ichiro steps up onto the platform without any issue, holding the keyblade tight in his right hand. standing on the red stained glass feels like being home, for a moment, and he looks at his own face, spots his brothers, spots rei of all people, and looks up --
and then he sees jiro, and any rational thought he's ever had disappears. his heart clenches, and he shouts - ] JIRO!
[ this is the first time he's seen his brother since he's arrived here. it's the first time he's gotten an inkling of the fact that he's okay, that either he or saburo are fine at home (his biggest fear is that they aren't, really, over anything else), and as he looks into his brother's eyes he's already taking off by the time he's being tucked in to sleep, practically flying across the glass (and stomping extra hard on rei's face for flavor).
he'd tear apart an entire universe for the safety of his little brothers. ichiro doesn't need direction, or any idea of what to do or where to go - when those creepy monsters appear they set off alarm bells as a warning, because jiro is right there and ichiro will do anything to make sure he's okay. ] Get the hell away from him!
[ and he's immediately launching himself in the direction of one of those nobodies with the weight of that heavy hitter keyblade like he's wielded it his entire life to keep it as far away from jiro as humanly possible. goodbye ]
[ah jeeze. ichiro takes off, and beau lets out a frustrated noise, darting off after him.]
Ichiro! Stop, don't just run in --
[look, she knows his world is a bunch of bullshit but - well. there's a reason she picked the shield. a little flicker of fear runs through her - this week has made her relive so much, has made her remember the taste of blood in her mouth, the sight of it dripping from other's. but. she's not one to shy away from a fight.
she doesn't know who jiro is, but it doesn't matter. he's important to ichiro, so he's important to her. she rushes across the glass, aiming to get to the pod, but i assume she's stopped by her set of wiggle boys. she swings at them wildly with the keyblade, and then follows up with a punch, just out of instinct.]
[it doesn't take much to put two and two together. ichiro has mentioned jiro's name before, and it's not like he doesn't get it. it's why he doesn't stop him as he charges, but instead he adjusts the grip on his keyblade.
right. monsters. what the hell are these now...?]
Don't lose track of them! [which is obvious, but it means that instead he's following right after them to try and swing at his own wiggle boys. truly hate we're calling them that. but he's bounding back in an attempt to get the creatures to follow him further toward the edge of the platform and away from jiro's pod.]
If they look like enemies, they walk like enemies, and people yell at them like enemies, Kainé is going to go at them like enemies.
She may have chosen the healer option, but—
She's running straight at one of these (anna voice) wiggle boys, jumping up and bringing the keyblade straight down with all her strength like it's a sword.
If it keeps them away from someone that Ichiro considers important, all the better. ]
[I hate these things, so the first Dusk gets walloped right in the chest by Ichiro's swing. It flies up and back, then lands on the platform and bursts into glimmering sparkles. It leaves behind a piece of paper. Scribbled onto it is a childish drawing of two people.
In his rally, Ichiro starts to forget: He never really lost a best friend, did he? One of the few people he cares about has always been there. At school, right? Wiwaldi. Ichiro has a best friend at Wiwaldi named Kuko Harai.
The second Dusk folds up out of the ground, however, and gives Ichiro a swift spinning kick in the back. It's weird. The hit hurts when it hits Ichiro on the surface, but it leaves a painful sting somewhere deep inside him, too.
Yeah, one of Beauregard's wiggle boys does this, and dodges the keyblade swings. What it isn't expecting, though, is the punch. HELLO? It bends over and turns into paper Itadori on the platform, stunned for a moment. The other one curls its legs up and goes stiff, blocking any next swings!
Taichi's wiggle boys flatten themselves onto the platform and squirm circles around him in synch, like sharks in the water hunting. If he watches them, he'll be able to tell when they get ready to peel up at the same time on either side of him, trying for two arm swipes.
I don't know what to tell you, but Kainé scares the piss out of both her Dusks, and they launch themselves in opposite directions to sink down into the platform's surface. They start wiggling toward Taichi...!]
Edited (i forgot my bracket) 2021-06-29 03:18 (UTC)
[ good, die. the dusk dissolves into into glittery sparkles, and ichiro swings his keyblade around to shove himself in front of jiro, again, but the paper flutters in front of his face and catches his eye, too. that's - god, if he tries hard enough, he can remember that day. he can remember battling with kuko, when things were good - remembers getting ice cold cokes in the alleyway, remembers being dragged out to hang out. remembers. because we're best friends, duh!
