[The panic he feels is deep and unrelenting, threatening to pull him under to a place where he'll lose all coherency and hope for being able to think his way out of this one. ...If he can - if there is a way out. It's too much to take in all at once, remembering the self that used to exist, the self that had done such awful things, the self that had continued committing crimes for the sake of his precious sister even after ending up in that horrible manor.
The self that had continued to exist year after year thereafter, learning about that strange world and the stranger people in it, learning about the Producers and their company, learning about past contestants and current contestants, watching two seasons unfold as they were happening.
The self that had entered that game with a plan, a dangerous plan, but a plan that he had hoped would work nonetheless. Things had started to go bad, though; his sister was in the game. His sister was a Designated Killer. They had worked so well as a unit that Kaoru and Stiles ended up risking more than initially planned trying to combat them, because Kaoru had to stay safe, he knew he had to stay safe, even if it was at the cost of all those lives...
And now this - this, and he had failed. He hadn't been able to stop his sister from bloodying her hands for him. He hadn't been able to anticipate this outcome and work to counteract it. He hadn't been able to do anything, and here he is, still unable to do anything. He watches helplessly as Chizuru panics along with him over entirely different things with the same root cause, trying to think of what he needs to do. What can he do?
Eventually, hands shaking, he reaches for her again. His hands gently touch the top of her head before one searches her hand out.]
Chizuru... Chizuru? Can you look at me? I need you to look at me.
[He needs something to ground himself with, and he knows she could use it, too.]
no subject
The self that had continued to exist year after year thereafter, learning about that strange world and the stranger people in it, learning about the Producers and their company, learning about past contestants and current contestants, watching two seasons unfold as they were happening.
The self that had entered that game with a plan, a dangerous plan, but a plan that he had hoped would work nonetheless. Things had started to go bad, though; his sister was in the game. His sister was a Designated Killer. They had worked so well as a unit that Kaoru and Stiles ended up risking more than initially planned trying to combat them, because Kaoru had to stay safe, he knew he had to stay safe, even if it was at the cost of all those lives...
And now this - this, and he had failed. He hadn't been able to stop his sister from bloodying her hands for him. He hadn't been able to anticipate this outcome and work to counteract it. He hadn't been able to do anything, and here he is, still unable to do anything. He watches helplessly as Chizuru panics along with him over entirely different things with the same root cause, trying to think of what he needs to do. What can he do?
Eventually, hands shaking, he reaches for her again. His hands gently touch the top of her head before one searches her hand out.]
Chizuru... Chizuru? Can you look at me? I need you to look at me.
[He needs something to ground himself with, and he knows she could use it, too.]