( makoto's memories of horos are not gone. he is not suddenly reverted back to the individual he had been when he had first appeared there in the shrine of the firebrand, who had been taken with all of the others to the throne room where they had undergone the same painful ritual which had resulted in either their attunement to pleroma or kenoma. in order to permit his body and soul to continue forward in kenos, these recollected experiences had instead layered over with a sort of haphazard emotional patina — there are certain places where his memories are relatively clear, but in others they are so thickly covered in the mental equivalent of scar tissue that it's near-impossible to tell what is beneath. gen is scattered throughout these; he features in many memories that would likely never return to him, as they would threaten to compromise his emotional integrity too greatly. but others... they are closer to him. and with each passing moment of physical and mental turmoil that gen puts him through, they are made closer and closer — these each individual attacks chipping away at the protective layer he had plastered over them, each progressively making the overall picture more and more clear.
ironically, it is the physical pain that reconnects these neural pathways far more swiftly or accurately than any positive encouragement (or merely the passage of time) might have. call this a learned instinctual behavior having been adapted relatively quickly in Hell, where the quickest way to learn any lesson had been to convince the mind it would allow it to avoid pain in the future.
so even if he had the wherewithal, could he even argue with gen? as much as he would argue that the circuitous speech of silver-tongued demons at court was his primary method of approaching any situation, he couldn't deny that the brutal language of violence that gen leverages against him now is one that cuts to his quick, bypassing all else to strike through to the heart of him.
it's hard to focus on gen's verbal taunts with how much of his attention is dedicated to preventing himself from buckling mentally under the pressure of the Zenith energy that gen direct his way now — this having been said, his sudden release and the violent kick at his knee split this neatly, compromising both. he gasps out a sharp cry of anguish, and the knee gives way almost immediately; linear progression of events breaks down in the confusion directly following after, but as he regains cognizance he's on the ground — his chest burns and aches with an impact he hadn't even been completely aware he received, and he instinctually curls inwards on it and rolls over onto his side, taking the second blow as a sideswipe to his back. there's nothing he can do — he knows now that he's been in this position in every iteration his life has taken, and on the one directly prior to this one, when they had both been on horos, it had been gen himself who had perpetrated it. then, as now, he knew there is nothing to do but weather it to its end — to try to become uninteresting in the hopes he would lose interest in his cruelty.
unlikely.
by the time gen kneels down next to him, he doesn't have the energy to resist being taken by the collar again; his hands lift to grasp weakly at gen's arms, but it's all he can manage. rough, callous fingers tangle into his hair, and the needle-sharp pain having his head wrenched back is so familiar — so much so that it not only elicits the physical pain that burns in his scalp and aches in the crane of his neck and threatens to tear in the stitching around his neck, but it also causes a psychic twinge to reverberate throughout his very shard. it ripples through the rest of his body as a violent, nonverbal shudder. a piece of him he had tried to bury has returned to him, and the shock of that moment was all the energies of Zenith needed to fully permeate into the damaged recesses of his shard, chasing what little of the Meridian remained within.
the eye contact that gen had forced previously had been unfocused, bleary through a thin sheen of tears, but after this — after causing them to violently roll back into his head before falling closed as a wave of sudden internal peace rushes through him at the forced acceptance of Zenith — they open again to see him. truly see him. now there is a glint of recognition, of knowing, where there hadn't been previously; he is exhausted, restrained, and playing host to excruciating pain that takes up familiar roost within his body, and despite all of this he smiles at his tormenter. )
Minegishi-kun,( his voice sounds like it's gone through a few too many cycles in the washing machine, but still it purrs with the type of familiarity that only marrow-deep hatred can engender. shared empathy of Communion even more profound than what they had been equipped with previously settles over them like a layer of newly-fallen snow; he accepts it because he can sense it comes from gen as well, vicious and disgusted. that... it's comforting. it's something he can grasp, something he can understand. his right hand raises unsteadily to the side of his face, drawing a slow path down the column of his neck toward his collarbone. he manages a few pained laughs, even if the effort makes his whole chest burn; new tears prick in the corners of his eyes at it. ) If you wanted me by your side in Zenith, just as we were before... you could have just said so.
( he laughs again, the sound oddly wet in his lungs. )
sorry it got so long...
ironically, it is the physical pain that reconnects these neural pathways far more swiftly or accurately than any positive encouragement (or merely the passage of time) might have. call this a learned instinctual behavior having been adapted relatively quickly in Hell, where the quickest way to learn any lesson had been to convince the mind it would allow it to avoid pain in the future.
so even if he had the wherewithal, could he even argue with gen? as much as he would argue that the circuitous speech of silver-tongued demons at court was his primary method of approaching any situation, he couldn't deny that the brutal language of violence that gen leverages against him now is one that cuts to his quick, bypassing all else to strike through to the heart of him.
it's hard to focus on gen's verbal taunts with how much of his attention is dedicated to preventing himself from buckling mentally under the pressure of the Zenith energy that gen direct his way now — this having been said, his sudden release and the violent kick at his knee split this neatly, compromising both. he gasps out a sharp cry of anguish, and the knee gives way almost immediately; linear progression of events breaks down in the confusion directly following after, but as he regains cognizance he's on the ground — his chest burns and aches with an impact he hadn't even been completely aware he received, and he instinctually curls inwards on it and rolls over onto his side, taking the second blow as a sideswipe to his back. there's nothing he can do — he knows now that he's been in this position in every iteration his life has taken, and on the one directly prior to this one, when they had both been on horos, it had been gen himself who had perpetrated it. then, as now, he knew there is nothing to do but weather it to its end — to try to become uninteresting in the hopes he would lose interest in his cruelty.
unlikely.
by the time gen kneels down next to him, he doesn't have the energy to resist being taken by the collar again; his hands lift to grasp weakly at gen's arms, but it's all he can manage. rough, callous fingers tangle into his hair, and the needle-sharp pain having his head wrenched back is so familiar — so much so that it not only elicits the physical pain that burns in his scalp and aches in the crane of his neck and threatens to tear in the stitching around his neck, but it also causes a psychic twinge to reverberate throughout his very shard. it ripples through the rest of his body as a violent, nonverbal shudder. a piece of him he had tried to bury has returned to him, and the shock of that moment was all the energies of Zenith needed to fully permeate into the damaged recesses of his shard, chasing what little of the Meridian remained within.
the eye contact that gen had forced previously had been unfocused, bleary through a thin sheen of tears, but after this — after causing them to violently roll back into his head before falling closed as a wave of sudden internal peace rushes through him at the forced acceptance of Zenith — they open again to see him. truly see him. now there is a glint of recognition, of knowing, where there hadn't been previously; he is exhausted, restrained, and playing host to excruciating pain that takes up familiar roost within his body, and despite all of this he smiles at his tormenter. )
Minegishi-kun, ( his voice sounds like it's gone through a few too many cycles in the washing machine, but still it purrs with the type of familiarity that only marrow-deep hatred can engender. shared empathy of Communion even more profound than what they had been equipped with previously settles over them like a layer of newly-fallen snow; he accepts it because he can sense it comes from gen as well, vicious and disgusted. that... it's comforting. it's something he can grasp, something he can understand. his right hand raises unsteadily to the side of his face, drawing a slow path down the column of his neck toward his collarbone. he manages a few pained laughs, even if the effort makes his whole chest burn; new tears prick in the corners of his eyes at it. ) If you wanted me by your side in Zenith, just as we were before... you could have just said so.
( he laughs again, the sound oddly wet in his lungs. )