"i don't know about best friends," he'd said, then, but kuko dragged him off, and ichiro hadn't ever had a friend, before , and didn't that happen here, at school? wasn't he so lucky, to find someone like that - someone pushy and annoying and loyal and exactly what ichiro always needed, here?
kuko was always there. had always been there.
hadn't he?
the hit connects in that flash moment of confusion. he grits his teeth as it smacks him across the back and sends him to the ground, but rolls over with a gasp of air, swinging the keyblade wildly so he doesn't get attacked while he's down; he thinks about kuko, looks up, sees that white petal pod and grits his teeth.
sorry kuko. is now really the time to be thinking about him? jiro's in danger. jiro needs him. he plants a hand on the ground and springs up like a breakdancer, shoving his feet in the direction of the remaining dusk near him and rolling back up to his feet, blade in hand, using his shoulder to wipe his mouth and putting his back to that pod, bringing the blade up again to strike back. fuck off wiggles im armed ]
she scowls when the wiggle boy wooolooloos out of her swing, but the punch, does connect, and she makes a face at the texture. these things don't look fun to touch. when the other one goes still, she recognizes it for the Patient Defense it is and ignores it, jumping and attempting to stab the paper itadori'd one through the chest. and - well, while she's doing that, she sees the four of these things worming over to taichi, and absolutely not!
she switches her grasp. punches down to beat the shit out of the dusk with her fist and instead points her keyblade at taichi, willing it to protect. do what you're supposed to do, you dumb sword.]
Taichi! Watch out!
[ichiro and kainé are okay, for now, she thinks. it'll be fine.]
[SERIOUSLY, WHAT ARE THESE THINGS. he's really not into the wiggling and he watches one of them kick ichiro in the back. he doesn't have time to even see if he's okay, but out of the corner of his eye he's watching him spring back up.
two of them circle him and he thinks, maybe, if he times it right he can knock them away.
it's the other two that he isn't anticipating and when beau calls out to him there's a startled yell of surprise before he reacts. there may not be time, but he attempts to kick one of the circling ones like a soccer ball, using the keyblade to swing wildly to put some distance between him and the other three.]
Get to the pod!
[now is not the time to actually double-down on the plan to draw attention away. but here we are.]
[ It's very valid for the Dusks to be scared of Kainé. Too bad she doesn't want them to run away? ]
Get back here, you little bastards!
[ But she is listening, and she will try to multitask which is hard for someone who is usually so single-minded? But hey, it's like Taichi selected the option in her game where you can tell Kainé to either come help you or go the fuck away and fight somewhere else.
He can be Nier for 0.1 second. I'm allowing it.
She cartwheels her way across this beautiful stained glass platform, towards one of the wiggly boys that slithered away from her but once it sinks into the platform and she can't drive her heel down onto it, she switches gears and sprints for the pod.
Which is to say, she Naruto runs, and I hate it. ]
[The downfall of the wiggle boys is that they're wiggly. The second one throwing hands with Ichiro is so busy worming around that the breakdance-y worming back gets it. Pa-yow. It explodes into nonexistence.
(Did Nobodies ever exist to begin with...?)
The poor paper Duskatori follows the same fate as the others: bursting into a sparkle of nothingness. A piece of paper with something scribbled on it flutters into place where the Dusk had been as she fires the shield off.
Two doodled women, one with wings, and the other being carried. The memory starts slipping from Beauregard's mind. Someone helped her... A well-built girl from Wiwaldi, right? She knows a girl from one of the classes...
Around Taichi, the air hardens and shines briefly with something translucent. The two Dusks from Kainé sneaking up on him mount their attack with the others, but hit the shield and are thrown back. One of the other two keeps its distance as Taichi swings the keyblade, but the second one... You KICK Wiggle Boy? You kick Wiggle Boy like the FOOTBALL? Digital jail for Taichi! DIGITAL JAIL FOR A THOUSAND YEARS!
Which is to say, these it peels out of the ground to do somersaults around Taichi to block him in while the other three double back for an attack.]
