The Seeds of Unrest: the Iconoclast Oracle

[beleos]

RUNNING OUT THE CLOCK

The situation is bleak.

The Blight - and the massive labyrinth of roots tearing both cities asunder, spreading deadly flowers wherever they penetrate - have progressed to a point beyond catastrophe. People are dying in rapid numbers. Bearers are having difficulty keeping up with the spread of infection - even among one another. The collapse of Kenos seems inevitable; a cure will not come in time. You can do nothing but watch as each new day brings further disaster, ticking down the seconds until it all falls apart.

And then, you feel something seize your Shard. As if physical fingers have wrapped around it, as if it is being clutched through you by invisible hands, you feel invaded. You feel wronged. But before you can panic, a voice enters your mind through Communion.

“Excuse the dramatics, but there isn’t much time for pleasantries. The Trees are about to hit the point of no return. But there's still work to be done. The Tree of Life will take you where you can find it: the Oracle and the creature causing all this mess. Fix this when you find them. However you'd like.”

Have you heard Aetos’ voice before? Perhaps it is the first time; perhaps it is familiar to you. Either way, the last thing you will remember is a confusing jumble: a spell of immense and incredible power, one utilizing the Tree’s strength to shelter you. The sensation of every cell in your body coming alive, yet seeming to break apart and render you into billions and billions of tiny pieces, all hovering in different times and places across all the different iterations, timelines, and realities in which you have ever existed. A voice that speaks not through words asking your forgiveness, unspeakably sad.

And then, there is nothing.

AWAKENING

Your eyes open, gritty with the feeling of a long, deep slumber.

Perhaps it takes a moment to shake off the heavy veil of exhaustion, to recollect what you were doing before you fell into this state of hibernation - but as soon as you do, you feel an immediate sense of foreboding around you. It is thick in the air, oppressive and pervasive, and you aren’t left long to wonder at its source. You lay beneath the branches of the Tree of Life, but as your bleary eyes focus… you see it. The Tree is all but bereft of life. Its bark has withered down to gnarled wood, the soft lichen dried up, and the grass that should be alive beneath you is long dead and gone. There is not so much as a single leaf on its decaying branches.

It has been this way for a long, long time... you realize this with a feeling of intense dread as you see it - the beautiful expanse of stars, of the cosmos, of universes scattered like starlight above the tree's boughs, gone. In its place hangs a sickly, ominously low-hanging, and dying sun ready to sing the end of everything.

You can't help but wonder how long Kenos has been in this state, but a sense of gratitude fills you as you realize that the Tree expended the last of its energies to protect you, the Bearers, during your state of rest. Had Aetos worked with the tree to see you sent here?

The next question comes quickly: how much time do you have left…? And can you find the Oracle before that time expires?

ABANDON HOPE (DAYS 1 & 2)

The cornerstones are still active and will take you to whichever city you wish to see.

Highstorm and Springstar sit like empty monuments to the cities that were once filled with life - yet the first thing you will notice is they are strangely absent the signs of the Tree’s overgrown roots, the Blight, the catastrophic damage that you can recall all too easily. Instead, each city sits as those they were summarily abandoned overnight, leaving nothing but their shells behind. There is a stillness in the air that is unnatural and unsettling. Despite the lack of any sign of the citizens of either city, you cannot help but feel… watched.

Something terrible happened here. Best you find the Oracle before something terrible finds you, instead.

The burning of a dying sun beats down on you wherever you go, unbearable heat sending waves off the aged cobblestone streets. Perhaps it is your instinct to seek refuge in the shade - but linger too long about the shadows and that feeling of eyes on your back, of being unable to breathe, of your world closing in around you will grow untenable and drive you back into the light. If you hope to explore the ghostly shell of your city in search of the Oracle - or to sate your curiosity, some problem-solving might be in order.

And while you acclimate yourself to your circumstances, you cannot help but note you feel wrong inside, somehow…

EXPLORATION

• If your characters choose to explore previously unreachable areas, please use THIS TOPLEVEL to report when they get there in the thread! We will get back to you with what is discoverable in that location.
• The following areas are off limits for exploration: below Yima’s Manor; below the Church of Heliopolis; Alenroux; Kowloon.
• The Great Trees of both Highstorm and Springstar are in a similar state to the Tree of Life and will not respond to Communion.
• Generally speaking, items will be of poor quality. Most will look as though they’ve aged thousands of years. Others will be in half-decent shape, but sparingly so. Oddly enough, it doesn’t seem like the whole city has aged at the same rate, so especially diligent rummagers can find worthwhile supplies. Please consider this should be rare and don’t go overboard!

