thevoidsdarkhorse | Heart Game (Continued)

[his smile softens, and he nods. I'll keep you company for as long as you'd like]

[She smiles, and just...looks so HAPPY, and you are getting a bitty hug.]

[wraps his arms around her to return that hug wholeheartedly]

[She hugs back tightly, and the oppressive atmosphere has lessened greatly.]

[And suddenly you're back out on the streets again, with your new Carapacian friend.]

[You also have twelve foot tall robot firing a rocket at you.]

[wHAT THE FUCK WHY DOES THIS KEEP HAPPENING]

Hang on--!

[grabs a hold of his Carapacian friend and focuses on making them both intangible while they run from that robot TYVM]

[Was flashbacks are harsh things.]

[YOU ARE INTANGIBLE. It is, surprisingly, EASIER to intangible with your alien friend. Funny how that works.]

[Robot is pursuing!]

[well, rogue is all about helping others!1]

[he's running pretty fast, so he's practically carrying the alien friend in his arms as he goes. he also tilts his head up a bit, trying to see if he can sense the lab as he goes, gauging how far away from it he is now]

[You are two thirds of the way there.]

[When you were only a third of the way there before.]

[You might guess what's coming up next.]

[But first the robot, do you do anything else besides run?]

[yeah, he's expecting it this time at least]

[he keeps running, sure, but once he gauges where the lab is he focuses on something else. . . specifically: the robot's rocket launchers]

[TIME TO CLOAK THOSE IN VOID AND MAKE THEM ~DISAPPEAR~]

[You now have ROCKET BOOTS clanging into the ground beside you.]

[And rocket careening off to a building, wooo.]

[Roll a ten sider.]

[HELL YEAH ROCKET BOOTS. stopping to inventory those super quickly because why not]

All right! We're almost there!

[that's said mostly to reassure his alien friend as he starts running again, towards the lab. . .]

[2!]

[And now you're in another thing. It appears to be the husks or a burnt out village, chilly and cold.]

[And you're told you're a wolf. You see the rules and if you're not lynched the first night, you'll have to choose a team to die.]

[But you can't. You can't you can't you can't.]

[You do everything and anything you can without breaking the rules. Act off, act upset, act so not you and hope, pray, wish someone will NOTICE and vote for your team and kill you off now because you can't, you CAN'T kill someone else. You can leave people, but you can't kill another team deliberately.]

[But it doesn't work. Worse, is both teams that are up are not wolves.]

[And you're panicking, terrified, and you don't want this. You want to end this game, BREAK IT, and if you just break the rules....it'll kill you and one other team.]

[But the team you're closest too are either like minded, or likely to be chosen to be lynched this round.]

[You, Kaito, find yourself on a stage. Everyone is looking at you.]

[Do you confess?]

[f r e e z i n g because he sure as hell remembers this. his heart was already beating rapidly from all of that running from earlier, but now he can feel it hammer in his ears too]

[the first time he had ever died, right here. Yaksinis's cry wolf game. the tpk]

[he knows how this one is going to end]

[he flexes his hands at his sides, and takes a deep breath]

[of course he confesses]

[The vines come, they wrap around you, and the teams are still up, still going to DIE without any mercy, and it's guilt and horror, and you already hate yourself, but you could deal, you could deal, you could fool yourself into thinking you could deal-]

[Except it keeps going. Epona confesses, and it would be a lie to say part of you hadn't predicted that, that they would cave under your confession, that maybe it was a hope to end the game more quickly even if thought filled you with self loathing, but when you could have dealt before, you can't now, not now, because it doesn't end.]

[It doesn't end it doesn't end it doesn't end and you have started a chain reaction of people refusing, or breaking rules, and everyone is dying dying dying and it's EVERYONE and it's all your fault, because you see it now. You see it's in the rules now, and you should have seen BEFORE, but you DIDN'T.]

[You see everyone die, see all the people you KILLED because of your own incompetence and fear.]

[nope nope nope nnnnope he's struggling against those restraints immediately because baaaad pings bad pings bad pings. watching this event from Roxy's point of view is trippy as hell, because he remembers it. . . he remembers it so clearly, but hell, it certainly isn't something anyone could forget. he had to watch the chain reaction last time. watch as each team fell like a piece of dominoes, but this time, can he maybe. . .]

[yanks against the restraints one last time and focuses on every vine he can see-- the ones around him, the ones around others, the ones snaking out of the ground and lashing at everyone-- and tries to make all of them disappear]

[You should.]

[You should be able to because you're a Rogue of Void.]

[Void players are wild cards, Rogues are sneaky fucks for the greater good. By all reason you should be able to do it, find the way to break the rules, to save people, to protect people. You should be able to find the way around the rules, to break them, tear them apart.]

[Return them to the void so the people you want to save will live.]

[But it didn't work out that way, did it?]

[You were wrong wrong wrong wrong wrong wrong wrong wrong]

[They don't disappear.]

[damn it damn it damn it-- he thought he had these pings hit enough back in doom's room. nothing like Kyriakos's games to make you feel helpless all over again]

[he doesn't stop struggling, or fighting, because it isn't within his nature to do so. and as he does, he calls out--]

Roxy!

Roxy, it wasn't your fault!

[No response.]

[The vines do their thing first, sadly. ):]

[that sucks :(]

[he supposes there are so many ways he can change these war flashbacks]

[Y-yes. And sadly it's not the memory itself that needs changing.]

It was my fault.

[Because now you're amongst vine covered bodies, and there's Roxy, on the ground, staring ahead blankly.]

[it was worth a shot]

It wasn't.

[is he still restrained, can he turn to face her]

It wasn't. Yaksinis ran the game. Yaksinis made the rules. Yaksinis tried to force you into playing along.

It wasn't your fault.

[He can. Actually, after the memory plays out, he finds he can detangle himself from the vines now.]

It was in the rules, I should have seen what would happen. Not like I wasn't assuming she was a sadistic.

She would have killed the teams anyway, even if you had stayed quiet.

[kicking the vines away then. pretty quickly, too, because after dying twice by thorny vine he has acquired quite the distaste for them]

You can't-- [he pauses. swallows down his own emotions on the matter. pushes forward]

You can't always save everyone in every game. You can't. You can't, and it sucks, and it isn't fair, but you've gotta. . .

[another deep breath. calm down Kuroba]

. . . you've gotta focus on the bigger picture. Some battles will be lost, but hell. Even if we can't save everyone in every game, then we can stop the Echoes who run those kinds of games, yeah?

And then there won't be any repeats of that stupid cry wolf game. Ever.

I can deal with not saving everyone.

[She smiles bitterly.]

By the time Cry Wolf came around, I 'membered leaving my Neighborhood. Only means to escape, but I only got a dozen Carapacians.

I can leave people. Abandon 'em.

Didn't think I could...

[assuming she's finishing that statement with "kill people," so he chimes in pretty quickly]

You didn't kill anyone.

[firm.]

I was there, Roxy. My team died, too. And for a little while, I was pretty mad about it. Who wouldn't be?

But I never blamed you. And you don't have to blame yourself when no one else who was there does.

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