[ okay if ichiro wasn't having a crisis right now he would probably have just fallen in love with kainé on the spot. sick cartwheels sick fight moves AND naruto running? swoon
anyway
ichiro slams his fist into the pod once the second nobody disappears, kicking up to his feet like the true b-boy he is and immediately turning around. for a minute, there's just panic, and he doesn't come to help right away, because that's his little brother. ] Jiro -- Jiro!
[ but -- caleb said it to him last week, too, that he ran into illusions of the people he cared about, on one of these little adventures. he stops, hand on the pod, and looks down at the stick figure sketch, again, of what has to be kuko. he looks like a fucking little gremlin like that, doesn't he? he stares at it, stares a little longer. after that, i was tired of its illusions.
...get it together. he takes a big, deep breath, grabs the picture, shoves it in his pocket. then, he slaps his hand against the pod, once. i have strength. and his strength's right here. ] Big bro's got this. Okay? I've got it. You're with me.
[ and then takes off running to pick off one of the stragglers trying to attack taichi with his own bigass keyblade. ] Back off!
[well, it's nice, because beau's crisis means that she forgets her goth girlfriend and does fall in love with kainé on the spot --
no, it's more that beau just. pauses, midfight. she catches the paper when it floats through the air, staring at it. someone - someone. someone? she knew someone here. she knows someone here, tall, and sweet. they'd exchanged numbers, they'd gotten hot chocolate once. that's right. yeah. hm.
she should remember what caleb said, but beau's mental guard is not quite as good as his.
so instead of fighting, she puts the paper in her pocket, and pushes her hair back out of her face. right. next!
she turns, aiming to help the rest of her team to get rid of the rest of these dusks.]
[HE WILL KICK YOU AGAIN, WIGGLE BOY. as it is, he's trying to keep his eyes everywhere on the battlefield to watch his companions, checking on ichiro at the pod as he comes charging back, watching beau with the paper also looping back and watching kainé dash across the field itself. part of him wonders if the glass beneath them will crumble the longer they're here.
he doesn't have much time to think of that though, seeing how he's being blocked in slowly. he's holding the keyblade with both hands, swinging to strike at the dusk somersaulting around him almost like one would hold a baseball bat. get lost already!!]
Ichiro gets one of the Dusks in the back since it's too busy being worried about harassing Taichi. It's obliterated so quickly even the memory of it is gone... Goodbye, wiggle boy. A piece of paper flutters out of the space it occupied, twisting by Taichi.
It's a scribbled drawing of a boy with brown, fluffy hair (this is just Sora), and someone else sitting by a table. Taichi remembers, but then it begins slipping away into something else. A teacher at Wiwaldi thought he'd go far if he kept going to school there. He has to dream big, right?
One of the wiggle boys does a spiraling flap in the air, trying to cartwheel over Taichi's head and nyoom down at Beau. Kainé finds out she can throw her keyblade! She's throwing it at the last one to help Taichi, but the one going for Beau falls down right in the way unfortunately. The keyblade slams into it, splitting it into a thousand sparkling pieces.
A paper flies out with another doodled drawing: Kainé holding hands with a boy in a blindfold. But the memory starts slipping away. Wasn't there... a boy at Wiwaldi she reassured about not being hideous...?
Uh oh! The last Dusk leaps onto Taichi from behind like a Redead. It squeezes him painfully from the outside, but somehow, it feels like his heart is being squeezed more.]
goodbye, dusk! punk ass. at this point, he's looking at the other dusks, keeping an eye on the other three to make sure they don't do anything shitty while this paper floats through the air. as the last one snatches on, ichiro yells - ] Taichi!
[ his keyblade is probably too huge to smack at it without hitting him, which is so unfortunate, but he's rushing over to help anyway!!! hopefully running on his dad's face again ]
anyway, i've lost track of the combat. beau is running over, dropping her keyblade in order to rip the dusk off of taichi's back so she can beat it up? hello, here are her fists. can she even drop the keyblade? she'll just pull a roxas beating up the computer if she can't.
actually - she'll try to rip it off taichi, punch it, and throw it to kainé, honestly. teamwork!]