NOTES

Here are some prompt reminders - see the full thing at the OOC Summary!

• Characters will have a diluted connection to the Zenith or Meridian.
• There will be periods powers are weakened or non-functional during days 1-2 (up to player discretion).
• The sunlight results in scorching; the shadows cause claustrophobia and fear while outdoors.

THE RITUAL (DAYS 2+)

The place you started your journey to Kenos is also where it seems it will end. As soon as the first Bearer makes contact with the Iconoclast effigy, you are collectively drawn to the roots beneath the Tree - like a pang sent through your Shard. Your objective has been found. The Oracle awaits.

Trusting Aetos seems like a fool's errand, but you must put your hope in the Tree. What choice do you have left? It's time to find what lies at the end of this.

Bearers descend, your steps echoing in the dark, cavernous space. Once brimming with life and vitality, the roots are now dried and brittle like the bones of some ancient leviathan that died long ago. As you make their way deeper into the earth, the deadened roots twist, leading you to a vast chamber deep within it; the air here is thick with the smell of decay, and the faint glow of luminescent fungi and mosses barely illuminates the space.

To your left, the Bearers will notice what has drawn them here - and the object of their search.

An effigy sits on the ground between two darkened tunnels. The effigy is made of gnarled, dead branches woven together in a humanoid shape; its hollow, empty eyes are sightless, yet you cannot help but feel it is watching your every move. Branded on its forehead is the Iconoclast symbol carved into the rough wood.

Once all Bearers are present, the Ritual will begin. Your means of exit have been sealed off, and you are trapped, slowly deteriorating together…

NOTES

• Bearers will have access to the Ritual Chamber which is a very wide, open space with the effigy situated against the far wall from the entrance. Several smaller tunnels off-shoot from the Ritual Chamber. They all run to dead ends; some are very small or narrow. This may afford you meager privacy away from the group.
• Once a Bearer steps into the Chamber, they can no longer head back out the way they came. They’ll find themselves automatically walking back into the Chamber as if of their own volition.
• For brevity’s sake we won’t list them out again here, but the complete description of effects Bearers will experience days 2+ is available in the OOC Summary.
• The effigy is impervious to damage.
• It Is Watching You.
• In a dead-end root tunnel attached to the Iconoclast’s Chamber is the Blighted statue of an Otter that may be familiar to some… Please see THIS TOPLEVEL for more information!

THE PURGE (DAYS 5+)

The sap has festered in your veins for what feels like days. It’s impossible to tell how much time has passed; this place has no sunlight. The effigy watches as you remain trapped, huddled together around it, unable to leave as you find yourself sick with the affliction of the Meridian, Zenith - or both.

And then… something finally gives.

Though it does not move and speaks no words, you feel the effigy offering you guidance. Knowledge. Much like the Tree speaks to you in impressions and feelings, you are conveyed wisdom you did not have before: a way to take what you want and rid yourself of what you do not. A way to make your convictions known to all who would hear them. A way to be known. To write your path in blood, be it yours… or theirs.

When all is said and done, only one force - Zenith or Meridian - will gain its favor.

Show it who you are. Show it what resolve looks like to you - and what you are willing to do to attain it.

NOTES

Here are some prompt reminders - see the full thing at the OOC Summary!

• You can Purge your alignment through various methods: Trading, Corrupting, or using the Effigy itself.
• All characters will understand the end goal is for everyone to Harmonize; the alignment with the higher rate of Harmonized Bearers alive when time’s up wins the Oracle’s favor.

NOTES

• A reminder that the Harmonization tally will take place on Friday, the 19th and be open through Monday, the 29th. The results will be released on Wednesday, the 31st OOCly.
• Don’t forget to submit any deaths to the Death Tracker, with a gentle reminder characters will remain dead until the event conclusion!
• Reminder to fill out the SETTING POLL ASAP if you haven't already!
• Have some MUSIC if you'd like. LYRICS here!
• HAVE FUN!!

CODING

Comments

[leicesters]

I know.

[He says it softly. He knows he's a fool. Plenty of people have called him as much, or strange, or delusional, or naive, or softhearted. Yet he still can't find it in himself to leave her, not when she clings to him so and he can feel his touch awash in her tears. If he could do something, anything more for her in this moment, anything that could ease her suffering, he would, and the green eyes that study her are filled not with pity, but with grief. For her, for worlds they might never see again, here, at the end of all things. For everything they've lost, or for her, she might never have had.

