| The Bardo of Blindness and Ambition; [Single post, branching off of Coming Back from the Brink] | |
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| Tweet Topic Started: Jun 30 2013, 07:37 PM (187 Views) | |
| Czernobog | Jun 30 2013, 07:37 PM Post #1 |
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Best Influence.
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Kyo's hand froze to the back of her neck in mid nervous rub, and Charles was frowning down at the floor. "What, er...what aren't ya' tellin' me?" Naoya asked. Neither of them responded. They remained locked in place, like statues. They didn't blink, they didn't draw breath. Not a muscle twitched. Krishna, what's going on? His persona didn't answer. "Come on, you can't rely on Him to explain everything to you, can you? Why don't you just think for yourself?" a voice said from behind him. Naoya felt a wave of cold pass down his spine when he heard the voice. It was familiar, but had a strange quality: none of the faltering, none of the quavering, lacking the scratchy noise caused by his damaged larynx. He turned, and saw himself leaning against the wall, dressed in his school uniform with the shirt open, revealing a white undershirt. His hair was shaggy and messy, save for the large weeping wound on the left side of his head dripping gore. A bit of white bone showing through. A leering smile was pasted across the doppelganger's face. "What d'you want?" Naoya asked, barely containing a snarl from emerging in his voice. The shadow slapped his "Me? Oh, I just want to talk. You and I are long overdue to have a conversation." Naoya set his jaw, and mumbled. "Fine. Whaddya have t' say?" The shadow smiled, and Naoya heard from behind him: "We have to talk about your feelings right now. At this moment exactly." He turned, and saw his shadow, standing between Charlie and Kyo. The doppelganger was leaning on Kyo, elbow resting right on the crown of her head. "Whaddya mean 'now'?" "I've stopped your perception of time so we could talk. It's what I do. That's not important, though...let's talk about her, okay? You've met her, what, like twice before now, and talked to her a couple times on Bedlam? And you're offended that she doesn't just spill her goddamn guts to you? What kind of god complex do you have where you want to crack open her life and look at all the maggots wriggling around inside?" Naoya looked down at his hands, resting in his lap, but didn't say anything. "You think she should just let you in because you act concerned. You want to just fix everything that's wrong with her, or some bullshit like that? What kind of psychotic neediness festers inside that bone box atop your spine where you think that you have a right to try to fix people? You can't even fix yourself, you impotent little fuck." Naoya turned and was about to retort when he saw his shadow prying off the skin of Charlie's face like a mask and putting it on itself. It left behind an anonymous ruin -- it looked something like Charlie, but somehow the sense of it was lost. It wasn't a face, just a pair of eyes, a nose, and a bit of mouth hanging around the bottom. The flesh fused, but there was a gap where Charlie's eyes should have been -- a bit of darkness throught which a pair of yellow eyes shone. "Yo, Naoya! I don't owe you shit, man. You ever notice that everything we do is always about you? How you've always got some crisis or shit, and I'm just kind of an afterthought? That gets really fucking irritating, and now you're ready to listen to what I've got going on? Shit, man, thanks for the time of day, but I've got a full schedule of giving a fuck about you, apparently, I don't have anything going on in my own life. Tell me, is this the Charlie and Naoya Show, Naoya and Charlie show, whatever the fuck, or the Naoya Show? The hell is going on here, man? You think we're best friends, right? So tell me, why's there no give and take?" Naoya sank back to the bed, unable to think of a reply. As far as he could recall, he had just been thinking of himself. He had dragged Charlie into all of this and had expected to be saved. "'M tryin' now," Naoya muttered. "Oh, oh, NOW you want to try. NOW that your bullshit is over and done with. You think that helps me out? You know what I went through because of you? I probably never would have had anything to do with Watanabe if not for you. He shat on my bed and pissed in my oven. That's really you're fault, you know. I've taken beatings for you, I've rescued you from monsters...and you gave me a shovel with a monkey on it. Like, wow, man. That shows a lot of thoughtfulness on your part. I'm going to get a lot of gardening done with that shit. I think I've used it...oh, god, I don't even know if I have, because it was a shitty gift for saving your life. I'm just about done with you, you know that?" Naoya grimaced. "Shut up. Y'r not him." The mask shattered, revealing the leering grin. "Fucking A right, I'm not. I can be honest with you. I don't have to mime concern. I don't have to put up with your little zen master bullshit sage routine where you try to be confessor to everyone. You suck at that, by the way. You want people to love you, so you try to fix them." The shadow shook its head. "I call that manipulation, you know. That's what we're doing. We're manipulating them so that they love and respect us," The shadow pronounced the word like he was trying to teach it to Naoya. "And of course, I know that you know that, because you and I are the same." "You're not me," Naoya snarled, his voice forceful and unfaltering. "Oh, yes I am. And what do you have to say for yourself? I really want to hear this." He felt on the verge of tears. "No. Y'r right. I...I can't, can't...er, deny any o' th' shit you've said. I want t' help people. I don't think it's wrong t' do that f'r a bad reason, s'long's I'm not insistin' on them lovin' me or owin' me anything afterward. But...much as I hate t' hear that, and t' admit this, I think I might've got some difficulty seein' th' people behind th' problems they've got. I...I got t' help them t' help them, because they're people what deserve what anyone deserves. An' I can't just look at them as problems t' solve and machine's t' be fixed." The shadow scoffed, and looked away. "Well, fine, then. I guess you pass this one. I'll see you again soon." The yellow-eyed doppelganger began to fade. "Wait...I, uh, I thought this's th' part where I ascend?" Naoya asked, pulling free of the IV and trying to lunge at the figure. His shadow laughed: "What? Oh, no...no. You don't get that. Not by a long shot. You don't deserve to wield the Judgment Arcanum. This was a test of the Magician, asshole. And you're going to go through all of them if you want to get what you're after...not that you'll pass." The shadow vanished, and the world resumed. |
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