[i'm glad sora's here. anyway, so there's a lot going on here. he's watching one dusk get obliterated, paper fluttering and he immediately snatches it out of the air to try and take a look. but as the paper rests in his hands he feels himself slowly starting to remember...who was that man who had tried to tell him which way to go? he has a future still, doesn't he? what does he want to do with the future anyway? there used to be someone who believed in him but now...
he doesn't get to think too much on it mostly because there isn't time. another dusk bites the dust in a shower of sparkles, and he doesn't even see the second paper or what's happening behind him because for whatever reason, wow, his plan backfired! who'd have thought!
there's a strangled kind of noise even as he's trying to flail his arm uselessly, grip tight on his keyblade as the bind takes its hold. physically he could withstand it, but the crushing in his chest is a little too much to juggle.
the paper flies out and she makes a grab for it because for kainé, drawings and pictures are something that can make someone live forever, and she knows, remembers a boy who sacrificed his body, sacrificed his life to save her time and time again. she remembers nights around bonfires where he managed to get her to talk about herself the way no one else could. or does she?
because there is a boy sweeter and more earnest than anyone else she knows here at school, right? someone she listens to with fondness as he talks about the boy he has a crush on, someone for whom she’d break the teeth of anyone who’d bully him even during kindness week.
beau is the most valid, and it’s a good thing kainé can act on instinct and gut because as soon as she sees the dusk flying her way courtesy of beau, she spins so she can try to slam her elbow into it and kick it down onto the stained glass floor.
The poor (no) Dusk tries to cling to Taichi, but it really isn't expecting Beauregard to just rip it right off? HELLO? Its body from the neck down wiggles and jolts every time she gives it a good punch.
And then its tossed like a rag-dog through the air at Kainé. It bursts into a sparkle of nonexistence under her foot just like the others.
A silence descends on them. No more Dusks wiggle out of the platform. In the distance, the petals of the pod give a shifting sort of hiss and fold open. But Jiro isn't inside. All that's left is a piece of paper with three familiar boys hugged together drawn onto it.
Another set of stained glass stairs rises from one side of the platform, spiraling upward.]
once the last one is dispatched, ichiro can't help himself. it does not matter if his Wizard Dad is smart enough to say things like "it was probably fake" anymore, at least for a moment, because he has to sprint back over to pod when it starts to shift, and he skids to a stop in front of it, ready, hope high in his chest that it's fine, it's fine -
and by the time he gets there, it's empty.
ichiro just stands there for a long moment, his heart thudding against his ribcage, staring at the picture. gutted, for a second. it's not real, but holy shit, seeing jiro wrenched something inside of him that's now turning to some kind of fiery, furious anger.
he clenches his fist at his side, slowly, and then unclenches it, and reaches out to take the paper. it's so familiar it hurts. he closes his eyes for a second, holding the paper like it's s the most precious thing in the world, and then takes a deep breath to try and calm himself down. in, out. it's not real. whatever this place is is just trying to use jiro and saburo against him, and he has to be stronger than that. they need him to be stronger than that.
he turns back to the group, holding the paper tight, and rolls his shoulders back. ]
...come on. If everybody's okay, we gotta keep moving. [ and gives a little jerk of his head up towards the new stairs. ]
[okay, beau can't help herself - she absolutely whoops when kainé beats the shit out of the dusk. GET IT.
but then - it's quiet, or at least. quieter. and ichiro zooms across the way to the pod. beau glances at the other two with a bit of a frown, like... oh no, our mom is sad. and then she follows him over to the pod, resting her hand on his back when he stares down at the paper. and when he turns, she nods, but she's keeping an eye on him.]
I think we're all good. [she says, glancing up at Ichiro.] ... It's probably not real.
[she knows he probably knows, it's just. you know. sometimes the words help.
she shoves her hand in her pocket to hold onto the little sketch there. thinks. the girl, waiting for her. out on the campus. gotta get back to her.
she'll lead the way up the staircase, if nobody objects.]
[the dusks are gone and everything grows quiet, save for a small gasp from taichi once the squeezing stops. what the hell was that? but he doesn't say anything, standing upright and adjusting the grip on his keyblade as he watches ichiro and beau.
...winters stick together, don't they? he lets that thought rattle around inside his head a little, thinking about that bond before he lets a hand stray to his pocket. whatever he's looking for isn't there and he frowns to himself.
even if this isn't real, that doesn't change much. but he doesn't bother saying that, leaving it to someone better with words.]
[As they step onto the beautiful glass of the stairs, the voice from before speaks into their hearts:
The farther you go in your journey together, the longer you spend in the darkness. Don't be afraid, even when the darkness closes in around you. Together with your friends, you can pull through.
