recountal | reunion;;

reunion;;

Yukimura Residence.
Edo, Japan, January 1864.

[The years have stretched on and on, agonizingly slowly. Part of it is because Chizuru lacks the child-like lack of perspective that makes time fly by so quickly in the earliest years; mostly, it's because the Nagumo are so very cruel. Time flies when one is having fun, but among that clan...

This is the first opportunity she's had in years to even consider a visit to Edo, and though she might pay for it later, she doesn't care. There's something she has to do here, and so here she is, dressed in the finery one would expect of the wife of the young master of the Nagumo. Perhaps it's strange, to see such a finely-dressed young lady in front of the humble Yukimura clinic.

She doesn't care. She just doesn't care.

She is stopped, outside the house, because it's both familiar and unfamiliar at the same time. The house looks mostly the same, but the subtle differences, are they there because it's not her that's living there? All the touches of a young woman are gone. Chizuru has never lived here, but Kaoru has, and -

The differences are Kaoru's touch. That eases the knot of tension in her gut the slightest bit and gives her the courage to move forward, to call into the house as though she's a patient and this is a perfectly normal visit.]

Excuse me? I was wondering if perhaps I might speak with Yukimura-sensei...

[He won't be here. She's sure he won't, sure she's remembered the timing because her memories are all that's gotten her through the years at the hands of those horrible people, but that's okay. He isn't the one she is here to see.

She's depending on the fact that it will be Kaoru who will answer her call.]

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The only...

[She repeats the words and is quiet for a few moments, leaning into his cheek and squeezing his hand and loosening her hold on his arm so that she can wrap her arm around him to hold him close, instead. She listens to the sound of his heartbeat and hers, and does her best to let the two sounds calm her; her tears, at least, start to come less frequently, and her trembling, while it doesn't stop entirely, does start to slow.

When Chizuru speaks again, her voice isn't really devoid of emotion so much as it's light and airy and detached, definitely at odds with the still-present look of devastation on her face.]

That's sad... that's too sad, isn't it? To only have one single bright spot in your life...

[Her voice trails off and then it's full of intensity all over again, and it cracks midway through but she keeps going anyway -]

You were supposed to have lots and lots of them..!

[She takes a deep breath and closes her eyes, willing herself to stop shaking so that she can comfort him; he has a lot to take in and a lot that he's feeling now. Slowly, she loosens her hold on his hand and if he'll let go of it, she'll bring it up to run through his hair in gentle, soothing strokes.]

Was I able to do that much for you, at least..? Are there more bright spots in your life now..?

[The thing is, Kaoru had known at the time that it was sad to only have one bright spot, but it had been in a distant and twisted sort of way, much like everything else. He recognized the unfairness in it, but he wasn't able to process it properly, fueling his choice to leap immediately to finger-pointing and laying the blame, trying to alleviate his misery in the only way that he knew.

Being able to see a little more clearly now, he also realizes where he went wrong there. He had taken that one spot of brightness in his life and had become envious over it, guarding it jealously but hating it at the same time. How dare it be bright when the rest of his life had passed by in darkness? How dare Chizuru find it in herself to keep shining?

...It had been a mistake. So much of what he had done had been a mistake, and he doesn't even know where to begin if he wants to fix it all.

He'll let her pull her hand away, but he doesn't let her go. Instead, he folds her up in both of his arms, trying to calm his breathing and listen to what she says. It stings - he doesn't think he deserves this new brightness. Not him, a person who had taken some of Chizuru's brightness away.]

...There are— [But hadn't there been before? Back in that place, he was slowly learning how to see the good in other things, too. His head tilts forward and he makes a soft, upset-sounding noise when he feels the hand in his hair.]

...But I never meant to take yours away. I'm so sorry... I'm so sorry. I just want to share a life full of good things with you. [This is the sort of equality he had been looking for back then, but he doesn't want it anymore.] I— How... How did this even happen?

