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hellmouth-manor · 3 months

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virtus junxit mors non separabit

There’s no sign of the Hellmouth that can be found after all that transpired. Perhaps it closed up entirely. Perhaps it moved. Perhaps there are others. Perhaps there aren’t.

At first, it’s hard to feel that you can put everything behind you. It’s difficult to feel like you aren’t being watched, or to accept the possibility that you’re safe. But… you can feel a hidden strength inside your soul.

✨✨✨

For Arisa, the virtue of Unkindness: not nearly as pretentious as Mercy, and not to be mistaken for her cruelty (although, she wields that perfectly fine as well). She will be sure that those she cares for are prepared to face the rigors of the world at large, even if she must impart that lesson herself. And when all is said and done, she knows the gap between platitude and truth.

For Cu, the virtue of Devotion: a grand word for something that in truth comes down to something much smaller and softer than worship. Cu’s devotion is a special appreciation for friendship, and every small thing it means– each and every ritual repeated being an act of preservation for each cherished thing.

For Eli, the virtue of Renewal: to shift one’s perspective and find another angle– to illustrate, over and over and over again, as many times as it takes. Obfuscate into colors and imagery, reinterpret, reimagine, re-abstract, until the underlying meaning can be conveyed to any other manner of individual; a picture is worth a hundred thousand words. Eli’s renewal is a form of connection, where the self portrait is a picture of the viewer themselves.

For Hibiki, the virtue of Vindication: there is a special relief in finding a body of work that validates your bottled feelings, to have your worries and fears resolved through struggle and reinforcement both. This isn’t an act of pride or judgment– but rather, an acknowledgement of feelings and source of inspiration. To be caught when you fall may as well be flying.

For Hisashi, the virtue of Ferocity: it is more honed than viciousness and more precise than brutality, yet it is something purer and baser that sits inside all living creatures– the love of ferocity is an unspoken thing that is both difficult to accept and undeniable, like the broken bird brought to the doorstep by the feral cat that has made itself a part of your life.

For Kamiya, the virtue of Sincerity: to be a pillar of truth in a den of lies is no easy feat, but sincerity shines like the northern star. He is a point of stability around which one can orient themselves when rocked by uncertainty, a bright light to rally around when all feels lost. His outstretched hand doesn’t have to be questioned.

For Micah, the virtue of Deception: or perhaps, it would be more accurate to call it the virtue of Revelation. To know that people are layered, and to know how to reach past those layers to find the truth. To know when to hold your own layers up, and when to take them down. To understand the importance in refusing to follow others blindly, and refusing to believe the unkind untruths people say about themselves.

For Minami, the virtue of Solidity: it is something more tangible than reliability. It is the weight of a hand clapping your back, and the person who will not falter to hold your gaze when you look towards them each and every time. It is a support you can lean on, but not one that you must rely on– she will be sure that you can stand on your own two feet. She is the solid path that you can follow, or walk beside, or stray from as you please.

For Miori, the virtue of Resilience: where even withered grass can thrive again, and clipped feathers can be grown. She is the strength found in the ability to endure, not just for herself in today but for trying again tomorrow. While resilience persists, even a stifled hope has means to break barren ground– and every pain endured is a pain understood when it is glimpsed in others.

For Mirai, the virtue of Reflection: of inner contemplation, she is the quietude in which the most important things come to be heard. She is the harmony that amplifies the melody. The moon that lights, with the sun’s rays, the deepest dark. She is the pause and all that it entails– the unseen space of time in which a flower blooms, the vital space of time when one stands at the edge of a precipice, the liminal time in which all that exists is yourself and the grass underneath and the sky above and, momentarily, peace.

For Miranda, the virtue of Survival: of knowing that survival of the fittest is a misrepresentation of strength– that the saying should really be survival of the kindest, in truth. When one exists by ‘one step at a time’, every second is sharp and grueling against the senses. When one walks alongside others who chatter and laugh, time passes without realizing and one day you find you’ve already climbed several mountains. Living is more than just being alive. Surviving is more than just experiencing loss.

For Nikephoras, the virtue of Authenticity: it is one side of a two-faced coin. To know truth is to know untruth. To have clarity is to recognize obfuscation. Each pearl of a lie begins with a grain of truth, a grain that she is unafraid to grasp or acknowledge themself despite how rough it may be. To know the hearts of others, and choose to treat them with respect and care is his strength.

For Olwin, the virtue of Foolishness: the value of which cannot be understated. It is a virtue more mature than whimsy, more focused than capriciousness; wielded with intention to disarm not just enemies but allies as well. Foolishness and play are the beginnings of friendship– a space created for non-judgement, an atmosphere that is safe for exposing fears and admitting vulnerabilities. He paves the path for change, in himself and in others.

For Poppy, the virtue of Mourning: to hold remembrance and to preserve the things that are important. It is living for the memory of those held dear, and finding the meaning underneath the wounds that they and their loved ones sustained. Continuing to live is a type of retribution. Continuing to love in spite of everything the world has tried to make you, too, is a type of vengeance. When one razes their hurts to the ground, from the ashes again they can rise.

For Raoul, the virtue of Belief: not to be mistaken with naivety– it takes true courage to believe. It is a choice, to leave himself vulnerable, to offer again and again the opportunity for his peers to be better. To invest in those around him and offer unconditional kindness is true love for humanity and all the potential it entails. He is the unerring patience of a door left open to the stray– watching day by day as their true personalities emerge underneath the pain and misery inflicted upon them by the otherwise uncaring world.

For Ruby, the virtue of Imperfection: the uneven lumpy crust of a homemade pie painstakingly made, the rumpled throws on a couch that betray their use, the crooked bough of a tree that makes it the perfect place for a swing– the hundreds of thousands of imperfections that make life unique. She is where flaw becomes potential. She is the scar that holds stories rather than pain.

For Shoji, the virtue of Acceptance: it is not as simple as just taking things as they come. No, he is the intentional acceptance of the things that are worth having. And you are worth having, always, without question. It is the virtue of letting others know that they are enough, after all. The ability to show them that it is okay to accept themselves, too. And when you come, whole and all-encompassed, you discover things about yourself that you might have never realized before.

For Touji, the virtue of Outrage: it is a form of empowerment. Little else is more healing than to be cared for so deeply as to provoke outrage. He is the voice that reverberates in your bones and the pounding of your heart in your ears. When you feel alone, and small, and weak, it is the outrage that truly drives it home that you are strong, and large, and in the best company you could ask for. How much easier is it to fight for yourself, when his booming anger tells all just how much you’re worth it?

For Wakako, the virtue of Rejection: she is the refusal of what is handed to her. To scream and cry and rage is not a sin. It is not broken-ness to demand better of the world. Rejection provides the room necessary for growth– a cup overflowing cannot be filled. Defiance is an act of self-love.

For Yukiko, the virtue of Indulgence: to allow oneself their own right to happiness, and to fight tooth and nail against the forces that would prevent the happiness of those close to her. For all her deceit, she is also the simple enjoyment of a sunbeam; of spun sugar; of soft plush fur. There is nothing complicated about that. There is nothing wrong with indulgence. There is nothing wrong with you. Or if you’re wrong for wanting those things, why should you care anyways if it makes you happy? She gives you the space to see that.

✨✨✨

The virtue inside of you was there all along, waiting to be realized. Its strength means that no strings will touch you ever again.

(Not to mention, you’re reasonably sure that any other Hellmouth that tries to swallow you will probably have an allergic reaction to you, now.)

From demons at least, there’s nothing for you to worry about. Touji put it best–

Humans are going to kick demon’s asses any fucking day.

#mm trial #endgame

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hellmouth-manor · 3 months

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iam mens praetrepidans avet vagari

Although it feels as though that should be the finale to your stay here at Hellmouth Manor, the rumbling beneath your feet and the support beams that crash to the ground and through the floor tell a different story. The elation felt by seeing the final two infernal beings who tormented you finally get their just desserts is smothered by the realization that there is no magic here to teleport you to safety.

Your only option is to run.

Your feet pound against the crumbling floorboards, and you shove your way through rotting doorways, dodging debris all the while. For those of you getting reacquainted with your human (wonderfully, mortally human) bodies, you may stumble and trip as your balance is thrown off by a lack of a tail or other appendage, but someone is always there to catch you.

This goes for all of you. When a gap opens under your feet, someone’s hand is there to pull you forward and over the crevice. A portrait moves to topple right onto your body as you run by, but someone else is able to shove you forward and out of the way. A severed string attempts to trip you and tug you back towards what it cries out as your f̸̜͆͊a̴̼͐͝t̵̳͖͆̋̕e̷̜͆͘, but someone else is already trampling it underfoot and snapping it.

No one has ever successfully escaped Hellmouth before, but, then again, no one has ever done so as a team. No one has ever managed to hold onto that which makes you undeniably human: the ability to care.

Even for all that some of your number curl their lips and sneer at the concept of pure and unadulterated affection for others, there’s no denying that each of you has a special place in your hearts for someone here. It’s those bonds that allowed you to defeat your foes, and it’s those bonds now that carry you, finally, through the foyer and…!

Right through the front doors of the manor.

You run and you run and you run and you’re not sure how long your feet carry you before your legs finally give out from beneath you.

Looking back, it appears as though the Earth itself is consuming that place you called your prison, sucking it back into its gullet where it properly belongs.

When it’s done, nothing remains but a clearing in the woods. Tranquil. Serene. Quiet. There’s no sound at all other than the birdcall and Momo-Taro-Spot barking gleefully up at Chou, still held tight in Poppy’s arms.

…Well. Until the maw opens once again and--there’s truly no eloquent way of putting this--spits your belongings out onto the grass. Everything you brought with you and everything you gained over your time in the manor has been expelled onto the forest floor. With your belongings comes the realization of the situation you’ve all found yourselves in.

The freedom to do whatever you want lays at your fingertips. You could travel the world, go see your family, rekindle relationships, pet a dog, quit and find a new job, change your whole life because change is what makes humans human. Of course, considering the circumstances, maybe you should look into that Babbel subscription you’ve been putting off getting. It may do you some good shortly.

With the whole world in front of you, with the weight of being infernal celebrities off of your shoulders for at least the time being, you’re left with just yourself. Well, yourself and the people around you.

You look between each face that surrounds you, and what is there to do but smile?

#mm trial #endgame

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hellmouth-manor · 3 months

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Getting Back to Home

The manor trembled and shook as the pure strength of everyone's virtues weighed down on their hellish prison. Micah fought bravely. Alou has been bested by the determination of the human spirit. Every loose end has so neatly been tied up in a bow, right? Something was missing from this ending being forged by their own hands: Aya and Pheo remained though, didn't they? Even with so much happening Touji wasn’t quick to forget that those two were still here. Touji whips his head around in search of them, spotting them trying to make a getaway. That wasn’t happening and Touji was quick to make sure it didn’t.

Aya was about to reach for her exit, pulling her associate Pheo in tow. As their "boss" fell, and as soon as the manor itself began to fall, Aya knew she had to jump ship. The pair shared a look the moment Micah revealed his betrayal, and every moment between the two of them came back to the surface. If these worthless pieces of shit were going to rebel, kill their companion, and kill their superior, they were not going to be caught in the middle of it! Aya felt truly free for a moment before the sound filled her ears. Her hand moved away from the doorway she was manifesting to escape the trial room as she heard Touji's wretched yelling.

[♪ ♪ ♪]

“And just where the fuck do you two think you’re going!?”

He runs at them with the speed of trying to get from 3rd to home and he knows the ball is closing in. One hand wraps around Aya’s wrist and the other around Pheo’s. It’s a quick tug to pull them both back to where they can’t get away through their little doorway.

“Fuck you, Asagiri! Let us go!” Aya yelps upon contact.

He lets go of her, and Aya is quick to retaliate with her tail, aiming it directly at Touji’s neck to go right for a last minute kill. It stops in its pursuit, Touji’s hand wrapped around it.

“Gotta get more physical since you can’t just burn my soul, eh!? No fucking way in hell!” “I don’t need to burn your soul to end your fucking life!”

He clenches his fist and the stinger of her tail snaps and is left unusable. Black blood soaks his hand as Aya screams out in a burning fury. He was frustrated that she even tried it. Guess desperate times call for desperate measures for them. All of this time he’s been wanting to kick their shit in for what they’ve put them all through. All the back talk and holding himself back from leaping is paying off right here. Aya twists herself away from Touji, hair raising on end, bristling. The manor was weakening, and so was she. It was obvious in the way she twitched from the unbearable pain made to her tail.

With the fall of the manor, the game, everything Pheo has known all these hellish years it only made her more desperate to keep the last few constants. Fumiko was lost but she still had Aya, Aya who no doubt cared very little for her but Pheo still begrudgingly enjoyed her company. So that means when a no good punk snaps Aya’s tail Pheo was ready to defend the last person she had on her side. Her free hand readies, her nails pointed like knives.

“You little shit, I’ll send your ass to the grave myself!”

A brawl ensues as he jumps at the two of them. Fists begin to fly into each other’s bodies. Touji wouldn’t say he was much of a skilled fighter and his reflexes in fighting were not the best but he was going to hold his own. It goes on for a short amount of time, the three of them going at it with each other. They shout and the battle is violent but it doesn’t last long with them putting their all into this messy fight. Pheo’s fist meets Touji’s face and Aya’s heel into his stomach. He stumbles and lets out a cough before leaping to pay them right back.

His fist flies into Pheo’s face first. He could play dirty and pull hair but he wanted to keep things as fair as he could. So it was just one hard punch to send her flying back and colliding with the ground. Then it was right to Aya. He winds up and with a shout his fist flies at her and hers at him. Their arms cross as each other’s fist collides with each other’s face.