On the stairs, each one of their hearts grow heavy with burden. The anger in Ichiro's heart swells; he's angry easier, angrier more often, or reacts with anger first. The fear in Beauregard's heart rises. She's more paranoid of others, more frightened by uncertain situations. The jealousy in Taichi's heart grows. The things others have--love, family, friends, success--he wants bitterly, and he's more prone to be greedy. The melancholy in Kainé's heart weighs her down. As they go, she finds she is sad more than she is anything else, and she is prone to being morose.
They arrive at the next platform. The light here is a little brighter, like it's growing the higher they climb. The stained glass here is a vibrant blue and gold. Beauregard is imprinted in the glass along the circle of one side, reclined, eyes closed. In the bubbles of decoration beside her are a woman with long, dual-toned hair, and three slitted eyes.
At the back of the platform is another egg-shaped pod, petals open. Standing in the middle is Caleb who reaches up just as the petals encase him, tucking him in to sleep.
Nearby, something appears, swirling into existence. It's almost four times larger than the creatures from before. Beside it, two other creatures appear. The wick sticking out of their heads are suspicious...]
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ichiro steps up onto the platform without any issue, holding the keyblade tight in his right hand. standing on the red stained glass feels like being home, for a moment, and he looks at his own face, spots his brothers, spots rei of all people, and looks up --
and then he sees jiro, and any rational thought he's ever had disappears. his heart clenches, and he shouts - ] JIRO!
[ this is the first time he's seen his brother since he's arrived here. it's the first time he's gotten an inkling of the fact that he's okay, that either he or saburo are fine at home (his biggest fear is that they aren't, really, over anything else), and as he looks into his brother's eyes he's already taking off by the time he's being tucked in to sleep, practically flying across the glass (and stomping extra hard on rei's face for flavor).
he'd tear apart an entire universe for the safety of his little brothers. ichiro doesn't need direction, or any idea of what to do or where to go - when those creepy monsters appear they set off alarm bells as a warning, because jiro is right there and ichiro will do anything to make sure he's okay. ] Get the hell away from him!
[ and he's immediately launching himself in the direction of one of those nobodies with the weight of that heavy hitter keyblade like he's wielded it his entire life to keep it as far away from jiro as humanly possible. goodbye ]
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Ichiro! Stop, don't just run in --
[look, she knows his world is a bunch of bullshit but - well. there's a reason she picked the shield. a little flicker of fear runs through her - this week has made her relive so much, has made her remember the taste of blood in her mouth, the sight of it dripping from other's. but. she's not one to shy away from a fight.
she doesn't know who jiro is, but it doesn't matter. he's important to ichiro, so he's important to her. she rushes across the glass, aiming to get to the pod, but i assume she's stopped by her set of wiggle boys. she swings at them wildly with the keyblade, and then follows up with a punch, just out of instinct.]
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right. monsters. what the hell are these now...?]
Don't lose track of them! [which is obvious, but it means that instead he's following right after them to try and swing at his own wiggle boys. truly hate we're calling them that. but he's bounding back in an attempt to get the creatures to follow him further toward the edge of the platform and away from jiro's pod.]
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If they look like enemies, they walk like enemies, and people yell at them like enemies, Kainé is going to go at them like enemies.
She may have chosen the healer option, but—
She's running straight at one of these (anna voice) wiggle boys, jumping up and bringing the keyblade straight down with all her strength like it's a sword.
If it keeps them away from someone that Ichiro considers important, all the better. ]
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In his rally, Ichiro starts to forget: He never really lost a best friend, did he? One of the few people he cares about has always been there. At school, right? Wiwaldi. Ichiro has a best friend at Wiwaldi named Kuko Harai.
The second Dusk folds up out of the ground, however, and gives Ichiro a swift spinning kick in the back. It's weird. The hit hurts when it hits Ichiro on the surface, but it leaves a painful sting somewhere deep inside him, too.
Yeah, one of Beauregard's wiggle boys does this, and dodges the keyblade swings. What it isn't expecting, though, is the punch. HELLO? It bends over and turns into paper Itadori on the platform, stunned for a moment. The other one curls its legs up and goes stiff, blocking any next swings!