Edited 2014-10-25 22:33 (UTC)

[Chizuru wants Kaoru to be happy, and Kaoru wants to share a happy life with Chizuru. It seems they're both doomed to not get what they want.

Because what sort of "life full of good things" and she possibly share with him, at this point? The Nagumo clan still lingers on the horizon. She is painfully, horribly aware of the fact that she will have to return to them, if she doesn't want to lead them straight to her brother. Or if not that - she'll still have to leave Kaoru, because she doesn't want any of those demons anywhere near him. Not after what they did to him the first time around, not after what they've done to her in the years that she has lived with them.

So sharing a life with him... she's said that she doesn't want to leave him and that she doesn't want him to leave her, but she's going to have to go. Staying together isn't just difficult - it's outright impossible, and that is why her shoulders sag as he folds her into his arms. She rests herself against him, suddenly exhausted, keeping one hand in his hair and one hand tightly around him.]

I want that too. [Her voice breaks, because she knows she won't ever have it.] I do— I do, I do... [He still has a chance. She's ruined part of his life by allowing him to remember, but he isn't so far gone now that he's irredeemable. He can meet people to fill the void in his heart where she would be - he can find his Shinsengumi, or the equivalent thereof. He can find someone as important to him as Okita was to her and be happy, and Chizuru will try so, so hard not to be jealous, or at least not to lash out at him in her jealousy.

She wants him to have the sort of life she might have lived at Okita's side, if not for Kaoru and the ochimizu and the producers. She wants him to grow old beside her— No, with someone else, someone who will raise him up and make him smile and laugh (he's her brother how dare he laugh for anyone else).

He needs to be happy. He can't be happy like this, but she doesn't want to let him go. As for how it got this broken, this twisted - ]

...it's... my fault. They made me remember— [Not a sister after all, but a brother, right there alongside her in the castle. Her brother.] They... showed me. In the fireplace, I saw— I saw what your life had been like— I wanted to change it. I didn't care what happened to me, I still don't care, I wanted to change it... And without even consulting you, I—

[Fell straight into the producers' trap.]

[Just hearing "I want that too" is enough to help Kaoru relax a little, unaware of the fact that she's saying something and thinking the exact opposite. There's nothing he could be happier for than to finally be able to live out whatever is left of his life by his sister's side, unreachable in his first life and forgotten in his second. He doesn't think it's such a far-off goal; after all, he is still the same person that he had been before, beneath these year-softened layers that this new life has brought on. If it comes down to the lives of the Nagumo and being able to remain by Chizuru's side... well, it's a decision that makes itself.

But his posture goes completely rigid at the mention of the fireplace. In the fireplace... had he seen something similar? Was it in the fireplace? No, no... He can recall a man - a nation? Someone looming over them all... himself and three - no, four others. These are... the designated killers of his own season. Three, it seemed, because Touko is slower to come to mind.]

The chance to change... [A mistake in the past, to fix a possible poor outcome in the future. Regaining memories, attaining immortality, gaining the ability to resurrect the dead - these are the prizes they had played for. His grip tightens just a little.] We were... part of - a game? A gameshow? The fiftieth anniversary.

[Which is something Chizuru may or may not know, depending on how far the game progressed before she ended up killing someone - killing more than one? It makes dread sink to the pit of his stomach like a rock and at first he thinks it's solely because of the thought of Chizuru killing for him. That is horrific; it chills him to the bone. But there's more than that... There's something else forming a gnawing unease that's becoming hungrier by the second.]

No, no, no...! You "won". You "won" the "prize", you played the game—

[Why, why, why is that such a terrible thing? Why does that cause the anxiety festering in him to boil up again, stronger than before?]

Fiftieth..?

[No, she doesn't understand what he means by that. By her reckoning, Sebastian had just released his report recently, and Austria hadn't yet poisoned Spain; she didn't hesitate, she didn't drag it out and put it off until the last moment, and Austria hadn't had the chance to go through with her plot. The museum was never opened. Spain was never killed—

So how does Kaoru know about the anniversary...? It's a question that will weigh heavily on her until she has the answer, but for the moment there is a more pressing need. Kaoru's anxiety is infectious and she is seized by the insistent urge to explain, to make him understand - surely he won't panic if he just understands...]