It was a surprise that gave him a chance to quickly pull back and grab Aya’s other arm. He pulls her close, lifts her up with ease to swing her around in a circle and lets her go flying like a bowling ball into Pheo. The two of them smash into each other and are left as just a pile on the ground Touji takes a breath and surely that was enough. His breaths are heavy as he steps close to them. Looking down at the felled hostesses he could make this a quick end for them both.

Just lift his foot and stomp down on them like the bugs that they were to him. Do exactly what was done to Fumiko and make sure they double die right here together. Aya, bloodied, black blood dripping from her lips, grins widely at Touji. Her eyes are filled with the bloodlust that he had unknowingly awakened the first moment his fist collided with her face.

“Do it. I have brought you nothing but suffering! I have brought nothing but suffering to everyone you have come to care about in this dilapidated shithole! Use your hands to finish the job, you coward! Kill me! Kill us both!”

He doesn’t though.

“Fuck off with that kill me shit. I told you guys you’d never make me into a killer.”

Instead he squats down to get on their level and see those bloodthirsty eyes up close. Knowing that neither can do a single thing about it no matter what they feel. Even if they retaliated against Touji there was a whole squad right behind him to finish them off for real.

“Listen here, you two are going to get out of this alive. You’re going to step right back into Hell with your tails between your fucking legs and you’re going to deal with being the fucking laughing stocks of the nine fucking circles! We ruined your whole game!! All of us! Humans! We outed your super special fucking game master and killed him too! Sucks that you two aren’t getting off that fucking easy doesn’t it!?”

He picks himself up to turn and lets out a loud guffaw of triumph!

“Check it out, demons!! Humans won it all!! Woooooo!! Good job failing at your fucking jobs in the worst way, ladies! Hey, all you Touji fans out there! Do me a favor and get a hate train going for them!! You can make uhhh memes!? Yeah memes!! They ruined your favorite show so make them pay for that!!”

Aya, fallen from grace, grabs desperately onto Pheo, pulling her closer in an attempt to drag the both of themselves away from this chaos. Claws dig into the wooden boards below them, threatening to tear them right from their foundation. Aya would rip this place apart with her own bare hands if it meant revenge against the man of wrath who had bested his sin… not succumbed to it. Not like her.

He laughs, he laughs at their failures, at their misery, at every single horrible thing they’ve done getting thrown back at them. His laugh tapers off and he turns back to them and flashes a smile. Still cocky but friendly and inviting.

“Hey, how about this. In about 80 years when I get down here for real, let’s all get a drink together. That is if you guys have gotten over being the laughing stocks of Hell and are willing to show your faces publicly. And when we’re all nice and drunk we can have a rematch! Maybe I’ll even bring my husband. We know I’ll win again but always fun to try and see if you two got any better, ihihihihi!”

And with that Touji hops over them both and gets a move on, only turning back to give one last middle finger to them both.

“I’ll be back when I die!! Till then losers!! See ya!!”

#mm trial #endgame

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hellmouth-manor · 3 months

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Il y a longtemps que je t'aime, jamais je ne t'oublierai

[♪ ♪ ♪]

Alou

Feels

Everything.

The searing pain of bodily injury is just pretty sparks when held to the raging inferno of emotion that composes each and every attack. When the others pierce or cut or burn or slice or bludgeon with their souls, more than just the flesh is injured– he experiences their feelings as keenly as any blade. He wants to scream– and laugh, and weep, and dance, and run, and sing, and–

In the end, all he can do is shake uncontrollably. His deep hunger to consume every emotion broadcast in the game has finally been sated, but he chokes on the overwhelming and unanticipated breadth of what he’d wanted.

Because that’s what he’d really wanted, wasn’t it? Him, and every other demon that cherished this game. They’d wanted to take everyone else’s lives and make them their own. To break and bend these people into cogs for the machinery of hell, to make perfectly repeated stories in order to force some sort of meaning into their own pitiable fates. If they had had to suffer, so too should everyone else.

‘That's the sort of Death I want to personify in my writing. A death that loves you, that welcomes you home.’

It finally dawns on him that he didn’t even know what ‘love’ or ‘home’ or ‘death’ even were in the first place. How could he have even hoped to truly author it?

“I could… have died… righteous,”

Words squeeze out, angry and tight with hurt. Words that, under normal circumstances, he would have gripped hard and swallowed down to never see the light of day. Words he never would have even admitted to himself, for the sake of his own image.

“You could have let me die ignorant. And happy.”

In his torn and broken body, he searches for every scrap of hate and loathing in an attempt to gather the means to rise– to resurrect his battered form and to drag them all down to his level, somehow, some way. To scrape away the brilliant love and blinding hope, to make them concede to him instead of the other way around–

– He can’t find it.

He doesn’t hate them.

Not their insecurities, not their selfishness, not their fears, not their flaws, not their sins.

Alou had once thought that he’d understood it all.

(He didn’t.)

Then he thought he’d never understand any of them.

(He does now.)

And in the end, instead of loathing them, all he can think about is how light it feels to finally admit that he was wrong. How freeing it is to know that nothing is predetermined. And what a relief, to realize that there didn’t have to be a point. That just being is enough.

It’s all too much for the Hellmouth to take. As Alou lies still on the floor, you realize that the rumbling isn’t the trembling of the room caused by the raging of a giant beast. It’s the Hellmouth itself– seizing up from all of the noxious virtues forced into its maw.

#mm trial #endgame

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hellmouth-manor · 3 months

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The sun is setting on our love, I fear

Poppy has had many people bequeath their last words onto them. Mostly it has been pleas and begging and terrified crying – nothing memorable, to them. The majority were too surprised by death to do anything more than let the air escape their lungs, not even really screaming before life left them. An unceremonious fading.

They’ve never had anyone dedicate their last words to them.

“You don’t have to be anyone’s dog.“

As Micah lays in the pool of his own blood, now so painfully, humanly red, Poppy cannot help but lean over him and watch as he dies, a hand pressed to the wound. The words ring in their ears, repeated in an echo over and over again until their meaning sinks into their chest, much like their soul does as the strings entangle from it. They’re not sure how they feel, but they know they’ve never felt like this watching someone die. It’s a mix of regret, and understanding, and many emotions Poppy is woefully unequipped to handle, all of which swirl and mix until they can feel them squirm under their skin.

[♫♫♫]

Their soul doesn’t fill them with fire. There are no embers to kindle within them anymore, no more roaring rage to replace mourning for the connection they could’ve – should��ve – had with Micah. The glacier has grown still and quiet. They've been suffocated by this place, brought to heel like a hound, nothing more than a pawn that didn't know every step led here from the start. An entire life made just to end in raucous applause and cheer of the faceless, bored masses.

But when things die -- when emotions die -- they become trapped and compress under the pressure into a tar pit. Under Poppy's skin boils an oily, suffocating residue built on the remains of anger and sadness and stubbornness and betrayal, the last throes of an animal fighting against shackles it knows it cannot shake, wanting to drag its captors down with it.

Poppy wants to drag Alou down with them.

Alou, who now looms behind them, buffeted by a storm of attacks from everyone, a monster both inside and outside, taller than ever but with a shadow that cannot hope to be as large as the thing he tried to be. A pitiful void that aims to drag everyone and everything down with it, to drown them if it cannot smother them in sickly love.

Poppy stands up. They’re waist deep in the tar pit, pulled towards the event horizon by the black hole that is Alou. They reach out a hand, let go, and decide to let themself drift, let themself get dragged to the nexus so as to easier dig their nails in the flesh of their captor, intending to drown him in the pitch.

Poppy Argemone Crawbow bares their teeth.

And moves.

From the remains of the table, a knife. Long and plain, but so wickedly sharp. And as Poppy dives into the fray, there is no magic, no tricks, just the movements of someone who has danced to the tune of this cat and mouse game for almost a decade, weaving between Alou’s movements and attacks, like an unintentionally choreographed dance, a crescendo for a tale that waits only for its ending, the last final breaths as two hearts beat and one is bound to stop. A totentanz.

The tall, demonic figure of Alou looms over them, the remains of his wings and arms lashing, the tail like a scorpion’s hitting so close that Poppy can feel the air move their hair. They turn sideways and roll under it before getting on their feet quickly and brandishing their knife, ready to plunge it in –

In front of Alou’s legs, against the dark purple, stands a small, white, lamb-like creature which beady eyes catch Poppy’s across the mayhem.

Chou.

Because when you cut your conscience off and cauterized it, turned it into its own little thing… You didn’t tell the man who wanted to work at a baby animal petting zoo to kill the literal Sanrio looking lamb creature, did you?

Alou’s conscience.

Poppy veers to the side and, instead of delivering a final blow, jumps and rolls to catch the little lamb-like thing in their arms, before dodging out of the way of Alou’s claws – which they succeed in only partially, one of them tearing a long gash into their side. They don’t cry out, but air escapes from their lungs, and they tumble, sacrificing their own safety to make sure Chou doesn’t come to harm, shielding it with their body.

When they finally manage to breathe, they get up shakily. Their left side is wet from blood, some of it matting Chou’s fur that wiggles in their arms, letting out a sad whine.

There is mourning as Poppy looks between the two, Chou and Alou, at the disconnect of the jagged edges that have been displaced and cauterized so as to never reconnect. They remember a game of chess, kissing Alou as they placed the final piece on the table, and check mated his king with their pawn. The last moment they loved.

”… I would never be lonely with you… but… you would be lonely with just me.”

"I want you to be enough." Alou had sounded mournful, but only almost.

"I want to be with you... always. Even if I am not enough… But forever is a very long time... and we need to choose if we deserve hell... as much as we deserve each other..."

They have chosen, now.

“I love… selfishly? No. You do. I chose you over my family, I chose you over everyone, but you never chose me… you proved your loyalty to them when you killed me, but never proved yours to mine. I had thought I’d be fine never being enough for you, but – but I’m not!”

“Unlike you… I mean my words. I don’t lie. My always means always.”

Poppy begins to move again, a bit slower, but picking up in pace. Resolve hardened, steeled, ice cold, like it was when they came here, but now with a purpose not given by others, but one they picked for themself.

“Yours used to, as well. You used to mean the things you said, the things you did… but this… this is not the Dr. Lark who had ambitions and principles… this is a lazy, hollow husk of an imitation that lacks any substance… a pathetic mimicry of someone who I used to think was a worthy opponent… and someone worthy of – of my – ”

Ah. How awful it is to realise you loved someone you thought you hated, but that person no longer exists. Unfortunately, loving reflections and illusions seems to come naturally for them.

Except –

There were plenty of real things they felt.

[♫♫♫]

So many people chose them. So many. Minami came to them, over and over again, even after Poppy denied her apologies, even after they told her they would stay in Hell. But each time, like a stubborn mule, she wanted to be there for them and refused to take no for an answer. Olwin, who despite their rocky beginnings found a common ground with them in books and plays and who read the stories Poppy told him to read (even if he complained they were depressing). Wakako, who despite being killed by them, forgave and said she wanted to spend time with them.

And there are so many feelings – real feelings! Respect for Nike, whom Poppy shared so much common ground with, who taught them how to make smores. Curiosity and weird protectiveness for Raoul, who despite the awkwardness tried to reach out to them and encourage them, a fellow glutton. Understanding for Miori, who was so much like them that it was like looking into a mirror, a bit distorted but still, ultimately, real. Micah, whom they couldn’t understand but still tried to, over and over again, until their incapability to meet in the middle circled around to a weird, shared acceptance of their differences. Caring, and then deep hatred for Yukiko – but even in their conflict, those feelings matter.

And endless care for Miranda, the last person they expected to connect with on such a deep level. Miranda, whom they remember walking in the garden with, looking for the elusive geese, hearing her tell about the friend she sacrificed and the guilt she felt, opening up to them like a flower at dawn. "You could have sacrificed yourself... or given her a choice... or not accepted the college fund... but you didn't. And nothing will ever change that. You're now here, in Hell, and we're trying to find geese... And I don't think... I would like for you to have done anything differently."

They had meant their words. All of that was real.

They never would have wanted any of this to go differently.

The small warmth pressed against their side, living, breathing, quietly whining as it looks up at them with its beady eyes, is also real. The feelings Alou had are still real. Encompassed in Chou are all the pieces of it, the pity, the kindness, the regret, the love, the passion, the genuine messiness of humanity and all the beauty of it, too.

They will always remain within it, separated from Alou…

But not alone. Not so long as Poppy is here to hold it and give it a home.

Two things happen at once in very rapid succession.

First, the broken remains of Alou’s wings, torn asunder by Olwin and Hisashi, come down, trying to spear Poppy and rend them apart.

Second, Poppy feints to the side, drops and rolls, before springing back on their feet and past Alou’s wings, and uses the momentary confusion of destruction to get right in front of him.

“My always just wasn’t meant for you.”

Poppy drives their knife forward into Alou’s exposed chest.

The wound isn’t big. It’s, in fact, not even perceptible when Poppy pulls out the blade. But it strikes true between the fourth and fifth rib, the easiest way to a man’s – a beast’s – heart. When they pull out the blade, there is no sound, except blood oozing and dripping onto the floor.

From the wound, flowers begin to bloom.

At first as deep royal blue like Alou’s blood, before the color is overtaken and fades into the brilliant reds of a poppy – death, rebirth, remembrance, sleep – that engulf his body, growing like a field, up his arms and his wings, before their roots eat away the tainted flesh beneath. He was rotten, and such ground is soft for flowers to bloom, like the muddy fields of Flanders.

Alou’s form fades in a cascade of falling flowers, back into his usual form.

Poppy drops the blade to the ground, using their now free hand to grab the side of his head as he slumps onward, and press a kiss on his forehead.

“Goodbye, Alou. I’m sorry.”

Then, they let go of him, turning away and leaving him behind. They will take with them the parts that matter.

They leave behind that which can only wither.