Despite all that, she's treated his very soul itself with such care, accepted him despite her words, had let him in when she was at her most vulnerable. How could he not care for her in return? How can he ignore his growing affection for her, threatening to overcome all else? He guides her down gently to press his forehead to hers, a tight, heavy feeling squeezing at his chest. If he lets this moment pass by now, he might regret it in the little time they have left.

For once, his calculating mind switches off. He closes the gap between them both, capturing her mouth in a gentle kiss.]

[warmare]

[The least he could do would be to fight her on it, the best he could do would be to leave her and her insults behind... But he doesn't do any of it at all. He looks at her even though she wants nothing more than for him to look away, he sees her more clearly through the potent mix of reality and communion, their bond already enhanced by the Blight curing of the revious month, and she-

She doesn't push him away. She doesn't want to be alone, even as she craves to hide. Her fingers are white-knuckled and shaky where they grip his clothing, torn between shoving him and pulling him closer. She almost demands that he leave before he sees any more of this weak, raw weeping, her lips part to try to find the words, a soft hitch in her throat when-

She is kissing someone.

No, he is kissing her, she didn't start this, she wasn't that sort of woman, she barely wanted to be a woman at all-

Yet it's so against what she expected to happen that at first... she just kisses him back. (At least, that is how she will explain it to herself. It's an accident. She didn't mean to.) Her clutch on him tightens, her eye squeezes shut, her body craves anything in that moment that feels like comfort and acceptance no matter what her mind wants... and the words she'd been trying to say die temporarily in a useless sound between lips.]

[leicesters]

[He had again been braced for rejection -- he always is, and it sticks in his throat and makes his heart quicken in that old fear -- but it doesn't come, at least not immediately. He feels her hold on his shirt tighten, and he leans up to deepen the kiss, even as he can taste the salt of her tears against her lips.

She doesn't want him to stop, or to leave.

So he doesn't, the hand on her cheek moving down to caress the line of her jaw, lips parting as an invitation. She could accept as much or as little from him as she wants, or needs, and in the moment, it feels right. Being here for her feels right. What that really means is something he'll worry about later.]

[warmare]

[She doesn't want him to stop, or to leave. For that moment, that is true. She doesn't want to spend the end of the world alone, there is a part of her long neglected and tied into knots that longs to know what it is to be allowed to be a woman, and so-

She kisses him. If she's kissing him he's not torturing her with kind words or sympathetic looks. If she's gasping for breath then she doesn't have to come up with words to say to him. If she's holding him close and tight then she can pretend that she's in control of this at all, that she has a proper grip on him, on reality-

His fingers slide along the line of her jaw, her muscles constrict, and as she tries to deepen the kiss her inexperience with the act undoes her. Her sharp canines click as she nips accidentally too sharp into his lip, and just that unexpected thing...

She draws back with a sharp inhale, one hand flying to her mouth as if she might could protect herself from further weakness, the other struggling and failing to strike him. She should slap him, hit him, why isn't she-]

What are you doing- ?

[In communion, the words come out differently, her experience with her sex flawed and dark and shameful enough to wonder Is that what you wanted?]

[leicesters]

[He feels the sharp nip at his lip, soon followed by the coppery taste of blood, mixed with the strangely sweet taste of sap, and she she draws back, he runs his tongue over the small wound to realise she had caught him with her teeth. Whatever impulse had seized him in the moment prior is over, beset instead by the accusation in her words, both verbal or in communion.]

I... [How does he explain himself? None of this was planned, and his throat suddenly feels dry. He swallows.] I wanted to show you how I felt.

[An unguarded answer, for once. She had held his shard, so he doesn't think he can offer her any less.]

When I said I was here for you... It wasn't a joke.

[She might find him flippant, and churlish, and irritating. For once, though, he's not trying to be any of those things.]

[warmare]

[She didn't mean to bite him that hard. It will be apparent, perhaps, in the little surge of panic that spikes in the chaotic mix of their Communions. She can count her life's kisses on the fingers of her hands, which was already too shameful a fact to bear when she hadn't even been able to accomplish the sick goal she'd attempted under the guide of masquerade anonymity- the same failure that had led her frustrated and slick beneath her tail to demand he shared a room with her that night, because-

... Because she had trusted him.

She shouldn't have given his shard back- If she still had it, would this make sense? Were she in heat she could find an excuse to forgive herself for what she had done (what he had done?), but she isn't, she won't be for a week, at least, and... no, she cannot ask for his shard back now, she doesn't- What if she senses in it-]

You have been thinking of me as a woman this entire time- ?