They... they said that... I had to. Something went wrong— Something was... wrong. They said I could end it. [End the game.] Someone was— Interfering... And that was why my memories of you were so muddled, and if it went on any longer none of us would ever be able to... they said if I acted, everyone who was still alive would be saved but I—

I didn't care about them... I just wanted to save you.

[Her hold on him tightens.]

So I killed... Kuzuryuu-san and Feferi-san. And I framed Nanami-san— They said that if I retired after she was executed, they would send everyone home and let me save you right away... They promised...

[Even though her hold on him tightens, he's trying to pull away from her now, trying to get a better look at her face. Something about this is so horribly wrong and he knows that whatever it is, it's much worse than what he had just been dealing with. A past rewritten is enough, but this goes much deeper, the roots extend much further. He needs to collect his scattered thoughts, trying to pin the one that he knows will help him like a butterfly to cork board.]

It's wrong— No, that was wrong. That was wrong... [Who was interfering? Who had it been?] Your memories were muddled because they made it like that. They do it to everyone - everyone who's entered into the game as a player. They can change anything at all about that person's mind, if they're the ones who brought them in. The only way to avoid it is— ...No, there is no way to avoid it if you become a contestant through them. But if it's not by their decision... [If a person is snuck in from the outside...

His first life had been slow to collect in his mind; he still can't piece together all of it, though he recalls the gist by now. But this slams into him all at once, so strong and recent that he actually looks around for a second, clearly dazed and disoriented.]

—Recaptured. We've been recaptured. We've been recaptured?

They said that someone from the outside was trying to sabotage the game... that if I didn't end it quickly, we would all die. You would have died...

[But that was a lie? It sounds like it might be a lie, from the way Kaoru is talking, and that thought chills her to the bone. If not for that, she might have clutched at him more tightly as he tried to pull away; as it is, she stays still, her expression becoming more and more horrified and panicked.

Recaptured—

What does that mean... what does that mean?]

We can't have been. We're— in Edo. This isn't... that place, it isn't that castle, those people aren't here! The producers— They're not here—

I wouldn't have died! That was me, that was me, I was the one who was trying to sabotage it! Not just me— Stiles, and— [...He probably sounds like a lunatic. He probably looks like a lunatic, with the way his eyes dart wildly from side to side like he's suddenly massively distrustful of their surroundings. He's pulled away from Chizuru enough to stand, but he doesn't just yet; his attention seems to be elsewhere.]

God, what happened to Stiles?! And Gundam— [Everyone else should be fine, at least - the others who had been waiting in safety at the base should be fine. But what about the two of them? They didn't have the same protection Kaoru did just by virtue of being a player in the game. The Producers didn't have to go by the rulebook with either of them; it would be a simple matter to execute them off-screen, away from the eyes of anyone.

The thought sends him reeling into an even worse panic and he can't seem to catch his breath, gaze snapping back to Chizuru. Her statement seems to register a little belatedly, but he reacts to it fiercely all the same, shaking his head so hard that it hurts.]

That's impossible. That's impossible, they never send anyone back. [So they can't be in Edo, can they? This second life he's lived... That can't be real either, can it?]

What—?

[She doesn't know who Stiles is, she doesn't know who Gundam is, all she knows is that everything she is saying is only making Kaoru panic even more.

Kaoru was the saboteur? If that's really true - then by trying to save him, she... She brings both hands up to her mouth and presses them against it, shaking her head in a gesture of disbelief. No, no, no. If Kaoru was the one meaning to sabotage the game, then she ruined everything. She didn't just wreck a part of his new (false?) life by triggering the regaining of his memories - she ruined everything. Because if Kaoru was the saboteur all along, that means the producers manipulated her.