[♫♫♫]

#mm trial #poppy

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hellmouth-manor · 3 months

Text

Show them who I can be | Mirai | Finale

She remembers that autumn day. Uncertainty hung in the air as all those strangers looked at each other, awkwardly while Louisa Nightingale welcomed them to her house, the Hellmouth Manor. A crowd of strangers walking into the worst place they could have ended up at the whims of the mastermind’s strings, even now she recalls the crushed leaves beneath their feet vividly, she remembers her anxious inhales and her frosted breath and thinking she should have dressed a bit more warmly.

She can remember the shuffling of feet and a warm welcome, the distant but incessant flapping of wings all around her. Unseen, but still there. But most of all, she remembers the familiar feeling of anxiety pushing her down, and averting eyes at every chance; a bit to the left, a bit upward or down, but never daring to face the others’ faces but still, she had seen clouded eyes back then.

In those clouded eyes, she saw…

The ephemerality of a sunset waiting for someone who would never come, hellfire raging against the countless injustices of life, the gentleness of an inviting open sea of kindness, a fox’s cunning…

In all those landscapes, she never thought of the reflection of her own eyes; there must’ve been nothing there. And so, her strongest memory of that autumn day was the sense of inadequacy, the fact she was a shadow looking at the stars in the night sky.

The stars reached out to the shadow on the ground, some of them proving themselves as shaky the phantom they touched, she wasn’t a star but she was taught she could fit in, or pretend to, until she actually could. A lesson like that came from Hibiki in her memory, and latter, fresher lessons stayed there, in the way she now can smile, in no small part thanks to him even if he wouldn’t want the credit now, after everything.

(Mirai gets up, and takes a step away from Micah and towards Alou.)

The night burned brighter, a star landed on her and the ghost rejected it, it burned too bright for its dim and dull eyes - it scared her, Cassandra and Yukiko, were both faces she had always, always known. But she hadn’t been that, not to her. Mirai doesn’t know if it’s right or not, but in a way, she too might be another reflection of Yukiko; a twin soul from another galaxy, someone who had told her to find her anger, that it was okay, the world had trampled over her, why not yell about it? It’s not a lesson a monster would teach her; it’s enough for her to know Yukiko isn’t completely inhuman.

(Mirai takes firm, unwavering steps. The purple light on her left hand glittering as it begins to travel around her. Her right hand clutches something else tightly.)

Dawn comes, as the sun shines upon the cocoon on the ground, Raoul smiles at Mirai despite all her words, her demeanor even after death had pierced her with sharp, broken claws and fangs, he is a guiding light, in the same way Touji was a force pushing one forward on and on and on.

[♬♬♬]

(Mirai starts running as fast as her legs will allow it, her lack of stamina for once not showing as the light of her own being continues to shine over her; you see a giant crow’s wing emerge and somehow know it’s not part of her black attire.)

Now a worm, Mirai chases the dying light, where it doesn’t even know it exists, like with Olwin and Arisa and the people they have found (namely, Hisashi), and she finds herself basking on it all the same, even if she doesn’t know or think she ever did anything to really reciprocate it, there is humanity there and for her, that was enough.

(She is still far from Alou but her running neither stops or slows down as a second wing appears opposite the first, a pure-white chicken’s wing.)

The night comes again and the butterfly finds comfort in the moon, in a glass coffin shared in a small corner of hell, amidst endless dreams; she find Eli, or perhaps it is him who finds her, she doesn’t know and it doesn’t really matter, they have each other, two moons that are never alone anymore.

(Growth hurts. It’s natural that the wings on her back do, too, the large fly wing, joined with a magnificent blue and purple butterfly wing below the bird’s, all begin to flap together and Mirai takes flight, she is going toward Alou. Strings snap and aim for her.)

Trekking through life is difficult, whether as a shadow, phantom, or anything else, it’s especially hard to navigate the world as a semblance of a person, or an imitation of a bird, but Minami hadn’t ever thought of Mirai that way, even if she knew herself not to be as fiercely tenacious as the older woman, she hoped something of that tenacity had rubbed off on her, just like she hoped to have helped her. And just like how she has to make sure she can go back to her child, too. Mirai herself would like to meet them.

(The strings try and sweep at her, lashing out and thrashing about but there is no point, they can’t reach her, not anymore.)

More days than not, being a person is difficult, everything is gray and the person in the mirror might not be you. Ruby must’ve felt that more than Mirai ever did but she doesn’t have to, she shouldn’t have to, because Mirai knows for a fact that the other is an amazing person all on her own, without the need to be someone she isn’t, Ruby is amazing for who she is, not for what anyone else wants her to be.

(Two more wings spread out, on her lower back by now; a skeletal yet seemingly functional wing and a burning phoenix’s, the sound of her flying and dodging all strings around her with grace that isn’t hers fill the air)

It’s a seemingly endless corridor to navigate, it’s dim and dark, choking the air out with every step taken, but it’s people like Shoji and Nike that make it possible to get through those times, with one illuminating the path, the other making sure you get through it; they may not be alike at all, not even on their ways to care for others and yet there is a similar to the both of them in that.

(Perhaps Mirai belongs in the sky with the stars, she shows no fear; her target is clear, she just needs to reach her and right now, she can reach anywhere.)

When out of a dark tunnel, the harsh light of the sun might make it so somebody wants to trace their step backs and into the dark again, it has a sense of belonging the light doesn’t, like you don’t deserve it, and maybe that’s how Miranda felt before coming here but she thinks she knows better than to see herself as a monster, because if Mirai is not flightless, nor a chicken, neither is Miranda a terrible beast.

(Even now, looking at Alou, she sees neither a pitiable or wretched beast. It’s Alou still. The same man, after all this time, all the burdens he’s carried, those he’s tossed away, those that have crushed him, it is still just Alou. She still does not forgive him, she still does not pity him. Strings approach her, this time, they will reach her with fury and envy.)

Though she might not have the same view of Alou that Cu holds and Wakako once held, she can still understand the undue pain of being puppeteered, and trying to break free. Helplessly, hopelessly but endlessly. For her, for the two of them, the end is in sight now.

(Strings and butterfly dance in the air, again and again, Mirai circles around Alou, everyone’s efforts have made it possible for her to soar freer, even if the strings continue to chase and chase.)

In a room of mirrors, frayed, snapped threads think of Miori and Kamiya. Mirai doesn’t think of them as her sworn enemies, angry as she might have been, she had wanted to forgive them both, eventually. She knew them not to be horrible people (even if Kamiya does annoy her), despite what Miori might’ve thought of herself, and what they had done. Flying here, she finds herself reaching for it, and finally forgiving them. It’s as much for them as it is for herself.

(The strings hold to her wings and them, they find themselves weak. The flapping is enough to tear them away, she’s free. She finds herself wishing Poppy will, too, be freer now. As they should always have been. Micah is right in that they’re not anyone’s dog.)

In a distant corner of the universe, two planets orbit each other, a large mushroom one, and a much smaller one, filled with flower fields, the princess and the knight often visiting each other and talking about… well, plenty of things, some silly, some more significant, they would promise many things to each other and care for each other, grow into loving each other, against what they each thought of their own little planets, their silly little selves, in love in a story of their own making.

That was well worth defending.

All of it, all of it was worth protecting and fighting and struggling for, every time she’s been kind and caring, every time she’s celebrated their triumphs and mourned their losses, cried with an for them, laughed, shared a poem, each of those little instances was her own way of fighting and winning.

Every second of every minute together with them was worth reaching out for, and knowing he will be alright now, she raises her right arm staring down at Alou with calm eyes, the gaze of someone who knows victory is right in their hand. Her voice, too, is even as she speaks:

“This is the end! And the beginning!!”

With strength that is not only hers, but everyone who she’s ever cared for and who’s cared for she brings her right hand down on Alou’s face, violently stabbing him right in the center with his own pen - she doesn’t know how much she can make him hurt, even now, she would rather not.

But someone has to let Alou know to watch his hubris, and the sting of the pen leaving his face as she pulls it out ought to do it.

#mm trial #mirai

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hellmouth-manor · 3 months

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between the devil and the deep blue sea | nike | re: finale

“My master is too strong. I'll die. I know this, and I'm okay with this.”

Nike thought they would be fast enough.

There was hardly a second of doubt in their mind if they would ever let that happen. It’s the stubborn part of them— there’s no asking whether you can or cannot, you just do— but as Alou transforms into a hideous goat monstrosity, they could only stay frozen in awe and horror. A moment’s distraction, just enough time for him to—

Squelch…

Thud.

Micah’s body hits the wall, and it’s sickening— how he was discarded as if he were just some toy, exactly the way Alou perceived him to be. Micah, who they owed so much to, not just in his role towards their counter attack, but in his companionship as a friend, who they didn’t realize was risking so much for their sakes, who knew he was walking to his death, but decided to face his destiny head on—

There’s hardly any hesitation before Nikephoras turns to Alou, eyes narrowed, a growl between their lips, despite the demonic features having already left their form.

A rift begins to glow brightly in between their hands. It glows white hot, almost painful to the touch, like metal melding over bare skin, yet Nike doesn’t let go. They grip onto it tightly, pulling at the chain that emerges from the light.

[♬]

Before they arrived at the mansion, Nike was nothing more than a walking shell bent on revenge.

To have so little, then have it all taken away—Somewhere in her mind, Nike convinced herself that perhaps peace was yet another one of her unreachable dreams; and the only way to survive was to fuel her heart with sins, and live like a wounded animal: setting their self ablaze and wait for the day their anger burned themselves from the inside out.

But that never happened, of course.

Coming here, Nike never intended on getting close. Why would they? They thought they were only going to stay with these people for a week at best. They wore the facade of a laughable fortune teller; something that they thought was far removed from the person they were.

( Though it was the great seer that invited people to partake in their desserts while they chat about their day, they didn’t have to make every effort to craft each sweet with careful hands. They didn’t have to teach people how to use coffee machines, or feel concern when they trip and fall in the gardens, or to encourage them when you read their doubts over a cup from a cup of tea. Very much less show care to someone who they punched over a game of darts.)

The mask doesn’t even last a day, really. When it all came crashing down, they figured it wasn’t worth keeping on pretenses. It was better that everyone knew right away for what they were—a liar, a con, send the message that they were someone they should stay as far away from.

It worked for some.

(Being scrutinized by the literature they read, lunging at liars in a game of greed, battling ideologies with their roommate.)

It didn’t for others.

(Honesty and optimism that confuses them, someone who still saw him as a friend even after their lies.)

So. Why?

( Redemption. It begins with quiet apologies: In a text chat, to someone who they got off on the wrong foot with, who they now call their brother-in-arms; on a park bench, showing concern for the one who’d hurt others they cared about. In a kitchen, cooking a meal together, no longer letting the shadows of the past keep them from making amends.)

Why was it that–

(Peace. Moments of stillness: All of them crowded in one room for a sleepover, playing games they haven’t played in many years. Quiet fortune readings, not to fool, but with a genuine desire to help. A conversation with a friend amidst smores.)

They couldn’t stop caring?

(Healing. Tears and vulnerability at multiple points in time. The both of them stumble their way through until all their walls are broken down. Finally learning how to let go of their guilt. Finding peace as they die on a velvet cushion, sacrificing themselves with no regrets.)

The soul chain starts to slip from Nike’s hands, and they feel themselves being pulled along with it. For a moment, as they struggle with the chain, they hear the ocean current against their ears, bubbling, threatening to drown, but Nike finds that they no longer fear the deep dark blue.

(They feel it, multiple hands reaching out to them. They grab Nike, keeping them from sinking further, and wherever they touch, warmth blooms and breaks through the cold. They lift them out of the waters, and they break the horizon.)

“Alright, you sanctimonious freak of nature—”

Nike pulls their chain inch by inch, a feat that takes every aching muscle in their body to accomplish. There is the sound of metal being dragged, chains piling on the floor, and soon something emerges from the soul rift.

“—You want a piece of this?”

At the end of the link, an anchor half their size rests at Nike’s feet.

Grabbing onto the chain, Nike spins the anchor. Using the momentum much like a ball and chain. When it has gained the right velocity, Nike puts all of their weight (the weight of their sins; the weight of their ocean) into their throw. They let out a guttural cry, swinging the anchor at Alou's legs. Regardless of whether it hits or misses, Nike pulls back the anchor so they can strike, again and again, relentless in their pressure.

All their life, Nikephoras has only ever had things taken from them, but they'll be damned if they didn't fight tooth and nail just when they just got something new to live for.

Not today. Not ever again.

#mm trial #nikephoras

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hellmouth-manor · 3 months

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i'll die when it's time || minami finale

With Micah taken care of, the shields Minami had drawn up crumble to the ground around her. She’s left standing in a smoking mess of metal, looking up at the orchestrator of their misery. She considers him with surprising restraint, given the anger that she feels. That she has felt, at this whole bitch of a situation. What had she said, in Ruby’s trial?

I’m gonna beat your ass so fuckin’ hard that you see colors no one on Earth could ever imagine. Right, that was right. And she’d done what she wanted to do before that– she held back her anger enough to understand Alou, and why they were here. It was easier to take apart a machine you understood, after all, and Minami was a scientist, even if she didn’t act much like one anymore. So with that done…

Well, it’s time for her to get to work, she supposes. Rather than run at Alou immediately, though, and rather than summoning anything to aid her, she squats down in the mess of torn metal around her. No use in letting it go to waste, after all, when she had always taken pride in doing things with her own hands. Maybe to a fault, if she was honest. Almost certainly to one, actually. It had been that pride that caused her downfall, and it had been the people here that had showed her that it wouldn’t hurt to rely on someone other than herself once in a while. Maybe with her final moments here, she could create something to repay them.

(You know, by beating Alou’s ass. That sort of repayment.)

As she reaches for the chunks of metal, despite her lack of tools, they bend easily under her hands and tear as if they’re made of paper. The cause of this is clear enough looking at her– despite no longer being a demon, her hands glow with heat as they had in that form. The metal warps into shape like she’s manipulating clay, wires growing in to fill the spaces Minami intends them to. She had thought that the burning hands of her demon form had been a mockery of how she felt she burned anything she touched. And maybe they had been, given that document about the design philosophy behind the demons. But now, her very human hands burn with the same soothing warmth that her shields had provided to those healing Micah. The warmth of love and protection. That, she’s finding, is more effective than any soldering iron.