Taichi's wiggle boys flatten themselves onto the platform and squirm circles around him in synch, like sharks in the water hunting. If he watches them, he'll be able to tell when they get ready to peel up at the same time on either side of him, trying for two arm swipes.
I don't know what to tell you, but Kainé scares the piss out of both her Dusks, and they launch themselves in opposite directions to sink down into the platform's surface. They start wiggling toward Taichi...!]
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"i don't know about best friends," he'd said, then, but kuko dragged him off, and ichiro hadn't ever had a friend, before , and didn't that happen here, at school? wasn't he so lucky, to find someone like that - someone pushy and annoying and loyal and exactly what ichiro always needed, here?
kuko was always there. had always been there.
hadn't he?
the hit connects in that flash moment of confusion. he grits his teeth as it smacks him across the back and sends him to the ground, but rolls over with a gasp of air, swinging the keyblade wildly so he doesn't get attacked while he's down; he thinks about kuko, looks up, sees that white petal pod and grits his teeth.
sorry kuko. is now really the time to be thinking about him? jiro's in danger. jiro needs him. he plants a hand on the ground and springs up like a breakdancer, shoving his feet in the direction of the remaining dusk near him and rolling back up to his feet, blade in hand, using his shoulder to wipe his mouth and putting his back to that pod, bringing the blade up again to strike back. fuck off wiggles im armed ]
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she scowls when the wiggle boy wooolooloos out of her swing, but the punch, does connect, and she makes a face at the texture. these things don't look fun to touch. when the other one goes still, she recognizes it for the Patient Defense it is and ignores it, jumping and attempting to stab the paper itadori'd one through the chest. and - well, while she's doing that, she sees the four of these things worming over to taichi, and absolutely not!
she switches her grasp. punches down to beat the shit out of the dusk with her fist and instead points her keyblade at taichi, willing it to protect. do what you're supposed to do, you dumb sword.]
Taichi! Watch out!
[ichiro and kainé are okay, for now, she thinks. it'll be fine.]
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two of them circle him and he thinks, maybe, if he times it right he can knock them away.
it's the other two that he isn't anticipating and when beau calls out to him there's a startled yell of surprise before he reacts. there may not be time, but he attempts to kick one of the circling ones like a soccer ball, using the keyblade to swing wildly to put some distance between him and the other three.]
Get to the pod!
[now is not the time to actually double-down on the plan to draw attention away. but here we are.]
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Get back here, you little bastards!
[ But she is listening, and she will try to multitask which is hard for someone who is usually so single-minded? But hey, it's like Taichi selected the option in her game where you can tell Kainé to either come help you or go the fuck away and fight somewhere else.
He can be Nier for 0.1 second. I'm allowing it.
She cartwheels her way across this beautiful stained glass platform, towards one of the wiggly boys that slithered away from her but once it sinks into the platform and she can't drive her heel down onto it, she switches gears and sprints for the pod.
Which is to say, she Naruto runs, and I hate it. ]
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(Did Nobodies ever exist to begin with...?)
The poor paper Duskatori follows the same fate as the others: bursting into a sparkle of nothingness. A piece of paper with something scribbled on it flutters into place where the Dusk had been as she fires the shield off.
Two doodled women, one with wings, and the other being carried. The memory starts slipping from Beauregard's mind. Someone helped her... A well-built girl from Wiwaldi, right? She knows a girl from one of the classes...
Around Taichi, the air hardens and shines briefly with something translucent. The two Dusks from Kainé sneaking up on him mount their attack with the others, but hit the shield and are thrown back. One of the other two keeps its distance as Taichi swings the keyblade, but the second one... You KICK Wiggle Boy? You kick Wiggle Boy like the FOOTBALL? Digital jail for Taichi! DIGITAL JAIL FOR A THOUSAND YEARS!
Which is to say, these it peels out of the ground to do somersaults around Taichi to block him in while the other three double back for an attack.]
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anyway
ichiro slams his fist into the pod once the second nobody disappears, kicking up to his feet like the true b-boy he is and immediately turning around. for a minute, there's just panic, and he doesn't come to help right away, because that's his little brother. ] Jiro -- Jiro!
[ but -- caleb said it to him last week, too, that he ran into illusions of the people he cared about, on one of these little adventures. he stops, hand on the pod, and looks down at the stick figure sketch, again, of what has to be kuko. he looks like a fucking little gremlin like that, doesn't he? he stares at it, stares a little longer. after that, i was tired of its illusions.