They returned her memories of him and manipulated her into dismantling all his carefully laid out plans.

A keening, mournful noise claws its way out of the back of her throat and is only muffled by the way she hasn't pulled her hands away from her mouth; she doubles over and shakes her head again, trembling.]

No, no, no...

[All of it was for - nothing? Nothing. If they've been "recaptured," if his plans were ruined, if his friends are dead -

He had friends.

The thought strikes her and she shakes her head again. He had friends all along, he didn't need me to save him.]

No, no, no— No, no...!

Edited 2014-10-26 13:40 (UTC)

[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.]

[She flinches away from him on instinct when his hands come to her head and then to her hand - she can't help it. Chizuru is thoroughly convinced that he must absolutely detest her for ruining his plans, and so she isn't able to take the gesture for what it is. When a Nagumo has been angry with her in the past, after all, it was never comfort they offered.

She shakes her head when he says her name.]

No—

[And again when he asks her to look.]

No..!

[But the protests are whimpers, perhaps so quiet he can't hear, and when he speaks again, I need you to look at me, how can she refuse? He needs it, after all, and she owes him, because she ruined him, ruined everything, doomed his friends, all in the guise of bringing him a salvation he didn't actually need—

She looks up, but she is only able to hold his gaze for a moment or two before she casts her eyes to the side, trembling and terrified. But at the very least, she doesn't turn her head back down.]

I'm sorry. I'm sorry, I'm— I'm so sorry...

[When she lifts her head, he shifts his hands so he can cup her cheeks instead. The touch is gentle and light, delicate, shaky - he can't stop the renewed bout of tremors that run through his body. But he can deal with that later, later, because Chizuru has already suffered so much and this has to be as deeply shocking and upsetting to her as it is to him to remember it.]

Don't apologize... Please don't apologize when you only thought that you were doing what was best. [It's his own fault for being such a godawful hopeless mess, pushing her into throwing away so much just for the chance to make him less of one. He couldn't ever blame her for something like that, even if there's a part of him that reels horribly about the overarching notion of everything crumbling. Everything they had worked for for three years, gone in a blink, and they would never have the chance to try again. This had been their chance - this had been it. The survivors back at the base will be able to manage, he's sure, but will they ever be able to take down the Producers now?

—No, he can't let his thoughts be consumed by that yet. He forces himself to focus on Chizuru, running his thumbs over the arch of her cheekbones.]

I should have seen it. I should have been able to do something, I should have been able to stop it— Three years of planning and I can't even take the necessary precautions to keep my little sister safe?

That's not...

[She starts to speak up, even though she's still shaking, even though there is a very large part of her that wants to break away from him and back off before he gets angry or decides to hurt her - this sort of gentleness from a Nagumo can't last long. (But he's her brother, but he's a Nagumo, but he's her brother—)

Chizuru doesn't look very comforted by the way he thumbs over her cheekbones, though she has longed to be by her brother's side for so many years. It's the same sort of thing Kaoru might recognize - wanting something so much and being repulsed by it at the same time. Love, hate, comfort, fear - they're all sides of the same coin.]

It isn't your fault... I hid it from you. I hid it from everyone. I did my best so that you wouldn't know... You can't blame yourself for that. If you say I'm not allowed to apologize for what I did, then you can't blame yourself for it happening.

[It is something that stands out, uncomfortably familiar to his eye. There's a lot about their new - old - current? - circumstances that he doesn't understand even now, that he isn't entirely sure he ever will. Even after the dust settles and his memories return in full (if, if, he can't afford setting expectations), there are too many things that are far changed now. Too much that he won't be able to right.

So even though he wants to be close to Chizuru now, as close as possible, he ends up leaning away, pulling his hands from her face. He folds them in his lap instead, staring down at the creases near his knuckles.]

... [What can he say? That he, so practiced in the art of deception, should have been able to see through Chizuru's plan? It's true, he thinks, but he doesn't want to admit to that either. He still doesn't want to acknowledge that person, that well-versed deceiver, back-stabber, liar, murderer.]