It’s enough that, in record time, her vision is complete. Not that it was a particularly elaborate vision, for someone with her skill in mechanics… actually, it’s surprisingly understated for Minami’s bombastic personality in general. It looks as if several of the chunks of metal have been manipulated but left unfinished on the ground, leaving Minami holding… a belt? It’s probably a belt, though with some sort of mechanism on the front. Despite it being unclear how this is meant to help defeat Alou, its creator certainly looks pleased with it. Not just pleased– her one remaining eye sparkles with excitement as she starts approaching the monster. Just strolls right up there. (After all, she can’t beat the shit out of him without getting closer.)

As she goes, she smiles widely. It feels like nothing can touch her– has felt that way, since she started snapping Alou’s stupid strings. For the first time in quite a while, it feels like a weight is lifted off her back.

When she’s a good handful of yards away from Alou’s beastly form, she starts buckling the belt– yes, you can tell it’s a belt now– around her waist.

“Gahahaha– y’know, I’ve always wanted to do this! My whole life! Good thing I got it back just in time, huh!”

She addresses Alou, as if he’s even listening anymore. Once the belt is on, she… strikes a pose, one arm outstretched towards him.

“Now! Count up your sins! …’cause there sure are a lot of them!”

[♫♫♫]

With Minami’s words, the discarded metal left behind her starts to move. It soars through the air, revealing itself not to be discarded at all, but rather parts of a whole that she had left unassembled… well, probably so she could have the dramatics of doing a henshin to punch a demon in the face. But what else would you really expect from her?

The pieces lock into place around Minami’s outstretched arm, forming a heavy metal gauntlet that burns with residual heat. Wires slip into place beneath the plating, allowing her to move her fingers– when she does, steam puffs out of some sort of exhaust valve, the shell shifting to adjust. The metal plating builds up her arm, stopping around her shoulder for an effect that’s somewhere between a suit of armor and a mech. What could she say? She was feeling inspired enough to come out of retirement and build a fully articulated robotic arm just to punch someone with.

Her weapon in place, Minami pulls her arm back, thankful that there are vines bringing Alou down to her level. It’s not as satisfying to punch someone somewhere that isn’t the face, no matter what Hisashi and Arisa might say about kidneys.

And punch she does. Her first strike connects squarely with his nose. With it goes the anger she’s felt at watching people she loves and cares for suffer and die. She’s been lied to and fooled and betrayed multiple times, not in small part by Alou himself. With it goes the misery she felt, believing that she was unable to save anyone here and that she would never be able to make it back home again, just as she’d realized she might want to.

She brings back her arm again, landing another punch to Alou’s face. This time, her metal glove burns with heat– Minami’s love for Micah, who had shown her that she could still have friends despite all her sins, and who had cried for her, and who had given his life to get them all out of there. She wants to see him get to live a happy life outside of here.

She punches him again, in the already-ruined eyes, for Mirai– who Minami had so desperately tried to help throughout the game, and who had shown her that she couldn’t take responsibility for everything, lifting some of the weight off of her shoulders. Who Minami had finally been able to protect, at the very end, and who might finally get to be happy as well.

She punches him, metal cracking against the base of one of his horns, for Poppy, who she cared so deeply for and who had been so deeply betrayed. It burns with the hope that they might be able to finally be free, outside of here, and that she might be able to help with that. You know, in her clumsy way.

With the sound of the crack, she aims for the horn again, this time for Touji– who had been so unwavering in his strength the entire time, who Minami admired for that. She certainly didn’t have any plans to stop teasing him after they got out of here. He’d have to deal with her being loud as hell at his games.

Her fist slams into the same crack twice more, sending more spiraling out, shards falling to the ground. For Arisa, who was almost as stubborn as she was and who wasn’t her type of person at all, but who had managed to brute-force her into taking better care of herself. Funny how it was one of the dumbest people here who had managed to trap her in some of the flaws of her own worldview. And for Olwin, who Minami didn’t understand but had worried for all game. She had fucked up incessantly in trying to help him, but it looked like something had finally broken through at the end, even if it wasn’t her, and she was proud of him for it.

Realizing the state the horn is in, Minami strikes it several more times in quick succession– for Miranda, who she needed to do karaoke with once they were out of here, for Ruby, who had struggled so badly and yet managed to come out of it– until the base is weakened enough that she can simply grip it in her metal fist and yank–

And with a final crack, it snaps off in her hand. She tosses it aside, or whatever remains of it after her onslaught. As for the other horn…

Minami doesn’t raise the gauntlet again. Instead , she raises her other hand to her neck. There’s a much quieter snap as the chain she’s worn there breaks in her hand. Almost apprehensive, she opens her palm and looks down.

The gold ring she had picked out decades ago shines up at her. Its matching partner is gone, burned in the remains of a computer lab somewhere in Tokyo. This one has remained unworn since, Minami unable to stomach the reminder of a death she had always viewed as her fault. Not just that– unable to bear the reminder that her wife was no longer in her life. To wear it again felt like a weight– the weight of acknowledging what had happened, and accepting it. If she hid the ring, she would never have to think about it.

She slips it onto her finger now. Her hand balls into a fist.

“This is for you and your fuckass family killin’ my fuckin’ wife, you goddamn bastard.”

It doesn’t matter that all she has on this hand is a ring and not the gauntlet. It cracks through Alou’s other horn with the force of Minami’s punch as if it had a rocket powering it.

With it goes the dark cloud Minami has been living with. Not all of it, of course– but enough that she can see clearly.

You can’t protect me all the time, you know?

It wasn’t my fault.

She thinks it clearly and without guilt.

Do you think she’s happy?

Minami hopes she is. She hopes that wherever she is, Kumiko can see her doing a Rider Punch right through Alou’s stupid horn. Imagining her laughing and cheering doesn’t hurt as much as it might have a few months ago. She sees it clearly, through the clouds and her addled brain.

The second horn hits the ground, and Minami with it. As Minami lets go of her own pride, the source of her guilt, she takes some of Alou’s with her. What’s a king without his crown, after all? A final gift, from her to her fellow pride member. It was a shame she had had a chance to realize her mistakes at the end, and he hadn’t.

“...You look stupid as fuck without those.”

She lifts her head to look at him, grinning. The metal falls off her arm as she stands, leaving pieces on the ground behind her as she turns away from Alou to walk towards the rest of the group instead. She raises both arms in a cheer.

“Alright, everyone! Let’s finish this up and get the fuck out of here!”

#mm trial #mari

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hellmouth-manor · 3 months

Text

Our Song of Hope || Miori & Kamiya || Finale

With Micah tended to, Miori pushes herself to her feet, her left arm dangling weakly, hopelessly, painfully at her side. It’s a battle in and of itself just to stand at all; every move she makes, no matter how small, seems to amplify the sheer agony that radiates from her arm. Were she a different woman - an unchanged woman - she’d long since have given up on fighting. She’d have hidden herself away somewhere she could be left untouched and unharmed. She’d have left Micah to the wolves. She’d have left all of them to the wolves, really, so long as it meant she herself stayed safe.

But here she is, injured and seething in pain and still standing despite it. Still fighting, even, because she finally has something worth fighting for. For as long as she can remember, her fight was an empty one. She wasn’t, in truth, aiming for anything. She’d wanted revenge, sure, but only because it was all she could allow herself to want. Anything more would have been too much, too unrealistic. But now, armed with the strength of people she loves - of people who love her in turn - she has a reason to continue. A reason to push forward. A reason to fight.

She grits her teeth and forces herself forward, step by heavy step. Every single one hurts, but every single one is worth it. Her friends, her family, are worth it.

[ ♪♪♪ ]

Eli, so unrelentingly kind and steadfast in his beliefs, is worth it. For a long while, she wasn’t sure where she stood with him, nor did she care enough to figure it out. But he continued, despite every hardship she’d subjected him to, to treat her with the same kindness he did everyone else, and in time he became one of the few she grew to cherish most. Such a simple offering of normalcy, however abnormal it may have seemed to her, did so much more than he could ever realize.

Hibiki, for all the difficulties and squabbles he came with, is worth it. Even before she’d begun to let people in, he’d managed to worm his way into the back of her mind. It wasn’t that he had the energies of a little brother; he had the energy of her little brother, of a boy who seemed so unsure of himself and yet so devoted to the people and beliefs he decided to cling to. She isn’t sure where she stands with him now, but what times they had managed to share - the tradeoffs of dragging each other out of their shells, the back-and-forths that felt so much like she was talking to a mirror and a memory at the same time - were precious to her.

Micah, of course, is worth it. What more could she possibly say about Micah? Though he felt like a brother to her, he was far different from Hibiki. If Hibiki wormed his way into her heart from the start, then Micah grew on it slowly, like a weed or a moss. He was unexpected, and yet he’d become so familiar. He, too, brought to mind a brother - her older brother, a boy who, in his own way, protected her in spite of his gentleness, who taught her what it truly meant to be human. She can only hope her song made it through to him.

Miranda, with every monstrous bit of her there might be, is worth it. At first, Miori could hardly seem to hold a conversation with her, both so wrought with suspicion and paranoia, and yet all it took was the lifting of her mask for the two to find common ground. It was so oddly easy to just talk with Miranda. They never even had to speak about anything serious; all they had to do was talk about Pride and Prejudice or The Notebook or Bridgerton. All they had to do was poke a little good-natured fun at their mutually terrible handling of feelings. All they had to do was exist around each other, and somehow everything felt so normal. She hopes she knows just how hard it was to come by normalcy, and how much something so simple meant to someone like her.

Raoul, as different as they were and as undeserving of his kindness as she was, is worth it. There was a brief moment where she’d felt little more than pity for him, though not so much pity she wasn’t poised to take advantage of his good nature. But as time passed and as she changed, she found comfort in his eccentricities. He was, in a way, as unfamiliar with the world as she was. Their circumstances differed greatly, sure, but what one of them lacked the other could easily cover and vice versa. He stood by her when hardly anyone else thought she deserved it, and for that she couldn’t thank him enough.

Shoji, in spite of the bumps in the road that was their friendship, is worth it. Of everyone, she never expected to become genuinely friendly with someone like Shoji. He was nothing at all like the company she normally kept, though in most cases that’s a good thing, just as it was in Shoji’s. Though they couldn’t be more outwardly different, being able to talk to someone who seemed to at least kind of understand her plight was… refreshing. Past their shared troubles, though, he never failed to extend his understanding to her. Even if they didn’t see eye-to-eye, he’d talk to her like he wanted to understand her. Regardless of whether or not he succeeded, his desire to do so alone was comforting. She hopes, at least, their chats gave him similar solace.

And in front of all of them, threatening to tear everything they’ve worked for away, is Alou. Alou, who had so carefully danced around her in conversation, when she was still Nori and he was still just Alou. Alou, who had so thoroughly met her expectations as a liar and yet made her sick to watch. Alou, who she’d just barely begun to soften up towards.

In her grief-stricken state, she’d thought his words to be kind. Gentle, even. Like there was some sort of respite to be offered, even from someone like him. But she sees now that it was little more than a ploy. She’s almost certain, seeing what he truly is, that he simply wanted to dissect her further, get closer to the roots of her misery. Not to help, of course. No, she’s sure he just wanted entertainment.

That’s all they ever wanted.

He really is, she thinks, just like them.

“You told— told me… before… that I should be ‘less interesting’, if I wanted you… to stop studying me. To stop— putting me… under a microscope. And I assume— now, that maybe… it was because you didn’t understand. You couldn’t… understand the things I’d been through, or… the things I’d felt.”

Her words are forced and her breath is labored. The pain is palpable on her tongue, but still she carries on.

“I… will make you understand what it feels like. To be human. To be me. I— will make you… know what it’s like… to be afraid.”

With what little strength she can muster, Miori reaches her one good arm up towards the tangle of threads. The one constant in her life, the one thing she’d always had, was music, and she’ll be damned if she lets anything get between her and her one steady stream of comfort.

She manages, even if just barely, to clumsily pluck a warm melody - ironically, one in the very same rhythm Alou had created when he’d idly tapped his fingers against the table, back before he had let his mask slip. Before she had done the same with hers. The same soft blue light that had spilled from her lips before now flows from her fingertips, trailing along the threads as she plays them just like she would a harp. Like a river, the light follows the strands towards Alou, and seemingly harmless droplets fall against his skin.

At first, it almost seems as if the beast is enraptured by the music. All struggles cease, and Alou’s eyes go wide as the harp begins to play.

… Something begins to sing in a ghastly choir with the melody, and you realize it’s the low keening of the beast.

Alou flinches away from some unseen strike, eyes squeezing tightly shut as it raises its arms to fend off phantom blows. Claws and tail gouge harmless scores into the walls of the catacombs as Alou lashes out at nothing, momentarily distracted from his true targets. His wings flap uselessly as he bucks and screams, trying uselessly to take flight.

The skin on its back continues to twitch and jump to unseen pains, and hours and hours of Miori’s painful, personal experiences bombard and disorient him. It's only when his tail sideswipes the loom does he blink in confusion, the twang of hundreds of strings ripping apart in one blow pulling him out of Miori's sensory hell.

Whether or not she does any real damage - real physical damage, that is - is inconsequential to her. Her goal is as selfless as it is selfish; though she does truly want to distract him, pull his attention away to allow others room to act, she wants just as much to make him hurt. She wants him to feel everything she’s had to feel, everything she’s had to endure, to get to where she is now. She wants somebody to really, truly understand the depth with which her torment runs.

And what better person, she thinks, than a man who was complicit in it all along?

