The Twenty-Fifth Trial [Mirror] - Winners and Endgame

[hot_mess_express]

Who: Heroes
When:Day 52, night
Where: near the Train

The rain falls harder, and the snake sneers at you as you exit the temples... Lightning strikes and the snake laughs like thunder... But that's all, the mocking laughter rings in your ears as the scenery shifts back to the normal Train area. Those who revive will do so near the Train as the winners and survivors reappear.

Ginger and Licorice double win for both surviving and targeting a Priest! For these teams they get 800 points.

Jasmine wins for surviving! They get 500 points.

Everyone on a winning team is revived and fully healed.

Everyone else... Is revived. And healed. However in whatever death wounds they received they have, instead of scars, white scales for their skin.

Smaller wounds will regenerate in a one to two days and will leave scales instead of scars unless healed otherwise.

All Kami remain hungry and able to shift to their monster form for the next day or so. Only meat will relieve this hunger.

Any Kami that were mad at the end of the game will retain a bit of mental instability for a day, in whatever form you prefer.

Priests, if they normally have powers, will find themselves somewhat weaker for a day.

It is not ICly known that these effects will wear off.

Comments

[crimeson]

Don't run. That won't change anything.

[voreaciously]

I do not intend to run. I am simply removing myself from the equation for the time being.

[yeah, so, running.]

[crimeson]

That's! Fucking! Running!

[voreaciously]

[she winces slightly. she just

pushes all his buttons, even when she doesn't mean to.

what a mess.

Her voice remains calm. Even.]

What is it you want from me? I am not good for you. I never have been. If I am not there, then perhaps...

[he can have some space from her.]

[crimeson]

I want you to be okay. I'm not sure you even know what that looks like, but I can't-- try to help you with that anymore. You won't listen. And I can't stay hands off. I tried, but I can't not care, and I can't take being rejected again and again, or for you to turn around and try to be a good tool for me. A tool isn't what I want. You're a person and you need to accept that.

[voreaciously]

[she pauses, listening. perhaps really listening, because she does not respond coldly or clinically, but with some measure of regret. She wants to make him happy, but she doesn't seem capable.

There is a lot to address, but she starts with the most dire.]

...I cannot be a person. That is not why I exist. I would be betraying the people who made me what I am, the ones to whom I owe everything. Resisting that...to be so ungrateful is anathema.

[crimeson]

I don't think that's right.

Have I told you about my daughter?

[voreaciously]

KeA. Kiibou, though, is what you call her. I remember. I remember her name and that you said she was wonderful, but I do not know anything about her beyond that.

[crimeson]

She's a homunculus. She was made by a cult to be their goddess. She's been used as a weapon, and hurt very badly, and she was made for those things.

But they're not what she is. She's a person, and a good one, and deserves to be treated like one. I think you do too.

[voreaciously]

We both know I have a rotten personality. [her tone is momentarily wry and cynical. just getting that out of the way, but she tilts her head, digests it.]

...I like being a tool. I like having that sense of purpose. And I do not want to be tossed aside and disowned by the people--[no, he's gone now]--by one of the people who matters most to me in existence, should I fail in that purpose. If I have ever done anything useful for anyone, ever, it is all because of Her. Have you never had a debt you wished to repay? A desire to act out of gratitude?

[crimeson]

'Course I have. But I've also had people who'd have me believe I owe them everything just because they fucked me up real good when I was younger.

You should probably take a step back and ask yourself if that's what's going on with you. But I can't make you.

[voreaciously]

No. Anything that happened happened to make me stronger. Better.

[which is absolutely not an alarming thing to say.

She will return to the point, but there are other things she wants to say.]

You really cannot cease caring? I would have thought you had stopped quite some time ago.

[crimeson]

Oh, they made me stronger. But that wasn't better. I'm weaker now than I used to be, probably, but I don't have to be strong on my own anymore.

And I can't stop caring, because caring is what did make me better. I can't go back to that.

[voreaciously]

Who did?