It was my job. It was my job to anticipate things that might go wrong in the game. [Everyone was depending on him - the people in season 50, the people back at the base, everyone who survived long enough to be tucked away for "reuse" later, if they were ever needed...] ...I couldn't do it. I couldn't— protect... the things - the people that I wanted to protect, I couldn't do it.

[Has anything changed at all?]

You didn't have any way of knowing they were going to bring me in.

[He needs to stop blaming himself. He really, really needs to stop blaming himself, Chizuru thinks - it's them, all them, it's not him at all. To anticipate things that might go wrong is an impossible job. With thirty people in the game, and the producers keeping such a close watch on things, how could anyone ever perfectly predict what might happen? It's not like Kaoru is or ever has been a mind reader, and the Kaoru of the past had been apart from her for so wrong that it's no small wonder they had drifted apart so much that even with their newfound friendship in the castle he hadn't been able to tell what she was going to do.]

That's probably exactly why they did it... to distract you. Don't you think? [She should be trying to comfort him. This is her way of trying to comfort him - "It's something that couldn't be prevented, so it's inevitable that it worked." The part of her that used to be Yukimura Chizuru knows that's all wrong, but the part of her that still is Nagumo Chizuru is overpowering, and a careful acceptance of inevitabilities is how she's survived for so long.] They knew that I was important to you and that you would become important to me if given the chance to. They knew... They may not have known what you were going to do, but they knew enough of you to know that you would be a threat.

...and they knew enough of me to know that I would be easily molded into their tool.

[A threat, a threat - that's all he's ever been in any iteration of his life. A threat to himself, a threat to those unfortunate enough to stand in his presence, a threat to the people that he held most dear. He's a threat where it counts too, of course - to the unfortunate few that the world would undoubtedly be better off without.

But what good has it done this time? Where has it gotten him? The fact that he had been singled out as a threat before their plan could come to fruition has put two of his closest allies into great - lethal danger. It's driven his sister, the one person that he wanted to protect most of all, into this horrible corner that he's not certain he can help her back out of. It's upturned three years of collective hard work, and what do they have to show for it?

His hands ball into fists, shift to rest against his knees. His expression shifts, too. He may blame himself - he may never be able to stop blaming himself - but that doesn't mean he has no blame to spare for the root of it all.]

They know enough of everyone to be a problem - more than enough. Don't hold that against yourself, either; they can read anyone they put their finger on like an open book. [It's one of the many, many reasons that he hates them all so intensely. A private person never enjoys seeing the contents of their past and mind gutted and laid out for observation.]

That's why... [That's why his job had been so important.] ...They do the things they do because they know chances of success will be high. They have psychology mapped out. They could draw any desired reaction from any person if they had the tools for it, and they always have the tools.

[She is very quiet as she thinks over what he's said. They can ready anyone and They always have the tools... more inevitabilities for her to accept. Were they doomed from the start? Was there any way to get their shared season offscript, to forge the ending the players wanted rather than the ending the producers had planned for?

...Chizuru doesn't think so. Not now that it's becoming so obvious that they used her to ruin her brother's plans.]

So... what... what do we do?

[Her voice is a whisper; she can't bring herself to meet his eyes.]

The producers aren't in Edo. Those people we were trapped with... they aren't in Edo. But we are. Where do we go from here?

[There is some measure of anxiety in her voice. She is terrified that once he accepts that this is her fault - because it's hers, hers and the producers, they tricked her and she let them because she was so desperate for the lies they offered that she didn't stop to think - he'll leave, that he'll see her for the worthless, rotten person she's become. And maybe he would be safer and happier that way, but she doesn't want to be apart from him because he chose it.

She'll leave him to keep him safe, but she can't bear for him to leave her.]