Micah had been the main focus on Kamiya’s part, if only to ensure that they all made it out alive, but, it wasn’t like he was ignoring everything else that happened. As Miori suffered an injury that couldn’t be avoided his gaze focused on her arm, trying to think of a way that he could help in this case, but, at this time there wasn’t much he could do to mend her wounds, or, for that matter anyone else’s wounds. The only thing he could really do was focus on the battle ahead, right? They were all trying to survive in the end, and, at this point he was determined to make it work.

Which is why Kamiya took in a deep breath, determined to finally do something right, to finally put an end to all the torture they had went through, he wasn’t supposed to be there, right? But it was as he made clear many times, he might not have been meant in hell, or, for that matter did the right things in hell, but it didn't mean he had to stop trying, right? Everyone else was doing their best in this spot, working to make Alou finally falter, to cut the strings that strung them all along throughout their lives. To finally live their lives as they were meant to live. This caused him to close his eyes, he might not have been able to create a mixtape like before, but, he could certainly try something, right?

“--I am not gonna fuck up this time, ever since I’ve gotten here I’ve always… Thought I was gonna die, ya know? I accepted that shit, I was prepared to die fer good an’ never accomplish anythin’ with my life, an’ I was okay with that! ‘Cause I knew it was right….” A deep breath as Kamiya glared ahead, for once a determination he had never shown prior coming to light. “But look at me now? I’m only half the fuck-up ya are, ‘cause there’s a difference here. You’re so stuck in yer own goddamn head that you ain’t seein’ ya had a chance fer good shit in yer life, but, that ain’t the goddamn point, is it? I’ll show ya what everyone who’ve been there fer me did fer me an’ you’ll see that even if I fuck up, I’ll keep tryin’ fer the people I care about.”

Bringing his headphones up to cover his ears, the D.J. let the light in front of him take shape, it was akin to that which he worked with often, a D.J. booth where light seemed to erupt whenever a switch, or, for that matter anything was interacted with in this case. The booth in front of him was formed by the desire to do good, music was something he always knew, it was something he was proud of… And these positive forces were something that he’d use to fight this battle, even if he was scared, even if he wanted to run away, there were people who depended on all of them in this case.

As the tune played out, light seemed to erupt from every note erratically, each note amplified as his thoughts continued to fixate on the people around him, the people who made him into this hopeful person. Of course, most of the people there have a special place in his heart… But there were a few who came to mind as he continued to play his tune, focusing intently on the musical onslaught he was blasting out toward Alou, hard to really pin-point where it would hit, but, effective nonetheless in its own way.

Thoughts of Raoul, the man who had been there in his darkest hours, who had always had a smile on his face and positive things to say, a true friend who he would treasure forever. A man who he would gladly wear stupid party-city suits together with and laugh about their next future adventures, a man who he would always support, no matter how tough things got now.

Hibiki, the man who he viewed like a brother, the type of guy who Kamiya often tried to bring out of his shell… The man who even past all the pain his actions had brought, he still thought about him in their darkest moments.

Ruby had a spot in his mind too, someone who he had thought wanted nothing more than to harm him after his failures, decided to forgive, she was one of the people who called him a friend after what had happened, and that was a friendship he knew he’d treasure in the future.

Of course, images of Mirai and Minami were there, people who Kamiya knew he had hurt from his actions, who he knew likely would never believe in him again… But there was always a chance, right? Maybe through his actions he could do right in their eyes, just this once.

Then came Shoji, a man who constantly brightened his day whenever they got back to the greed lounge. Along with Wakako, someone who he had idolized as a streamer, only to think of her as a dear friend once he got to know her better.

Olwin always was an odd one to him, but an odd one who always looked out for him when it came down to it, a friend who he’d trust in the end… And even if he couldn’t say something nice about Hisashi, he could at least say his cruggs were sick? That was something positive to drive this, right?

Arisa.

Yukiko may have been someone who hurt him in the past, but they were never enemies, right? Even past all the hurt… There were positive moments he knew he shared with her, ones that he was certain even she would treasure deep down

Then came everyone else, it was hard to place exact moments for everyone… But he cared about them all deeply, to the point that the light intensified, focusing on the last person who came to mind, the one who had been there since the beginning… Of course, those thoughts were interrupted as he heard Miori’s own tune, a tune mixed in with the pain of her past, making Alou feel what she had felt all her life because of that… Noticing that pain caused him to take off his headphones, holding them out brightly to her with a smile.

“--C’mon, ya wanna play our songs together? Maybe we can remix yers int’a somethin’ a little brighter, yeah? I promised ya we’d get ya a brighter future, I think what’ll hurt this jackass more is knowin’ that past everythin’ yer still movin’ forward even past all the bullshit he’s thrown at’cha.”

By the time she hears her name, Miori is so focused on her own melody she can hardly register anything else. She’d love to say it’s simply because she’s distracting herself from the searing pain in her arm, but that’s not the whole truth. No, it’s far too easy to get lost in the pain of the past, and for far longer than she should, Miori does just that. For what little strength she has left, she forces as much hurt as she can into every string she plucks, and still it doesn’t feel like enough. Not until she hears Kamiya’s voice, and she’s pulled back out of her own head… and back into the reality where her arm’s been obliterated. The pain feels as though it hits her all at once all over again, and she lurches forward, fingers falling away from the threads. Still, she manages to turn her eyes to Kamiya. The one person who really, truly stuck by her, who loved her, through everything. Every mistake she made, every step she took towards a better her, every wall she ran herself into, he was there, and that’s enough to keep her going. She still has trouble wrapping her head around why he’d never left her behind after everything she’d put him through, but she’s learned by now questioning his resolve will get her nowhere. He’d made it clear from the start he’d stay by her side in spite of how hard she tried to push him away, and for that she couldn’t be more grateful. She smiles at him through the pain, and with a shaky hand reaches out to take the headphones he offers.

“I—… I’d like that. I… just— need some help. I don’t… think I can stand on— my own… for much longer.”

Obviously there was a lot Kamiya could say about Miori, she had lied to him from the beginning as Nori, and kept her true identity a secret, she had in fact stabbed Olwin in the past, a move that left a negative opinion in the minds of others, and she did also set up the trap which led to the death of Minami, Mirai, himself and herself in that case… But there was more past that, she was someone who always kept him on the right path, when he was scared or anxious of the situations she always was there for him, just as much as he was always there for her, offering a shoulder to lean on and a genuine connection, genuine understanding of the pain both of them felt in their pasts. Which is why he nodded to her, of course once she was done putting on the headphones, offering a shoulder to lean on once more like they always did for each other.

“--You don’t gotta ask that, okay? Ya know ya can count on me! Hasn’t gone too wrong fer us yet! Gyhahaha! Just hold on a lil’ longer an’ we’ll get outta here in one-piece, okay? Ya trust me on that, right?”

His positive energy shining, as he motioned ahead to Alou, preparing to continue his own song alongside Mio in their final battle, the one that’d start them off on a path to a brighter tomorrow, one they both would share together.

She laughs, but even a light chuckle draws a wince out of her. As concentrated as the agony is, it still manages to make everything a little more painful. Or a lot more painful. It varies. Hurt aside, she wraps her good arm around Kamiya’s shoulders and leans against him for support (a feat made much easier by the fact she’s returned to her actual height, thank god).

“I know— I don’t have to ask. … Force of habit. I’ll— I’ll be okay. Just… help cover— for me later, when I have… to come up with a whole new identity for— for the hospital staff, okay?”

“--Iron Giselle’s a pretty good name? Could probably roll with that?”

“… If I was a really shitty superhero, maybe. We— we can… workshop it. Later.”

A laugh followed from them both, as their song of hope began. Unable to make use of her good arm any longer, Miori begins to sing the same tune she’d been plucking earlier. This time, though, it’s different - the notes are brighter, bouncier, and her voice, however weak it may be, is warm. Hopeful. Like she has days worth looking forward to. Kamiya continued his own song, the joy and whimsy of his own tune, the melody mixing together as the lights of both of their songs danced around. Where Miori’s song may have been a river, this was a wave, as the glowing blue and gold notes seemed to surround Alou, a constant wave of song bashing against him. Where Kamiya’s notes were erratic, hard to predict, they were more in tune with Miori’s own song, flowing and bright, focused on one common goal as the two continued to play their song.

A brighter tomorrow was possible, and this song was both Kamiya and Miori’s way to make it clear, not only for themselves, but for everyone there. The friends they made along the way, those who wished nothing more than the worst for them, and even for the one who had cast them into the depths of hell, that even through the misfortune, they would all continue to step forward.

#mm trial #kamiya #nori

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hellmouth-manor · 3 months

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we'll make it beautiful || arisa || finale

So, this was it, then? A finale fit for some children’s show filled with singing animals and bright skies. It wasn’t something that notched itself inside of Arisa’s worldview, felt more like a made-up bunch of nonsense than something you could see happen with your own eyes. But, well, lots of things had happened recently that she didn’t think could, haven’t they? It takes just a brief look around at the people near her and those working to protect or attack off in the distance.

A briar rose growing in the mess of foliage in an overgrown garden has to fight to survive. It has to push the other sprouts beneath it and reach for ever-higher heights. There’s only so much sunlight in the dense brush of humanity, and there’s only so much water to go around. If you’re not willing to grow taller, use your leaves to block the sun from reaching those under you and soak up even more of the precious rays, then you’re going to die. Plain and simple.

As the stem of the rose grows taller still, it becomes an enticing prize for anyone brave enough to attempt to cross the overgrown garden. Its petals are soft, blushing things, and the morning dew shines on its surface. Wandering hands that seek to abuse it, take it for their own, instead flinch away with red blooms pouring forth from supple skin. The rust-colored flecks that then stain the sharp thorns of the flower are a warning to all who approach and a testament to this briar’s fixation on survival.

But even wild roses can be cultivated, in a way, among like-minded wildflowers.

The people here who she cares for are messy, uncultivated things that no flower shop or botanical garden would welcome inside.

To her, they’re beautiful.

Ruby and her ability to find her own path, no matter how many wrong turns she might take along the way. The woman’s never going to be a pro-baker, and she’s certainly never going to be a villainess on a reality TV show, but she’s Ruby, and that’s enough. More than enough.

Yukiko and her endless verve and grit. Someone who can go about their life without a hint of apology on their lips all while enjoying the innate excitement that comes with the underbelly of the world–that’s the kind of person Arisa can’t help but admire. It’s not every day that she meets someone who gives her a run for her gossiping money.

Minami and her familiar pride and unending tenacity. Arisa never felt she could meet someone as bullheaded as her, but stranger things have happened in the world, and this is a phenomena that she’s happy to bear witness to. If anything, Minami makes Arisa wonder if those high school cliques ever had any meat to their purpose–a cheap beer MILF and a tequila girlie made it work, after all.

Eli and his goodness. He is precisely the kind of person who Arisa never allows herself to get very near to, knowing full well that she will cause his life to crumble in her hands, even if she doesn’t want it to, but, with his understanding of monsters and brightness, she thinks he may be the first “good” person to be able to survive. He’s lasted this long through this much, hasn’t he?

Olwin and his charm. Thinking back to the first day in the manor and the little game they proposed to pass the time made Arisa reel a bit. They were simpler times, but being around Olwin is a simple thing. Spending time with someone you’ve come to see as family has always been the simplest thing for Arisa, whether it be during sleep-deprived moments in the kitchen or gossip sessions at the jazz lounge. It’ll continue to be simple for as long as he’ll let her enjoy it.

Hisashi and his understanding. “Understanding” and “Hisashi” may not seem to go together upon first glance, but from the moment they shared that first glass of boxed wine over empty promises to definitely get coffee after the party, she’d felt a sort of kinship with him. It was an understanding initially consisting only of “I won’t tell if you won’t tell” that morphed into what people like them might be able to call empathy. Now, between stammered words on her bedroom floor and gentle embraces unbefitting people like them, she’s not sure what she would call what’s between them. Maybe the most fitting name for it is “something new.”

To Arisa, they’re worth fighting for–worth bearing thorns in defense of another, not of herself.

The sound of snapping that accompanies the string that had been making its way around her ankle breaks her from her thoughts, and her head whips down to see it falling to the ground as the wing from Alou drops under Hisashi and Olwin’s assault. From the battering he’s taken from the others and Ruby holding him down, Arisa figures that he’s not going much of anywhere, which means…

She will never claim to be a smart woman, just like she will never claim to be a good woman. However, there are a few things that come to her as naturally as breathing. Her eyes trace strings that hang taut still in the air, and she follows them up and up and up, creeping closer towards the beast that the already-beastly man has turned into. Trajectories (though she doesn’t know that word) form in her mind, and she slips her jacket off, letting it tumble to the ground.

[♫♫♫]

A thin strand glints in the light from one of the sparkles given to the group by Raoul, and she can chart a path right up to Alou’s newly-created blind side–well, maybe not blind, but he certainly can’t be doing good, can he?–courtesy of Eli.

Backing up several yards, she then takes off into a sprint. Before her, a springboard materializes, and she takes the leap, bounding off of it and feeling her fingers wrap around the first “step” of her journey upwards.

Her body moves what appears to be effortlessly. She swings back and forth on the initial string. This wasn’t so different from the uneven bars, you know. She’d always felt like they were her strongest event next to the floor routine. Call it a god complex thing, but feeling herself twirl and twist her body in incredible ways above anyone else in the arena was a sort of thrill that she’ll always chase, even now.

Arisa gains more and more momentum as she goes back and forth, back and forth until she lets go at the zenith and her fingers curl once again around the next strand.

She doesn’t need magic or hope or soul energy to make the trek upwards. She’s always had that in her, so, well, maybe it’s less her soul’s magic and more…that magic has already seeped into her very bones and marrow, every flex of every muscle. It’s worked side by side with her for her entire life to get her exactly where she is at this moment. It wasn’t there with her for the time within the manor, but it’s flexing, expanding, contracting with the new bits of her she’s collected throughout the show.

