Ryslig | IC Contact

[raidraptors]

WELCOME TO YOUR PRIVATE CHANNEL, SHUN KUROSAKI. FOR SECURE COMMUNICATION, USE 235.59.665.46 *** XYZ-RAPTOR has joined 235.59.665.46 <XYZ-RAPTOR> Keep it short.

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[raidraptors]

[He nods – of course Yuto wouldn't like her using Fusion, Shun hadn't – still doesn't – liked it either, but he agrees with what Yuto seems to have told her… if it's her using Fusion, if it's to protect the people and places that matter to her, yes.

Still. It's been months, over a year since they had navigated the shadows of Standard, since Yuto had told her those words… a long way, as she had said, and now Shun can only wonder…]

Why are you thinking of that now?

[What has she done that she considers 'terrible', that she clearly seems to regret and yet tries to justify to herself? What is it that he doesn't know?]

[operadiance]

I...

[ What can she say? Nothing about Yuto. Nothing about the death he made her promise to keep secret, and how it was Yuzu alone that was left with a corpse whole enough to bury. Nothing about her own death. Nothing about the desperation to escape an existence that desired nothing more than to consume the lives of the people who loved her. Nothing about the truth of power she received in return — the suffering she inflicts on herself to help the others, the way it burns to be used.

Her tail swings like a metronome over the ledge of the roof. Yuto's crossed arms grow ashen, cracking along the lines of his bones, and falling to pieces in dust. ]

I've lost count. Of how many people I've killed.

[ She fiddles with her bracelet, folding the two bands into one ring, then back out into two. Her voice is quiet, and slow, and she stumbles over her words. She doesn't look up. ]

How many lives I've ended... how many families I've destroyed. How many people must be grieving for what I've done. And I know — I know I don't have a choice! That if I want to survive, if I want... to return to my own world, to protect the existence I love, I don't have any other choice. But... but when isn't that good enough? How am I supposed to know when, when my reasons aren't good enough? There has to be a limit, doesn't there? How can I be the one to decide which world has more value? Which people deserve to live? To die?

I don't... I can't see that boundary. I don't think I ever could. And it scares me.