe even then, I didn't want to see him turn into me.

And he is brilliant in his own right, but he's more than that. He has friends. He's personable. He's seen what I am, and I know sometimes it upsets him. [They'd had that argument inside of Noa's world, after all.]

I made myself the way I am to protect me, and in doing so, protect him as well. Even if he can't see that. Even if I'm wrong.

[immaculacies]

...Kaiba-san, you sound like a magus, when you say things like that.

[Like it's something funny, she laughs. He probably won't like hearing that, but it's true.]

You aren't wrong, but that isn't the whole truth, either. Emotions can be exploited. Passions can be manipulated. Sometimes, destroying an enemy through those means is easier than direct confrontation. If you cut their legs out from beneath them, they can't advance.

But, even if you have to carefully guard them... Sometimes they're useful, too. A simple feeling can push you forward. It can give a struggle meaning. That's what I found out, when I met Saber. The kind of feeling that defines what it is to be human.

[playthedamncard]

I'm not devoid of them. I can't be. I just hide them. Brotherly love has guided me forward. Empathy for children. The heart-pounding passion of fighting a worthy opponent. I feel, and sometimes I can't keep it to myself.

It's a weakness in itself, isn't it? Trying not to show care.

[immaculacies]

Mm, maybe. It isn't one I can fault you for, though, since it just seems normal to me. Like I said, it's a very magus-like way to behave—like if you show vulnerability for even a second, you'll be devoured. Maybe it's more true for them than it is you, though.

[But the way magi treat each other... It's all so pointless and petty in Manaka's eyes. It's half the reason she's so disdainful of those "stuffed shirts," as she had put it to Kaiba once.]

...But, putting that aside, Kaiba-san. [She glances toward the Pharaoh, sitting on his throne, and giggles.] Is this really a conversation you want to have in front of him?

[playthedamncard]

Perhaps it's more literal for them, but the business world is full of hungry sharks. I've had my livelihood threatened too many times not to take it seriously.

[She means to tease him again, though, with his insistence on keeping Atem in the room. He's slightly more animated than before, talking in a quiet, deep tone to faceless aides, looking natural upon a throne.]

I'm confident my secrets are safe with a hologram. [He says it with a hint of a smirk.]

[immaculacies]

[She meets his little smirk with a giggle, apparently content to leave the topic of magi behind.]

Still, you really like him, don't you? Wanting to keep him here even when nothing of the rest remains.