Reaching her destination, she continues to hang suspended in the air, conscious to keep her momentum going even as she has no more clear path forward. She knew where she wanted to end up, but, now that she’s made it here, she assesses the best approach. Bound and beaten as Alou is, it doesn’t take long for Arisa to find exactly what she’s interested in.

It figures, you know, that at the core of Alou there would be a conscience resembling prey. Looking at the beast in front of them, you might mistake it for the apex predator here, but that’s just not correct. This food chain in the manor is filled with vicious things–no, people–that will tear you limb from limb and relish in the snap of tendon and crunch of gristle between their teeth. Arisa is no different.

Her jaw is honed from years of holding the necks of pathetic, sniveling people between her fangs and inserting her incisors just enough that they start to beg for any chance at all to escape, pleading with her and offering anything they can think to get away with their lives. She knows what it means to hold a heart in your hands and knows even more what it feels like to have it there because your own hand ripped it out. She knows weak points and vitals where a hit means a loss. She knows how to make an injury hurt so much you wish it had killed you instead.

With a final swing, she aims for her target: one of Alou’s many limbs. In her now-free hands, cat claw weapons form, and her fists curl around them. She lands true and digs the spokes into his limb as she slides down towards the ground along his fur. The incisions aren’t the deepest or most egregious injury he’s weathered thus far, but they were never meant to be.

The burning comes from the inside, hot and stabbing. The pain of the lacerations is nothing compared to the sting of the toxins that coat her weapons.

A fleeting thought is given to a conversation from so long ago about love and pride and how god-like he must feel, knowing he thinks he can love a toxic, rotten thing like her. It had felt impossible then for anyone to do such a thing and mean it, to live to tell the tale. Now, though, it feels less like an impossibility and more of a distant future. Maybe it’s just wishful thinking on her end, but, some place and some time, maybe she will be loved by the people she knows she cares about.

Maybe she can learn to love them, too.

She’s heard people can build up an immunity to poisons–didn’t Yukiko already prove that she could do such a thing?–so doesn’t it only make sense that the poison sludge inside of her could be resisted, too? Doesn’t it only make sense that there may be no need to fear her self being a death sentence?

If she was truly so terrible, wouldn’t her soul have hurt to hold? And yet, it was carried back to her, held in the hands of another who still stands.

Her feet plant firmly on the ground, and she rips the claws free from the lavender limb in front of her. The hand–talon–thing of the limb she just rode down sits so tantalizingly close…and when has she ever been one to turn down indulgences, sinful as they may be? Besides, does it really count when it’s against something like him?

Raising her right foot, she stomps down hard, digging her heel into the space between the joints of its digits. With a sick grin on her face, she relishes the give of flesh and shifting of bone. What was it that the design notes said? 1600-2200 PSI? She didn’t know how much a PSI was, but she doubted she needed a demon form to make it feel like that–just enough ego to make it count.

Perhaps it’s meant to be an insult, the way she only lightly jogs away from him once all that she has to offer is said and done, but, truthfully, he doesn’t occupy enough space in her mind for the idea to occur to her now that her rage is vented, and she knows that there’s nothing more she can do.

No, the space the Game Master occupied can instead be used to house cheers of encouragement for the people around her–the people she adores, the ones she may one day even be able to say she loves.

Arisa Oshiro has always known how to survive. Now, gazing at the future in front of her, she looks forward to learning how to live.

#mm trial #heather

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hellmouth-manor · 3 months

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turning saints into the sea | cu | final

Cu can’t help but laugh, a clear and unfettered sound. Everyone here is a fucking idiot - but he guesses that makes him one, too.

His foolish dream of leaving alive - all of them making it out worse for the wear but in one piece. He absentmindedly wipes his thumb off as he looks around, spotting vindication and exuberance. The tides have turned. They have a fighting chance. They have the means to leave…

The wry, soft smile on Cu’s face quickly fades away before anyone can notice it. Sticking his hands in his pockets, he tips his head down.

They can escape because so many of them came together, grasping at each other in bonds of family and friendship. Isn’t that what their escape is about - joy and hope and virtue? Things Cu doesn’t feel in this moment, standing in his own silence.

Maybe it’d be better to stay behind. Cu’s never been one of them, so focused on separating himself that he didn’t realize the chasm until it was just Alou on his side. His fault, entirely. For the briefest of moments, he thinks of stepping back. Of turning away from this final fight, throwing his lot in with Alou once and for all. Those who are part of a Game Master’s crowning game will enjoy privileges granted to them by their new director.

Cu’s only ever wanted to know where he stood.

As he looks on over the group desperately patching Micah’s body together, he thinks, maybe that’s why he was so harsh on the man. Who, despite what Cu considered pathetic, knew who he was. Knew how to derive his silly little joys from an otherwise bleak life.

Being in Hellmouth Manor, Cu’s had to reckon with the hollowness inside. Without the pressure of his parents, he’s just scrambling to catch up and stand next to everyone else. The weight of legacy, being the sum of everyone else’s parts and never his own. Between the training and the studying though, his friends eked out time to let him be… just their friend.

And his friend… Cu picks Shoji out of the crowd.

Who are you going to contact first when we get out of here? Cu asked the other. Chattering like they would get out, and Cu would go straight to collapse in his brother’s arms, with Shoji a phone call away. Some brighter future where he can have the easy acceptance Shoji’s been showing Cu since day one. That’s probably enough - his brother’s love, Shoji’s trust, and leaving behind his reflection in Alou.

Forgiveness isn’t acceptance.

Cu has always let pain roll over him. Written the agonies of neglect into his past and used them as brutal reminders to push forward, find a spot in the light where all eyes would be on him. This hurt - Alou’s betrayal - is breathed out and razor-sharp determination breathed in. He won’t die here. He refuses to die here, because isn’t that what it is? Death is stagnancy, to cease and never start again.

And it seems like his sentiment is echoed all the way down.

Though Cu’s kept himself separate, preferring to hide away out of self-preservation, he’s been front-row to the change everyone’s experienced. The moment the mask washed away, their worst flaws on display like hermit crabs in low tide. And yet, everyone here found someone to stand by, to see and be seen.

And despite his isolation, even he had people willing to know him. Not just here, in Alou’s puppet show, but in the world beyond. Cu has been serving himself up part and parcel for those people, the friends he races through competitions with, his brother who always had an open door for him.

He thinks, foolishly, on a lyrical line: hope is the thing with feathers. Cu raises a hand, and resolves - hope is something I’ll stab you with.

Light glimmers, fractures, and forms itself in a volley of gleaming blades. In Cu’s hand is the familiar shape of a fencing foil. He pauses. Breathes. In any other circumstance, he’d settle in a perfect ready stance, the way he’s always fenced. Precision and no wasted movement. But if there was any time for a stupid flourish, it’d be here. With these idiots, who Cu is, against all his best attempts, so terribly fond of. Some more than others, granted.

He twirls the foil and bows, sweeping from one stance into another. A replication of the time he fenced with Alou, an echo of his brother.

“En garde!”

Cu raises the foil, and every floating blade beside him levels with it. In a fencing match, one would wait for the referee’s call. But there’s no one here who can make the call except him. Maybe that’s what it means to be a person.

“Prêts!”

Muscles coil. The light besides him seems to sharpen, humming dangerously in the air. Cu exhales as his foot shifts, weight off his heel. He’s going to get out of here. He, and Shoji, and everyone else whose lives have been on hold ever since that invitation letter.

“Allez!”

He executes a simple lunge, and the blades of light whip through the air. They needle into Alou, enough to stagger the demon slightly. The wounds are shallow but many, scoring numerous wounds and shredding fur and flesh. Where a sword impacts Alou, piercing right through, the light remains. Every movement impeded by fractals.

Cu grins, reckless and wild.

“Sorry, Alou. But you’re not that important to me.”

#mm trial #cu

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hellmouth-manor · 3 months

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The Ropes have been Unbound || Miranda || Final

“Thanks, both of you.”

She nods to Raoul and Minami. Though she still has to get used to being back in her old body again, now with one less eye, she still has something to accomplish. Miranda pushes herself away from Micah’s body once she’s satisfied their work is done. She stands in front of their captor, proud and firm despite her still bleeding wound.

Eleven years she’s denied herself any attack out of fear of the monster inside her. But her soul is back in her, and the rage she’s been shoving aside can no longer be ignored.

He killed her best friend. He’s responsible for all of them being here.

He is not responsible for what she is, no matter what he says. Nor is he, really, responsible for what she became here.

She came to him for advice, of course, but her own heart led her here. Now she just has to open it up to others, and open it to him, and they’ll be home.

♪♪♪

The funniest part is that she can find a good memory with anyone, even the people she doesn’t really like, if she can just dig around. She holds her soul out in front of her, the feral beast that it is already itching for a fight.

Even as much as she’s not a “forgive and forget” person, she’s still extended plenty of patience towards Yukiko. The stuff with “Cassandra” was fake, but the duets are real. The times at the Christmas party are real. The shared moments in their nightmare room are real. They’re both less bitter, they’re both happier, they’re both...changed. They’ll be different from now on. It’s like Yukiko said: they’re going to burn this place to the ground.

She never got along well with Arisa, but she can still find memories of making drinks with her, of gossiping about stupid stuff before everything went down, of dancing together, and dealing with the fact that the world kept kicking them while they were down. There’s something she relates to there, and she thinks that at the very least it counts as a virtue that she kept trying to relate with her. She’s happy that they’ve both found whatever will make them happy, and that definitely counts.

Exploring the dungeons with Nike, even when that meant having to pull them out of a trap. Why did they all keep stepping in traps? The fact that the first time they sat down when Nike stopped being Nikephoras, they told her they wanted to punch a demon, and Miranda got to witness that actually happening. It’s so cool. She thinks he’s so cool. Nike poking at her bad eating habits and talking about their sports.

That first night, months ago, with Hibiki, quietly talking almost-honestly in a way she knows was rare for them both, at least back then. The anger of ‘why us’ and the fear of just wanting to go home, and the fear and comfort the night sky brought them. That first slightest drop of her mask as she let the smallest amount of weakness peak through without a fear that it would be used against her.

There’s Cu with the Sloth alliance. His determination and the good times the three of them could spend when they weren’t be bothered by trials and murder. They had fun on Micah’s shoulders, and he was still their Mothman, freak tendencies or not.

Making pancakes for her and Kamiya while they talked about their family – the people who actually did care about them even in the face of plenty of people who didn’t. Riding the rollercoaster and hanging around in the mall and then, somehow, stealing their souls back like real actual heroes.

Touji handing her that dropout notice without a care in the world, not even bothering to snoop on one of the worst decisions she made (or the best, maybe? Would she have still ended up here if not for that?) Him giving her tips in baseball until she could knock a home run, the fun they had in the club. She still has that picture from the rollercoaster, even if he looks waaaay better than she does. It was nice to pretend to be normal, wasn’t it?

Two truths and a lie with Eli, talking about how they wanted to be perceived, about how they wanted to survive. And now, despite her fears for him, he’s managed to survive this absolute cesspool. He’s carried so much strength in him that she never even realized he had.

Raoul’s speech about choosing to be kind, and the way that effected her and how she is now, how even a monster still had to find room for kindness. The time spent in the mall and in their little demon lounge, and how he has, despite his tendency to hideous suits, become something of an inspiration for her in how strong his heart has stayed through it all.

Maybe the most objectively virtuous moment was saving Olwin’s life. Pushing past her fears to stitch and unstitch, trying to act like neither was a huge deal and failing to completely swallow her pride in front of him. Cheering him on in karaoke while they figured out what they were going to do after the show – they aren’t going to have to take jobs with demons, thank god. They get to have their own lives now.

Her and Hisashi both exchanging their fun little tragic prizes and the conversations that came with them. Trying to ask him questions she figured nobody else had asked – trying to give him the space to not be treated like a spectacle and instead just as much a victim of fucked up circumstances as she is. Admitting emotions she wasn’t used to admitting or feeling, letting herself be just a bit more vulnerable than she ever had been at that point. Really, somehow, she’s still ended up letting him see more than most people here, probably because she just couldn’t help but relate to him since the start. But they’ve done it. That void is gone, or at least smaller, and they’ve filled it up with fucked up but wonderful people (and good choreography).

Quiet chats late at night or early in the morning with Mirai, almost too peaceful for as awful as this hellhole is. She’s been rooting for Mirai since day one, always trying to be supportive of her whether it’s something as small as a dodgeball game or as grand as insisting she was a much more powerful bird than a chicken. Their agreement to be friends as they slowly gathered more and more – it’s hard to believe either of them was ever friendless. She hopes Mirai can see that flower field – she’ll have to bring her some flowers sometime.

Those chats with Minami – maybe it should count as a virtue for Minami’s sake that the other woman managed to get her to eat something in that kitchen besides a depression meal of chips and dip. But beyond that, Minami was one of the first people to try and coax her into being herself. No more suppressing the sad or ugly parts – just let them drift like cigarette smoke up the vents (and god, she was done smoking cigs after this. That couldn’t fill the void either). No more hiding her fears because she needed to be strong and perfect to take care of others – she knows now that she can rely on people and be relied on.

Ruby might be the most surprising of all of her friendships. Not because it doesn’t make sense, but because it happened so fast that she can’t quite tell where it started. Miranda had exchanged a gentle hand to her what feels like ages ago, when the other girl was spiraling. It wasn’t pure selflessness, she knows. It was because she related to her – playing to a crowd, putting on a mask, thinking people wouldn’t like you if they saw the real you. And they were both so wrong it makes her eyes well up. She stayed by her side through a fear motive and a murder, and she promised her she’d be there whenever she needed her. They had wondered why the people running this game would do this. Miranda threw out the idea that they were lonely, but they both knew they’d never get a real answer unless they could talk to the mastermind. While not true at the time, it seems real now. Alou would never have a friend like Ruby, not anymore.