[but she ruminates on that. it's a little like katsuki, but yet different. she never thought him weaker for caring, he had to do that to survive. she wouldn't have traded that part of him for the world.

so she cannot say she doesn't understand that part.

but...]

There are different forms of strength, that much I do know and understand, but I have had to rely on myself, barring rare exceptions.

[crimeson]

My family. My father especially.

[he sighs.]

I'm not saying you have to be like me. There are different ways to be. But I don't think this way is working for you. And if you disagree... I can't keep doing this.

[voreaciously]

[He's told her not to run away but it seems easier to simply cut ties, to let him go and be happy and healthy. She doesn't understand how that isn't the preferable solution--he's even telling her that he cannot continue this way, and that is sensible. It is quite sensible, actually.

She's noticed that he'd since been keeping his distance, that was something of her aim, but she did not realise that he'd still been...affected, had thought he'd washed his hands clean of it.

Of her.

She will try to fix it, but she isn't certain how. She cannot give him what he wants, mostly. She could take Crow's advice and simply aiim to be better at hiding it.

But she did mean what he said, she doesn't think he's stupid and he might cotton onto it if she's not constantly vigilant about it.]

...Why do you not believe it is working?

[please randy she's so stupid about her self-destruction.

but let's start with that. what isn't working about her everything. she needs more data before she can attempt a fix.]

[crimeson]

You punish yourself constantly. And everyone around you if they question what you're doing. How is that working?

[voreaciously]

Avoidable failure cannot be tolerated.

[she says it instinctively. but thinks harder on the second part. That confuses her.]

...How are others punished?

[crimeson]

...I don't... know how to respond to any of that without yelling.

[give him a minute.]

Look. Anyone trying to question it is trying to help you. That's going out on a limb, emotionally. That's getting invested. And you reject every attempt, wholesale, every time. And you get cold, and even more detached, and that's the opposite of what they want if they're trying to help, you know? You're lashing out at anyone who tries to help you by doubling down on what you're doing. You still have an impact on people, even if you think you shouldn't.

[voreaciously]

You may yell, if you wish.

[ACTIVE LISTENING.]

I do not understand that, truly I do not. I am not exactly what you would term "good with people". It is a waste of time.

[so how on earth can she have an impact? why would anyone care?]

I suppose in your case, it is not completely beyond me. We are teammates, for better or worse, but otherwise, how should I effectively communicate that help is not needed, in that case? I can and should often help myself.

[crimeson]

80H. You refused to let me treat your absurdly broken and fucked up hand earlier. No one can trust you to know when you actually need help, because you never want it, no matter how clearly it's needed. That's what I'm fuckin' talking about. You could be bleeding out on the cold hard ground with someone offering you assistance and you'd tell them to stop wasting their time. I am pretty sure exactly that has happened!

[voreaciously]

...

[



listen okay that was a dozen every single goddamned one time. Don't call her out like this.

At any rate, she does not deny that accusation. She could lie, it would be so easy, but she is trying, here.

Very well, it seems she will have to tell him, maybe then he'll understand]

Helping me is a pointless endeavour. I am already deceased. A ghost. [ayep] Whatever happens to me ultimately does not matter, because my existence will persist. It is, otherwise, only pain.

Further, I know my personality is excruciatingly difficult. I realise I am exhausting. Without my intending to [mostly] I am quite frustrating and grating to most people, and especially to you and from the first. I have made you shoot me. I know that, should this dialogue not bear productive results, you will, rightfully, understandably, wash your hands of me as best as you are able. I am not about to make my own weaknesses and failings a burden to others, least of all to you.

Lastly, it did not feel right to heal it in that instance. I ate someone, I could bear the consequences.

[crimeson]

--Stop that! Stop trying to use me as proof that you aren't worth effort!

[voreaciously]

Eh? I am not...

[that catches her off-guard.]

[crimeson]

If I stick it out and wreck myself I'm just proof you weren't worth it, but if I give up then I'm just proof you weren't worth it! I'm damned if I do and damned if I don't. But whether or not you change is dependent on you!