[Her voice cracks, the tears cooling on her cheeks... but she says the word "woman" as if it were the most shameful thing a person could be.]

[leicesters]

[He sighs, still wiping thickened blood from his lip with a thumb.] This isn't about being a woman or man. Even if it were, it wouldn't make me see you as any less, one way or the other.

[He's stung even by the suggestion under her question. Sure, he finds her beautiful, and he doesn't see anything inherently wrong in being a woman in the way she does. He also doesn't see her as just a woman and nothing else, with all of the baggage with which she associates the word.]

You just held my shard... Surely you know that if I felt any kind of contempt for you, I'd never allow it. [And if he did, as some kind of trickery, surely his revulsion for her would come through at holding his very soul itself.]

[warmare]

[She cannot deny that she hadn't felt... anything negative in his shard. But she also can't deny that she still finds that hard to believe, because... because didn't most everyone? What had she really done to earn that? He had such a silver tongue, perhaps he was a good enough liar that... that he could fool even the shards?

(He's still bleeding, she bit him too hard, stupid-)]

Then-

[All four of her dun knees have locked up, her tail is arched and quivering, and her hands- They don't know what to do. She looks almost more scared than she had when she'd thought his giant lizard was a monster in Alenroux, before she went into battle-]

Then why?

[The confusion in the vague sense of her communion is clear- She genuinely doesn't understand. Why anyone would want to kiss her (knowing it was her, no masks in sight) without domination or use on their minds. Why he would kiss her, now, of all times-]

[leicesters]

[After everything he'd told her so far, everything he'd shown her via communion, or his shard, and she still didn't understand? He feels a slight flicker of panic that, for once, he has to actually explain himself, that his usual rebuffs and deflections through half-answers aren't working. But if he tells her, it might damage whatever they've built irreparably.

Maybe it doesn't matter, when all this will end soon anyway. But still, that small hope, or fear, of what if it doesn't end--

He takes a deep breath, and meets her eye.]

I... I love you, Hayame. I guess I have for a while. That's the only way I can explain it.

[He already knows her response will be to rankle against it, to call him absurd and a fool and a liar and whatever else. Maybe she'll just laugh in his face and tell him never to talk to her again. He's prepared for any and all of those things, so he heads her off before she can, far more calmly than the spooked deer he actually feels like in communion.]

You don't have to feel the same. I'm just glad I could tell you, before... whatever comes next.

1/2

[warmare]

[- What?]

[warmare]

[She must have misheard him. There is a long moment where she just stares at him, unmoving, unbreathing, unblinking, as if she's forgotten how to do any of those things. Is it a cruel joke she has become the punchline of? Was she hallucinating? Was he- ? Of all the things she could have thought was going to happen now, here, in the dirt and roots of the dead Great Tree, she never-

Never-]

You're confused-

[The words come out suddenly, before she can even really understand them herself. Her knees shake, threatening to unlock so that she might flee from the confusing and unexpected confession that she should denounce as insulting, as mockery at best. To be desired she could almost manage to imagine, because even the humans who denounced her kind as beasts to be subjugated would still fuck them, but love? She loved-

A man who wasn't here. A man who would never know what she felt, because she was a coward, a man who would die with her the morning after she managed to return to her world.]

You think the world is going to end-

[That had to be it. It was the only thing that made sense. He just didn't want to be alone, and she was... She was there.

She was still here.]

[leicesters]

[He shrugs, not in disagreement.] Maybe so. But if I die later, I'd rather do it with no regrets.

[It's not even like he wants an answer from her. But the impulse that seized him, to say something... He couldn't just ignore that. Telling her everything else before, how he respected and admired her, would just ring as empty platitudes without saying the whole truth. She already decided he was insincere and false, after all.]

If it's just another burden to you, you can just-- [he trips over the word a little,] disregard it. Pretend I never said anything. For me, I just couldn't go out pretending the past few months never meant anything. [Not in one of their darkest moments, when everything seems to be falling apart, when she's hurting like this.]

[warmare]

[The tears on her face are growing cold, and she cannot- her hands won't move to try and wipe the shameful tracks away, even though they twitch and jerk in abortive little movements she keeps failing at making. Everything is happening so- so much, and she doesn't...

Should she run? No, it would look so craven. Should she deny him? Yes, yes, she should-]

Pretend?