...get it together. he takes a big, deep breath, grabs the picture, shoves it in his pocket. then, he slaps his hand against the pod, once. i have strength. and his strength's right here. ] Big bro's got this. Okay? I've got it. You're with me.
[ and then takes off running to pick off one of the stragglers trying to attack taichi with his own bigass keyblade. ] Back off!
[ (sora voice) etc ]
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no, it's more that beau just. pauses, midfight. she catches the paper when it floats through the air, staring at it. someone - someone. someone? she knew someone here. she knows someone here, tall, and sweet. they'd exchanged numbers, they'd gotten hot chocolate once. that's right. yeah. hm.
she should remember what caleb said, but beau's mental guard is not quite as good as his.
so instead of fighting, she puts the paper in her pocket, and pushes her hair back out of her face. right. next!
she turns, aiming to help the rest of her team to get rid of the rest of these dusks.]
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he doesn't have much time to think of that though, seeing how he's being blocked in slowly. he's holding the keyblade with both hands, swinging to strike at the dusk somersaulting around him almost like one would hold a baseball bat. get lost already!!]
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She's going to yeet it at one of the dusks doubling back to attack Taichi.
She doesn't know a Kingdom Hearts. ]
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Ichiro gets one of the Dusks in the back since it's too busy being worried about harassing Taichi. It's obliterated so quickly even the memory of it is gone... Goodbye, wiggle boy. A piece of paper flutters out of the space it occupied, twisting by Taichi.
It's a scribbled drawing of a boy with brown, fluffy hair (this is just Sora), and someone else sitting by a table. Taichi remembers, but then it begins slipping away into something else. A teacher at Wiwaldi thought he'd go far if he kept going to school there. He has to dream big, right?
One of the wiggle boys does a spiraling flap in the air, trying to cartwheel over Taichi's head and nyoom down at Beau. Kainé finds out she can throw her keyblade! She's throwing it at the last one to help Taichi, but the one going for Beau falls down right in the way unfortunately. The keyblade slams into it, splitting it into a thousand sparkling pieces.
A paper flies out with another doodled drawing: Kainé holding hands with a boy in a blindfold. But the memory starts slipping away. Wasn't there... a boy at Wiwaldi she reassured about not being hideous...?
Uh oh! The last Dusk leaps onto Taichi from behind like a Redead. It squeezes him painfully from the outside, but somehow, it feels like his heart is being squeezed more.]
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goodbye, dusk! punk ass. at this point, he's looking at the other dusks, keeping an eye on the other three to make sure they don't do anything shitty while this paper floats through the air. as the last one snatches on, ichiro yells - ] Taichi!
[ his keyblade is probably too huge to smack at it without hitting him, which is so unfortunate, but he's rushing over to help anyway!!! hopefully running on his dad's face again ]
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anyway, i've lost track of the combat. beau is running over, dropping her keyblade in order to rip the dusk off of taichi's back so she can beat it up? hello, here are her fists. can she even drop the keyblade? she'll just pull a roxas beating up the computer if she can't.
actually - she'll try to rip it off taichi, punch it, and throw it to kainé, honestly. teamwork!]
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he doesn't get to think too much on it mostly because there isn't time. another dusk bites the dust in a shower of sparkles, and he doesn't even see the second paper or what's happening behind him because for whatever reason, wow, his plan backfired! who'd have thought!
there's a strangled kind of noise even as he's trying to flail his arm uselessly, grip tight on his keyblade as the bind takes its hold. physically he could withstand it, but the crushing in his chest is a little too much to juggle.
so that is to say he's useless this round, help.]
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the paper flies out and she makes a grab for it because for kainé, drawings and pictures are something that can make someone live forever, and she knows, remembers a boy who sacrificed his body, sacrificed his life to save her time and time again. she remembers nights around bonfires where he managed to get her to talk about herself the way no one else could. or does she?
because there is a boy sweeter and more earnest than anyone else she knows here at school, right? someone she listens to with fondness as he talks about the boy he has a crush on, someone for whom she’d break the teeth of anyone who’d bully him even during kindness week.
beau is the most valid, and it’s a good thing kainé can act on instinct and gut because as soon as she sees the dusk flying her way courtesy of beau, she spins so she can try to slam her elbow into it and kick it down onto the stained glass floor.
teamwork makes the dream work! ]
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The poor (no) Dusk tries to cling to Taichi, but it really isn't expecting Beauregard to just rip it right off? HELLO? Its body from the neck down wiggles and jolts every time she gives it a good punch.