[While Chizuru's concerns are anchored in something much more immediate and concrete, Kaoru's mind is consumed by the distant what-ifs that this scenario brings along with it. He shakes his head at her statement, rubbing the heel of his palm beneath one eye in an anxious gesture.]

I don't know how we're here... We can't actually be here.

[Because he remembers it now - he remembers the survivors of the other seasons and how they had always walked right back into the hands of the Producers after they "won". He remembers how the same thing had nearly happened to all of them - how they had weathered that storm in the cramped shack, walked into the hall of doors and waltzed right back into the main office. How they had only managed to escape because their arrival was unpredicted.

They aren't infallible, then.

Of course they aren't - how could he have existed for so long in that world otherwise? It has him thinking again, brow furrowing, gaze dropping, hand raising to cover his mouth.]

...I don't know what they've done, though. We never really learned the details. [Storage rescue missions hadn't really started up yet. Storage itself wasn't really a priority, all things considered, since they knew so little about it and were primarily focused on taking the Producers down and finding a way back home.]

Wherever we are... isn't there some way out? We're aware of it, so we won't... we can't simply be complacent...

[But there's no way for either of them to know how this works. Maybe they'll only be aware of it for now. The Producers had altered their memories so easily - they cling to their memories now, they're terrified by them, but how long can that last? If they allow themselves to go to sleep, will they wake with the slate wiped clean so they can't pose any sort of a threat?

Or will they remember forever, because entrenched in this as they are, there's nothing they can do to change it?

...Chizuru doesn't know which is worse.]

If this isn't really Edo... does that mean... does that mean it was all in our heads? All of it... The life we lived here... Was it some kind of a dream?

...there must be a way to wake up...

[He shakes his head again at that, and his hand drops down to hover over his chest.]

It's more than just taking place inside of our heads. I mean— it's not real, either, but it isn't... entirely false? If that makes sense.

[Which is followed by a somewhat sour expression, because he knows it probably doesn't. He just doesn't have any better way of trying to express what he means with the limited amount of knowledge he has on the subject. As soon as an appropriate comparison point comes to mind, a little bit of his old and unpleasantly familiar distance resurfaces.]

...I think that it's a lot like executions. You experience them - that much is real. You don't actually die, but it feels like you have. Even if you tell yourself "it wasn't real, it wasn't real", you'll still carry those memories with you as though it were. [That much he knows well, too.]

So escaping from this place... I'm not sure how easy it will be. I've never had to try breaking out from the inside before. [And he's struck for one horrifying second by the creeping, fearful curiosity - is this the first time they've had this conversation before? Is this the first time his memories have returned? The first time she's had to come to terms with being a tool to take others down?

There's really no way of knowing when they're caught so tightly in the hands of the enemy, and that genuinely scares him.]

Edited (I FORGOT HALF MYTAG AND NOW I FORGOT A WORd) 2014-11-02 08:02 (UTC)

[Her stomach churns, and her shoulders sag as she drops her gaze to the ground. This is a mess. It's a mess, and if even Kaoru doesn't know how to get out of it, what hope do they have of actually escaping? Chizuru wants to try and figure out what to do, she wants to, but having already done what she thought was best once and having caused all of this in the first place...

She can't trust her own judgment, clearly. If the Producers have sway over her memories, they could have sway over her thoughts, too, and that means she can't trust her own mind.

And she shouldn't be trusted, she thinks. She just shouldn't. Not after this, and not after she's become such a twisted person after living with these memories of the Nagumo. Even if she did try to help, she doesn't think she could do it selflessly anymore. There would always be some dark, bitter, selfish aspect to whatever she does - even coming here to see Kaoru was selfish, it was purely because she wanted to see him, and now she's hurt him so badly by only thinking of herself...]

I'm sorry. [Her voice is a whisper.] It doesn't change anything, but I'm sorry. I shouldn't have... All of this, it's... [Agitated, one hand comes up to grip her hair again, and she winds her fingers into the strands and holds onto them tightly.] It's because—!