[Yet she keeps not doing it. He thinks she can just forget that someone said something like that to her? To a breeding stable jinba who thought that her fates in "love" ranged from being mounted each season as a broodmare or to hopefully only having to open her mouth when whoever purchased her was drunk? Her throat is too tight, the words come out half-strangled,]

You do not- You do not even know me...

[Said in the tone of a woman who actually means if you really knew me, you wouldn't love me. And- No, wait, not just him knowing her-]

I do not-

[What had that man Byleth said? Suddenly, she turns it back on him, accusatory in her confusion.]

- Are you a noble?

[leicesters]

[He watches her with guilt and some other conflicted, unnameable expression on his face, as if he would reach to wipe her tears for her again but feels he's pushed his luck far enough already. Sure, he doesn't know her as well as he'd like, but he knows enough to know how he feels here and now.]

I-- what? [The question throws him off. Byleth or Dimitri must have mentioned it, maybe, so he opts simply to be direct.] ...I was a duke, back when I still lived in Fódlan. I gave up that title when I left.

[warmare]

[A small part of her almost feels perversely victorious, to throw him off even remotely near as badly as he has surprised her, but the feeling can't last. She has avoided thinking about what that mercenary had said to her, half because she hadn't believed it and half because she was afraid to pry into the lives of anyone who might then try to pry into her own in turn, but-]

What is a duke?!

[Her voice cracks again, frustrated with the reminder of their different worlds, their different cultures, now of all times. But even as she asks, she knows it means the answer to her question was a "yes", that was some type of noble, and if that were true-]

Do you not know what I am? What I was?

[She had never admitted it in words, but-

It wasn't something nobles could or should love.]

Do you not have eyes?

[Even if she weren't chattel... she was still jinba.]

[leicesters]

I'm sure you wondered why I never told you. Or anyone, really.

[Aside from some general love of secrets, he had his reasons. Namely--]

I don't want people to see me as a noble. Or as a king. Or as someone from Fódlan, Almyra, or wherever. My entire life has been dictated by people judging me on how I was born, where my parents came from, and I thought that here, I could have the freedom to be myself, regardless of social standing or birthplace.

[Yet now, instead of nations or social classes, there are dividing lines like 'Meridian', or 'Zenith', or 'Shardbearer'. He could almost laugh if it weren't so bleak.]

So... it doesn't bother me that you're not human, or what your station was in your world. I consider you my equal, no matter what.

[warmare]

[Of course she did. Of course she wondered. She'd tried to dismiss it, and maybe she would have succeeded had he not just said such an impossible thing to her, but now that he has-]

A king?

[Unlike "duke"... that translates perfectly well enough. She thinks of (unwittingly broadcasts in communion) that day in the stables, with him curled up on her flank, that morning in his living room, his forehead pressed between her shoulderblades, and that- that man had been a king?]

We're-

[She almost says they're not equal. But she doesn't want- She doesn't want to be someone's lesser anymore, even though she feels it almost every day. She just wants to find something to explain what is happening, something that makes sense-

But everything she finds is sharp and weaponized and she should just say it, but she hesitates. Even though she hadn't wanted to hear what he'd said, the look he always wore when she denied him, the way his brow furrowed and his eyes looked hurt-

She doesn't want that, either. She wanted-

What did people who love want?]

I am a warrior.

[So- No one should expect her to be able to love.]

I cannot give you children.

[So- No one would want to wed someone who couldn't continue their line.]

I have already promised to die-

[So-]

[leicesters]

Wait, no, slow down.

[He holds his hands up, sucks in a breath as he wonders about how to approach this -- even as part of him is happy to realise, through glimpses in her communion, that their time together stuck with her in some fashion, too.

Maybe that was when he fell for her, and those were the points at which he realised the depths of his care for her. Times when she had been willing to be vulnerable towards him and let him close. Still...]

You're not only a warrior. And, I don't want children from you just because I'm a king or whatever. [But it's what she says after that which worries him most.] Who did you promise to die for?

[warmare]

[He says she is not only a warrior, but she rebels even still against the idea. Even though she had thought, just once, in that village in the mountains that she could perhaps have become something else... She had ruined that. She was to only be a warrior. And she had devoted herself to being only that for so long that... it seems only natural, now, to remain clinging to it. And kings... kings wanted of children, that was just fact, he was obviously telling lies again, and-

And she had said too much. She only realizes when he asks the question back to her, when she is confronted with who did you promise to die for?, and though her mouth opens-

No sound comes out.

Claude is not the only one who has secrets, and they choke her where she stands.]