Poppy doesn’t make sense on paper. The two of them, other than a love of birdwatching, couldn’t be more different. She used to be scared of them, almost. Thought Alou could do better than this strange monster who threatened and growled so easily. Stupid. There’s a lesson learned: never judge a book by its cover. Poppy is actually kind and smart and looks out for their loved ones. They pushed her to forgive herself for her greatest sins and to focus on the here and now. The present that mattered and the people their sins led them to meet. They kept plenty of drinks ready to go and they took her birdwatching and they play games with her and they saved her life literally minutes ago. And she’d have done the same, in a heartbeat. Poppy had seemed so determined to stay in Hell...but she’s going to make sure they walk out of here. She’s going to make sure they’re happy, no matter how long that takes. They’ll both find better in life than being useful.

Wakako had been someone she bonded with from day one, despite her hesitance. When Alou had killed her, Miranda had freaked out, felt too scared that she would never be a good friend. She thought Wakako was better off without her. But that wasn’t true, and the other woman had practically dragged her into friendship. One of her first friends here. It baffled Miranda at the time that someone would know how awful she is and still want to stay, but she can’t regret it. All of their times together, talking about how hopeless the world could feel and all the dreams they had anyway. They’re going to find their own spot of happiness in the world, and they won’t let anyone make them feel pointless again.

She had been so suspicious of Miori for reasons that were objectively justified. She had been playing them all, hadn’t she? But somehow when she dropped the mask, Miranda had bonded with her more than ever. Maybe once there’s no more masks, it’s just easier to trust each other. She liked to think that as much as Miori was a fucking refuge of normalcy for her, Miranda could be the same for her. They had their little book club and their little chats by the pool and teasing each other about their feelings. And then, despite a literal murder, Miranda had stayed by her side and believed in her even when Miori refused to believe in herself. She always prided herself on the ability to cut people out of her life as soon as they were too much trouble. But Miori is her friend, and no matter how bad they both are, Miranda knows now that there’s so much good in them and around them. They’re not the monsters they told themselves they were.

And then, of course, there’s her very first friend here. Before he’s anything else, Shoji is her best friend. He’s the kindest person here, too kind. He coaxed her into letting her walls down and opening herself to more friendships. It’s pretty clear he succeeded. Even when she didn’t believe in herself, he did. They stayed strong together through it all. She patched him up through bruises and tears, held his hand whenever he was afraid. Cooked things he loved and things he didn’t, just to see him smile. Let herself be selfish and allowed herself to be loved by someone as good as him without the fear that how awful she was would scare him away. As easy as it would have been to think they’d never get out of here, she held onto that small little hope, just for him. He’s always been the brightest light in the middle of Hell. And she’s going to flower in that sunshine as long as he’ll let her.

With every thought, a glowing and thorny vine slithers down from her soul, spreading around at her feet. Each vine wraps around another, over and over again, reaching up in tangled knots until they form a shape twice her size.

She had been so scared of wolves for half her life, but now she simply smirks at the form her soul has taken. Yeah, this might as well be what that growling creature would choose. It couldn’t be a bird like she’d want it to be, huh? That’s fine. Wolves are loyal, and strong, and powerful. They look out for their pack. She’s accepted she’s a monster and she’s accepted that the fangs are a part of her. They just have to be put to good use.

“Just one more thing, girl.”

She turns to the beast now lassoed onto the floor.

She had tried to understand him the best she could. They had poured as much as they could towards each other – she trusted him with her fears and her hopes alike. He had given her so much wonderful advice that she tried to take to heart. He had also given her advice that, in hindsight, was always going to lead up to all of this. Before his reveal, she’d have valued his happiness as much as anyone else’s here.

Now?

Now their time together is nothing more than the dahlias blooming along the thorns, petals falling off as she gives a signal for her to attack.

The wolf charges at the tangled man, grabbing at the tail sticking out. She pulls firmly, claws digging into the floor as she does her best to yank it off – it’s easier when he can’t wiggle free. Slowly but surely it starts to tear off. It’s probably painful, but Miranda doesn’t have it in her to wince. With all of the wolf’s might and with a shake of her head it goes flying off to a corner of the room.

Satisfied, she comes trailing back to her owner, tail wagging. Miranda pets her head, before finding a safe place to lean and bleed.

“Nice work, team.”

#mm trial #miranda

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hellmouth-manor · 3 months

Text

By My Power || Eli & Raoul || FINAL

Eli is a very careful person; historically, he aptly avoids putting himself in harm's way, despite finding himself in the blast radius of calamity quite often. In fact, for the duration of their stay in the manor, he's somehow avoided injury altogether up until this point.

His mental reflexes tell him that the white hot searing is anything else. Denial, however, is no match against the reality of warmth– no, blood– fighting to drip past the claws in his chest. It digs past every mental defense, aggressively and urgently reminding him that this is pain; that there is no beauty or purpose in it. It is simple in its demand for action, forcing Eli to move frantically, jaggedly away from Micah; simple in how it drills past every excuse and attempt to repress, digging further than any psychological torment could. It digs, and digs, until it finds purchase around something long forgotten, left behind in a cold and worn down Michigan apartment.

Something that Hell itself, with all its torture, couldn't drag out of him until now.

“Do– do you… have any idea…”

He moves his arms, slowly, numbly, to wrap his hands around the digits of the wing. And, before his knees can buckle…

“HOW EXPENSIVE THIS TATTOO WAS?”

He rips it in two.

“YOU BOORISH MOTHERFUCKER?”

Along with any remaining veneer of restraint.

The sound of Eli’s sudden outburst is the thing that snaps Raoul to attention— Raoul, who struggled to adequately communicate just how much he hated being trapped in the form of a demon, suddenly thrust back into the body he entered the manor with and finding himself thrown off-kilter up til now by the lack of a tail, the absence of weight from two horns tipping his head back, the softness of his fingertips against his palms with no talons to pierce.

But even when he was at his lowest, there were still people who saw past the fanged smile he kept on his face and stretched their hands out to him. A lesson on internet slang here, a bodacious Build-A-Bear there, an offer to talk things over or do something to distract, so many people who scarcely even knew him but wanted to see him well regardless. It’s meant the world to him, more than he could ever express, even as someone who has never shied away from expressing how much he cares.

He dared not intervene with those tending to Micah, entrusting them with the task of saving him. He’ll pay his debt to the man later. But perhaps now he’ll be able to repay another favor to someone who has, for a while now, been far beyond anything he could possibly do to help.

“-- AND YOU WILL RECEIVE IT, RIGHT IN YOUR FUuuuc–”

A hand on Eli’s shoulder causes him to freeze, pulled abruptly from the throes of blinding rage. He realizes that his arms are glowing again, and the energy accumulating in his hands is taking the form of a familiar weapon. But more than that, he realizes that Raoul isn’t stopping him.

“Would you care for an assist, my friend? Because I daresay I shall be able to offer you something far more substantial than a mere arm…”

Raoul’s soul has returned to him, but instead of manifesting in his hands or some other appendage, it seems to have melded into his suit, each individual sparkle reflecting brighter and brighter off of each other. It glows with a vengeance, until light breaks through each and every heart on it, beaming outwards like a disco ball— and from within, a flurry of sparkles emerges, dazzling as they rush to gather around Eli and the weapon in his hands.

“Hah– thank you. I believe I will need it.”

There’s still rage, of course. There’s still the claws, hanging limply from his chest, and all the ire that such a sensation inspires. But now it has a direction. The energy in his hands forms a bow, glittering and radiating as it seems to almost nudge him forward.

He knows now, more than ever, watching the others, that violence can be an expression of love.

[♪♪♪]

While Hisashi may have said it flippantly, Eli took such a notion to heart, as he does with most things Hisashi says. A beacon of wisdom, he’s decided; a lighthouse, a signal of what to avoid, yet illuminating the darker parts of life that Eli was content to ignore.

One arrow forms, and Eli pulls the bowstring taut. Then another arrow forms, and another still. Three arrows, poised and ready to strike.

The first is for Micah. It surges with a righteous anger, a vigilance that seeks to sever any remaining threads between him and Alou. Micah is his own, and his sacrifice– their efforts to save him– none of that will be wasted today.

(One foot in front of the other.)

The second is for Mirai. A sister, someone who always brought him home, who watched over him even when her own circumstances were similarly dire. The least he could do is save her from one more scrape.

(It almost doesn’t hurt anymore.)

The third is for Minami, pushing him aside to take a punishment that should have been for him. It’s for Hibiki, trying in vain to scream sense through his skull. It’s for Kamiya, who died trying to save him. It’s for Miori, whose sorrow he could never pierce despite his best efforts. It’s for Poppy, whose death he failed to handle with care. It’s for Arisa, who selflessly stayed in his lounge to keep him company after the worst day of his life. It’s for every person who had to guide him through bloody crime scene after bloody crime scene.

This final arrow is redemption for every time he’s burdened those around him with inaction. Yes, this arrow is for Eli Nassar, who did NOT die, despite all odds, thanks to the efforts of those around him.

And he has no intention of missing the shot.

He aims, briefly stunned as he notices that he is looking down at Alou.

(He doesn’t realize that his feet have left the ground.)

But the shock dulls against the flame of purpose, as a smile quirks at the corner of his mouth.

“... You did say that you would trust me at the lever.”

As soon as he releases the bowstring, all three arrows fly with supernatural precision toward their targets, blinding Alou's left side. There’s a persistent shimmer that obfuscates the impact, serving more to irritate than anything.

The bow vanishes from Eli's hands, and he finds himself descending with surprising gentleness.

As Eli returns to the ground, Raoul turns towards everyone else with a smile on his face that radiates everything he’s done his best to embody during his time here. Kindness. Understanding. Empathy. Support. Belief that there’s goodness in every single person here, some part of them that proves they deserve to walk out of a hell that would chain them down with arbitrary sin.

And as he smiles, even more sparkles than before rush out of the hearts on his suit— that fucking eyesore of a suit he picked up from Party City but still loves so much— towards everyone else, showering them in dazzling warmth that shines bright as the stars, as the sun itself, but still somehow never hurts to look at.

It can’t hurt. That’s your light reflecting off of it, after all.

(What, did you really think glitter could shine all on its own?)

It’s invigoration of the soul itself, flooding you with energy, with hope, with the power to fight this towering enemy before you. The faith that you can go home— wherever home is for you, wherever you’ll find it if you don’t already know. It takes the strength you already have and amplifies it, light bouncing all around, multiplying into a near-blinding brightness within, empowering whatever you do next. And for those who have suffered injuries, you feel it gently siphon away the pain— not all of it, but enough for you to find your footing once again.

Raoul looks on, positively beaming. He’s never been a violent person. Even now, he can’t bring himself to raise a hand against Alou. But he knows what must be done, and he knows there’s no one else in the world better to trust with the task— no one better to lend his support to as they carry it out.

“Now, my dear friends, in the words of a wise man…”

He’s never believed in anyone more than he’s believed in you.

“Get his ass.”

#mm trial #elishama #raoul #submission

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hellmouth-manor · 3 months

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Don't Give Up || Minami/Kamiya/Ruby

All Minami had tried to do this entire game was protect people, really, and she had done a pretty terrible job at it. Her self-sacrificial efforts had culminated in her own death and left her nothing much to show for it apart from an even worse guilt complex than before. With this miraculous second chance, though, maybe she might finally succeed.

It's no surprise, given her tendencies, that she would turn away from Alou to try to help Micah. The shout comes from her, when she sees Alou attacking those who had the same idea-- she breaks into a run towards the group, her voice loud even without her Pride demon powers. Though she's too late to reach Miranda, Miori and Eli before they're hurt, she steps forward without a second thought, placing herself between the group and the demon attacking them before it can lash out at Mirai again. She still burns with guilt, both from failing in her murder and nearly attacking Mirai moments ago, but third time's the charm, as they say. Her arms are outstretched, Minami clearly intending to take whatever the next hit is herself, but--

It's not just her, not exactly. There's a great grinding noise and the wing not still stuck in Eli impacts not with Minami but with a massive slab of metal that's materialized seemingly out of nowhere. Several more follow, crunching into the ground to form a shield around Micah and those healing him. They burn hot, the exterior red and steaming as if just held over a forge. To those shielded behind them, though, the warmth is soothing. It feels like you're getting a hug. You feel protected, through whatever magic Minami has conjured up through her love-- after all, all along, her guilt has been borne of the massive, overbearing love she feels for everyone around her. Finally she's able to make use of it.

It soaks into Micah, too. Minami turns, bracketed by her shields, and grins.

"Ain't no time to be takin' a nap, man! We're allies in the tranches, after all! You can't just leave us hangin' here! ...Y'all got this, right? I believe in you."

Satisfied that everyone else will handle it, she turns back to make sure Alou doesn't pull any shit.

▒▒▒

When you live your life viewed as a failure there is always a time to do something right, and in this case? The first priority was to help save Micah. Kamiya was not smart in the least, and, for that matter, knew he wouldn’t be able to do much in this case… But as he watched as Alou lashed out at those who tried to help he hesitated, a moment of fear slipping through as he considered the risks of it all.

After all? It would be easy to turn and run away, cowardice was something he specialized in… But then again? Did Micah ever run away when they needed him? He looked out for all of them, tried his hardest to guarantee they’d all survive, even with the risk of his own life on the line… Micah was always someone Kamiya looked to as a normal figure in the manor, of course they were never the closest of friends, but, they had bonded in many different scenarios, and, Kamiya knew he wanted to ensure Micah could live his life, a life where he could go see Miku herself and take care of as many baby animals as he wanted.

That thought caused Kamiya to nod to himself, taking in a deep breath as he ran, not away this time, toward Micah in a desperate attempt to figure out something he could do to save him, his gaze glancing toward the spine that… Clearly was the main focus, he wasn’t really an expert at anything medical but… He could always try, right? Kneeling down beside him, Kamiya gently put his hand on the other's back, a bright grin growing as he decided to speak up.