[She hates them, she hates them, she hates them. She hates the Producers for backing them into this corner, and she hates herself for making it worse.]

There must be a way out. There must be—

[Is it really over? It can't be over. If it's over, if they're trapped here for good and she never has a chance to atone for her mistakes, then...]

...executions. Those— You said it's like the executions? [...oh no.] Then— If we die here—? Will that put an end to this? Will that wake us up?

[Automatically, Kaoru's hand rises to meet Chizuru's when she winds her fingers through her hair in that familiar gesture. A small part of him almost wishes that he didn't understand why it's so familiar now, but what's done is done. He won't allow himself to get caught and delayed on such a trivial thing when there are bigger dangers ahead.

But when she says that, his expression drops sharply into something harsh but clearly concerned.]

Something like that is way too dangerous. The Producers have control over everything in that game, so life and death is as simple as flicking a switch for them. Even though we're still under their thumb here, dying would be a deviation from their plans. [A sharp shake of his head. His brow furrows a little. This train of thought is a very, very poor one and he's marginally concerned about what a slippery slope it could become.]

We can't risk it. If we're wrong...

I hate them. I hate them, Kaoru.

[Her voice breaks. Hatred isn't something Chizuru admits to easily; it's something that, in the past, she preferred to keep locked up until she could move past it, and in this life it's something too dangerous to show because if the Nagumo knew exactly how much she hated them, if they knew every unkind thought she ever had about them and every little way she wanted to make their lives difficult, they would have made her suffer much more than they already have - and they've made her suffer quite a bit.

But in the Producers' case, she can make an exception.]

A world where they have control over everything, over what we see and think and feel and remember... I don't want it. I don't want it, I don't want it— I don't want to live in that kind of a world!

I know you do. I do, too.

[Kaoru's never really been one to hide his hatred where it matters. He puts on a show of being kind and friendly, but there's always a breaking point - a moment where he decides "this is enough" and lets his true intentions and feelings shine through clearly. It's usually meant to repulse the people that he doesn't want near, and that's a good goal to aim for, as far as he's concerned.

Hatred isn't always enough, though. He had felt hatred and anger so deep once that they had been his sustenance, but he was still left empty. His hatred of the Producers had been the driving force that bound him to the other members of his season. In a way, his closeness with them had started because of the people that he hates so much. He would in no way thank them for it, not ever, but the truth of the matter remains.

What can hatred do here? It won't break them out of whatever bizarre world they've ended up in.]

...We'll have to find out a second way to leave. As much as I hate the possibility of them altering things, it would be worse to risk never being able to wake up again.

[...Is it really? There's a part of him that is repulsed by the notion of being erased by this group that he hates so much, molded and shaped into something new as easily as someone can snap their fingers. It's intrusive and deeply disturbing. His free hand rises, tugging at the sloping front of the cozy haori that he never should have owned, used over imagined years to keep back the bite of fall and winter. It no longer seems a comfort.]

...I don't know about that.

[The tension is starting to drain out of her, but almost everything else is, too. Her hand falls away from her hair, coming to rest limply at her side, and her shoulders sag. It almost seems as if she lacks the energy to hold herself up.

She's tired. She's so tired. All those years with the Nagumo - how much of that is what would have happened if she had been the one to be taken for real, and how much of that is the Producers trying to make her suffer simply because they can? All of that, and for this... meeting her brother face-to-face in this world has just made him suffer, now.

...maybe that's what they were going for. Punishing Kaoru for daring to stand up to the game - they had used her to hurt him before. So of course they would make what happened to her in this life be as painful as possible for him. And of course they would have made it so that he would remember everything if they ever met...

She doesn't want to be their tool anymore.]

It might be worth it... if it could keep them from making us into pawns. [And then there's a sudden vehemence in her voice, though her expression is still mostly drained.] I'd rather die than be their toy ever again—! I don't want... I don't want to do what they expect, what they want...

[She wants to spite them, just as she wanted to spite the Nagumo clan.]

reunion;;

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