And then its tossed like a rag-dog through the air at Kainé. It bursts into a sparkle of nonexistence under her foot just like the others.
A silence descends on them. No more Dusks wiggle out of the platform. In the distance, the petals of the pod give a shifting sort of hiss and fold open. But Jiro isn't inside. All that's left is a piece of paper with three familiar boys hugged together drawn onto it.
Another set of stained glass stairs rises from one side of the platform, spiraling upward.]
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once the last one is dispatched, ichiro can't help himself. it does not matter if his Wizard Dad is smart enough to say things like "it was probably fake" anymore, at least for a moment, because he has to sprint back over to pod when it starts to shift, and he skids to a stop in front of it, ready, hope high in his chest that it's fine, it's fine -
and by the time he gets there, it's empty.
ichiro just stands there for a long moment, his heart thudding against his ribcage, staring at the picture. gutted, for a second. it's not real, but holy shit, seeing jiro wrenched something inside of him that's now turning to some kind of fiery, furious anger.
he clenches his fist at his side, slowly, and then unclenches it, and reaches out to take the paper. it's so familiar it hurts. he closes his eyes for a second, holding the paper like it's s the most precious thing in the world, and then takes a deep breath to try and calm himself down. in, out. it's not real. whatever this place is is just trying to use jiro and saburo against him, and he has to be stronger than that. they need him to be stronger than that.
he turns back to the group, holding the paper tight, and rolls his shoulders back. ]
...come on. If everybody's okay, we gotta keep moving. [ and gives a little jerk of his head up towards the new stairs. ]
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but then - it's quiet, or at least. quieter. and ichiro zooms across the way to the pod. beau glances at the other two with a bit of a frown, like... oh no, our mom is sad. and then she follows him over to the pod, resting her hand on his back when he stares down at the paper. and when he turns, she nods, but she's keeping an eye on him.]
I think we're all good. [she says, glancing up at Ichiro.] ... It's probably not real.
[she knows he probably knows, it's just. you know. sometimes the words help.
she shoves her hand in her pocket to hold onto the little sketch there. thinks. the girl, waiting for her. out on the campus. gotta get back to her.
she'll lead the way up the staircase, if nobody objects.]
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...winters stick together, don't they? he lets that thought rattle around inside his head a little, thinking about that bond before he lets a hand stray to his pocket. whatever he's looking for isn't there and he frowns to himself.
even if this isn't real, that doesn't change much. but he doesn't bother saying that, leaving it to someone better with words.]
Be ready for more of those things at the top.
[but he will follow up the stairs as well.]
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on the way to pick up her keyblade, she brushes her fingers against ichiro’s elbow. ]
I’ll beat the shit out of them.
[ she’s not great with words, but up the stairs she goes, too. ]
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The farther you go in your journey together, the longer you spend in the darkness. Don't be afraid, even when the darkness closes in around you. Together with your friends, you can pull through.
On the stairs, each one of their hearts grow heavy with burden. The anger in Ichiro's heart swells; he's angry easier, angrier more often, or reacts with anger first. The fear in Beauregard's heart rises. She's more paranoid of others, more frightened by uncertain situations. The jealousy in Taichi's heart grows. The things others have--love, family, friends, success--he wants bitterly, and he's more prone to be greedy. The melancholy in Kainé's heart weighs her down. As they go, she finds she is sad more than she is anything else, and she is prone to being morose.
They arrive at the next platform. The light here is a little brighter, like it's growing the higher they climb. The stained glass here is a vibrant blue and gold. Beauregard is imprinted in the glass along the circle of one side, reclined, eyes closed. In the bubbles of decoration beside her are a woman with long, dual-toned hair, and three slitted eyes.
At the back of the platform is another egg-shaped pod, petals open. Standing in the middle is Caleb who reaches up just as the petals encase him, tucking him in to sleep.
Nearby, something appears, swirling into existence. It's almost four times larger than the creatures from before. Beside it, two other creatures appear. The wick sticking out of their heads are suspicious...]
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