I-

[It's too much, now, here, to even begin to explain it all. Her past. That village. That man. Her mistakes. So what does she say- ?]

There is no other way to cleanse my dishonor. Once we return to our worlds I will die, and that will be the end of it-

[leicesters]

[Claude reaches up to touch her shoulder, light enough that she could shrug him off if she wants to.]

I don't know what you did in your world. But don't you think saving it and everyone in it would be enough to make amends for that dishonour? You've been fighting all this time for it, if they knew all you did, they should be welcoming you back as a hero.

[They might never know, of course, least of all if Hayame keeps her silence when she returns home. But it's not for nothing she's been striving so hard for Meridian, all this time, and suddenly a few things about her are starting to make more sense.]

But if there's no changing your fate there, you could come to my world. Or any world you wanted. You came here... I'm sure there's a way.

[warmare]

It's not that simple!

[It is good that his touch is light, because her hands finally remember what movement is- just enough to try and slap him away along with the snap of her words. The surge in warmth as tears prick once more fresh and renewed in her one remaining eye and in the corner of the hole where the other had once been.]

Just being able to return to our worlds won't change what was already going to happen in them-

[Will it? Can it? Her sunbeam bead shows the same day, over and over and over like it's waiting for her and when she gets back-]

And if I do not die as I have promised then my master's jinba hunt will succeed and all of them-

[In the sudden spike of her emotions the blend of Communion becomes even more chaotic, allowing glimpses of a village that strangely enough seems inhabited primarily by children. Children who would be enslaved, who would become Armless, who would become cannon fodder and broodmares like she had always feared becoming herself, and it's her fault, so she can't just go to some other world, or be happy, or be loved-]

I am already a dead woman!

[leicesters]

[Claude backs off after being slapped away, not wanting to crowd her any further. (His lip, at least, has stopped bleeding.) But he's racking his brain already, trying to come up with something, anything, to avert the tragedy she describes. To realise there are children involved, who might be enslaved as his own people had been at the border, only makes it worse.]

What if I came to your world? [It sounds crazy, but plenty of crazy things have happened to both of them at this point, that it almost sounds reasonable, too.] If I find a way, I could bring an army, and save your people. You wouldn't need to sacrifice yourself... You could all live in peace.

[warmare]

[It sounds more than crazy, if there is such a thing. Even though she has come to Horos and now Kenos, even though she has seen people do magic and seen giant tame dragons (wyverns) and even if just in the last days she has watched bodies turn to dust and leave only shards behind... to her, it still seems crazy. Perhaps just one... Perhaps she could have believed in the possibility of his offer to join him in his world, but an army?]

What way could there be for that?

[The fresh tears bead and spill, her shame spikes again, even higher now that he can see it plainly and she isn't hiding her face in his damp shoulder. First he is a man, then he is a noble, then a king, and now someone willing to lead an army into her world? It's too much, it's-]

Why must you torture me with such fantasies?

[leicesters]

It doesn't have to be a fantasy. If we survive all this... I could find a way.

[Claude was once someone who crossed into a nation hoping to steal a sword that would cleave down a mountain. If there's even the smallest possibility that a tool might exist that he can use, he's going to try it. If there's anything, even the slimmest chance, that could help him pass into a world that isn't his own when they're all restored, then...]

Just leave it to me, and I'll explore our options. Even Cyrus would agree that restoring your world, then letting you go to your doom, is wrong.

[warmare]

[It's so foolish, it's so godsdamned foolish that Hayame doesn't even know what to say, that she can't even call him a fool. He'll find a way? He'll come to her world with an army and save all of the jinba orphans she had doomed with her inability to trust and believe in a future without the shackles she had always known? He l-

It's too much. It's been too much, and now it's whatever more than too much is. Finally, Hayame uses her own hands to angrily wipe at the tears on her face, feeling like some sort of snot-nosed filly that hadn't yet learned crying was weakness and a path to the flensing post, accidentally disturbing the patch over her left eye and providing a brief, brief glimpse of a clean, dark hole surrounded by perfectly intact lids where an eye had been before a demon had ripped it from her head.]

Stop...

[He said it was wrong, but that was only because he didn't know-]

It's not wrong because it's all my fault in the first place-

[She's the one who send her brother back to their master with the location of that hidden village. She's the one who didn't say a thing even as she grew to think that maybe, just maybe she could live a different way, she could be free, she could have a life there. But she couldn't believe it, she couldn't... She's-]

It's what I deserve-

[And he'd only said those things to her because he didn't know.]