“--Gyhahaha! Bro, if I got a back-bone outta this ya sure as fuck can do that too, right? Let’s get ya all figured out okay? Then you an’ me can look int’a gettin’ ya front row seats t’ see Miku or some shit, yeah?”

As he laughed, he closed his eyes, his hand glowing a gentle glow as Micah’s spine started to mend on its own, a hope for a better future for Micah, a better future for them all in that case. Kamiya wasn’t going to run away from an attempt to do right again, especially not when a friend to all of them had tried his hardest to ensure their escape. He would make sure that Micah made it out of there, a determined gaze as the glow intensified, growing more and more determined to do the right thing for Micah.

▒▒▒

Invigorated, but still heavy with worry, Ruby falls back to join the rest of the group attempting to save Micah’s life. They’ve made good progress, it seems, but she realizes quickly the cost that it came with. No doubt, Micah would question why they would all go to such lengths for him. Ruby would ask the same thing, herself, but it’s abundantly clear to her that Micah’s time is not finished. Not yet.

As Ruby kneels next to him, she hopes that he understands that she’s not doing this because of some karmic debt, or that any of them owe him after what he did. It is because she wants to, first and foremost. She does it because he deserves to live, just as any of them do. Because she wants to meet his family, just as he said she could, and see for herself if his descriptions live up to reality. She wants to sit on the ground, just like they promised, and feel the Sun for the first time in months.

She wants him to be happy.

“Hey, did you know? I was saving these especially for you. Just in case you ever needed them.”

Ruby grins as she pulls out a handful of the band-aids constantly kept on her person. One in particular is brandished like a Holy Grail, practically glowing between her thumb and index finger. Pastel blue, adorned with an image of a winking Cinnamoroll on its backing.

One by one, the band-aids are placed tenderly on top of freshly healed wounds, each one shimmering and pulsing with Ruby’s determination as they do the impossible and soothe marred flesh back to normal.

#mm trial #kamiya #mari #sapphire #submission

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hellmouth-manor · 3 months

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Beauty of Life || Miranda/Miori/Eli/Mirai feat: Alou

What do you do, when a friend, an enemy, a person, is turned into a demon, and then that demon turns into a monstrous goat version of itself? And then skewers your close friend-- the only one with a fighting chance against him? You've got numbers on your side, but how much does that help? Hope has been dangled and yanked from you like a carrot on a string for so long now, what can even be done?

[♪♪♪]

▒▒▒

The only thing that can be done. You keep going. Miranda’s whole philosophy long before she got here was that pushing forward in spite of all the odds is what matters the most.

She knows she has to deal with Alou, but that can wait. Nothing else matters right now besides making sure the man who sacrificed himself to save them all gets to come out with them. She rushes to Miacah and drops to her knees. Olwin had given her his soul, and now she holds it out to him, gently trying to coax it in through the hole in his chest. If they can defeat Alou with virtues, they can defeat death with virtues. Tenuous as that logic might be, what other option do they have? Leaving without Micah isn’t an option.

Micah Linne is the Bigfoot to her Flatwoods Monster and her Cinnamoroomfie and her best friend and a person who she trusts with even the worst parts of her. She’s looked out for him before. Smaller versions of this that she calls on in her own soul to reunite him with his. She’s eaten hashbrowns on the floor and talked about everything stupid just to take his mind off of the shithole that surrounded him, and she’s dragged him outside so he can get some sunshine on his face when he’s hiding away from the world, and she’s hyped him up every time he’s tried to drag himself down because she truly truly cares about him in a way she would never have believed all those months ago.

“You have to come back, Micah. I want my ugly sweater from your mom. I want to come visit you at Build-a-Bear. I want to hear more stories about all the wild shit you got up to. I want us to be annoyingly happy after all the fucking misery we’ve been through.”

Her voice cracks at the end there, but her hands stay as steady as a doctor’s would be. It’s working. Slowly but surely the soul is flowing into him the way it flowed through the rest of them. It’ll just take patience. Her focus has to stay on this.

▒▒▒

When she’d first arrived here, Miori had every intention of closing herself off, of building walls high enough to keep anyone and everyone away from her. It was every man for himself, she’d thought - why risk her own life for others when all anyone had ever done in return was hurt her? Her loyalties had lied solely with herself, and she was happy that way - or, rather, she was comfortable that way. She was content, at least, in her cocoon of selfishness and misery.

But there were people who, in spite of everything, chipped away at that cocoon. Some did so with force - they tore her away from the thing she’d believed had kept her so safe. Others unraveled it gently. Others like Micah.

She can’t pinpoint when it was she’d begun to care so deeply for him. Perhaps it was a simple culmination of little moments, small actions and choices of words that called to mind a brother she’d lost nearly a lifetime ago. People who treated her normally were few and far between, especially after all of her missteps, but Micah had stuck by her throughout them all. He’d poked fun at her (very middle-school, as he’d described it) crush on Kamiya, and he’d talked to her about Love Live, and he’d shown her pictures of himself and his mother, and he’d danced with her during karaoke, and he’d played carnival games with her, and he’d forgiven her when she had done her worst. And despite every attempt she made to push him away, he’d stayed.

So she stays, too, even when she knows it’s risky. Even when she knows it’s dangerous. Even when she knows she’s putting her life on the line to do so, because her loyalties lie elsewhere now.

Like a songbird free of its cage, Miori sings a gentle song, soft blue light pouring from her lips and into her cupped hands. Before it can overflow, she pours it over Micah, and the light disappears into him as it patches his organs together.

▒▒▒

Eli isn't a fighter. He knows this. He's relieved, at least, that there are a few on their side. But he knows he'll get in the way if he tries to assist, and he's smart enough to know that talking Alou (or whatever is left of him) down will be futile. But others around him move, and he decides to follow.

[TW: VAGUE DESCRIPTION OF CIRCULATORY SYSTEM]

So he finds himself kneeling by Micah (or whatever is left of him), applying pressure to the wound in his chest. It's useless, he knows it is, and the feeling of blood soaking through his gloves is nearly enough to cause him to shudder out of his skin. But he swallows, and keeps his eyes elsewhere. Virtues... virtues... it's difficult to think of virtues, when he isn't sure he can even feel a heartbeat. He presses once, twice, just barely, as if to will a pulse into being. As if diligence and patience will cause Micah's heart to mend.

And it does.

[END TW]

There is a glow that shines, then fades, then shines again, as it runs down Eli's arms in slow, rolling waves. A light that invites, but doesn't demand, as it gently reassures you that hope is on your side. Patience and diligence will be rewarded.

His eyes turn from Miranda, to Miori, to… Alou, large and looming, but then, ultimately, his gaze comes home to Mirai.

▒▒▒

As always, Mirai is guided by another before taking action on her own, this time by Eli’s light and everyone’s efforts --- her priorities lie not with defeating Alou at the moment but undo what damage he has already deeply carved into Micah, her feet move on her own, her soul wants to return that which it has been given, she kneels by his side with the others and the light of hope burns brighter.

Feathers, rising from a burning purple fire that is her soul, gently envelop Micah when Mirai reaches for his wounds, burning with unconditional care and love, each leaving behind no mark but placing everything where it should be in his body; he will burn again, brighter and brighter.

He will burn with the strength and gentle love of everyone who’s ever cared for him, who’s ever loved anything about him, he will live, that is why Mirai knows, he will get up. He has to. Because everyone here is right there by his side.

▒▒▒

What can you do, when you’ve severed parts of yourself to become what you needed to? When even the people who you thought might understand turn against you? When you realize, once again, that the problem was never you, that it's those naive enough to fall victim to the delusion of h̵̥̆ô̸͍͜p̴̛̜̦ȩ̴͎̒?̴̥̕

His pride won't allow it. Poised, precise, surgical, even in this monstrous form, Alou sneers as he turns in the direction of his latest eyesore. His work, his craft, being revised by those too arrogant to understand what must be done. He has to make them understand. Really, it's for their own good.

With a flick of his ear, a sprawling wing flashes across the way, strings bared and ready to strike. First, they wrap tightly around Miori's left arm and hand and yank back hard. A horrible pop is followed up by a shrill scream, one that's soon joined by the sounds of bones cracking and contorting in ways they shouldn't. The threads cut into her skin, leaving her arm bloodied and limp and useless, and tears involuntarily roll down her cheeks. But she's no stranger to pain, in spite of the severity with which she faces it now, and so she continues to focus as much of her thoughts as she can on mending Micah's wounds.

Unsatisfied, another wing stretches out, reaching with sharp claws towards Miranda’s face. She barely registers them in her peripheral. Then there's a sudden darkness in half of her vision, and searing pain that wasn’t there before. She grits her teeth, resists the urge to scream, but her other eye wells up with tears as a reflex. Even so, she keeps her hands on Micah’s soul that’s slowly fading into him.

As if unbothered, the claws of the wing aim for a final target. It reaches to swipe, claw, tear flesh asunder, but before it can grip its target, Mirai is pushed aside. She doesn’t flinch despite it all, determined to see this to fruition, her hand doesn’t part from Micah.

Instead, Eli is hunched forward next to her, with one hand out and gripping her shoulder. His other hand twitches uselessly toward the claws planted firmly in his chest. They dig, and twist, and anchor, as if primed to extract his ribs in one piece.

His lesson unfinished thanks to Eli's intervention, Alou raises his wing again, but before he can continue:

"HEY! FUCK OFF!"

#mm trial #alou #elishama #mirai #miranda #nori #submission

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hellmouth-manor · 3 months

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Home is Where the Homicide is || Olwin & Hisashi || FINAL

The first thing that Hisashi notices should probably be the sudden lack of a bloody hole in his hand, or maybe the absence of the other myriad black wounds marking his body a moment ago, or maybe, at the very least, the loss of an entire tail. That would, you know, make sense. Especially that last bit, given he's had the thing for so long now.

But none of those things register first. Instead, it's the addition of... Warmth on his arms?

"Wh-- oh, come on. Seriously?"

Looking down at himself, whole and human, Hisashi runs his clawless hands over the pink sweater he's been shoved back into. Yeah, sure, there's a huge fucked up demon over there that’s about to try killing them (again), but those clothes were literally his, why did getting his soul back-- wait.

No longer concerned with his soul imposed modesty, Hisashi turns rapidly to look at the same man at his side that he always turns to sooner or later. And much to his own delight--

Hisashi looks up at Olwin.

"--you're tall!"

It's no secret that Hisashi struggles with the most base of positive human emotion. It's also no secret that despite this-- that despite himself-- he's been trying to figure it out. For the spare few he's met here and taken a genuine liking to, it's been one poor but earnest attempt at a helping hand or 'kind' word after another for this last handful of weeks.

And then, of course, there's Olwin.

For Olwin, it's been fumbled, awkward attempts at honesty. It's been the foreign sensation of anxiety and panic and the equally foreign calm of comfort that he's only just learned how to accept. It's been slow, and it's been terrifying, because Hisashi knows he'll probably get over it if he fucks it up with the rest of them, but not with Olwin.

But maybe-- maybe, somehow, in spite of every terrible, awful, irredeemable thing about him--

Maybe, just this once, Hisashi hasn't been giving himself enough credit.

With no time to spare for it, he's left unburdened by the ability to overthink, free of the self imposed caution and left to impulse. In the brief moment they're afforded before the fight continues, all Hisashi has time for is that lovely little burst of warmth in his chest that puts even a soul to shame.

Olwin may have a couple of inches on him again, but Hisashi still wins by a wide margin in terms of strength-- and Olwin only grows taller as Hisashi thoughtlessly grabs the other man in a tight enough hug to lift his feet off the ground and spin him around for good measure.

Later, Hisashi might be embarrassed to recall this. Or-- no, actually. Maybe he won't be.

Olwin, for his part, doesn’t have much time to think at all. Shooting up nearly a full foot in height is disorienting at best, and nearly nauseating at worst. He doesn’t want to think about how it feels to be run through a taffy puller, but if he had to guess—oh god, the room is spinning.

No, no, that’s just Hisashi spinning with him. Hang on—Hisashi? Spinning him? Hugging him?

“...huh?”

He blinks down at the dehorned, defanged, completely unassuming serial killer in a stupid pink sweater with all the grace of someone who has just woken up from a particularly nasty nightmare—lingering panic, dazed confusion, and an overwhelming sense of relief. But if Hisashi looks like that, then—

“I’m… tall?”

The second word finally clicks into place, and with it comes a headrush so strong that Olwin clings onto Hisashi just to make sure he isn’t going to tip over. Without really thinking about it, he ducks his head to bury it against the man’s shoulder to hide his face.

It isn’t really about the height of course. Mostly. It’s everything else that comes with it. Everything that he’d relied on for years as a constant in a stream of changing colors and accents and lies. Everything that he could count on to make him Olwin, beneath every disguise he’d pull on and take off. Everything that made him… well, himself.

It’s only now, spinning in a horribly cliche hug that would put most hallmark movies to shame, that it dawns on Olwin he hadn’t really needed that either. Had he? He hadn’t stopped being Olwin after it had been ripped away from him, after all.

He’d just stopped being afraid of it.

It took every horrible, encouraging word from Yukiko for him to realize he could be irredeemable and cherished. It took every disapproving glance from Raoul for him to learn how to temper that the way he wanted. It took every time Minami flattened him back out after he’d tried to fit himself whatever shape was needed for that message to start to get through. It took every time Arisa tried to push him away for his own good for him to realize he wanted to push back. It took every time Nike accepted him wherever he was at, even as he sunk to new lows, for him to realize that maybe when you love someone, fucking up (even as many times as he did) won’t take that away.

And, of course, more than anything else, it took Hisashi. Every time he’d shown concern for Olwin his own… unique way. Every time he’d been proud enough for Olwin to see it with his own two eyes. Every inch that Hisashi crept closer towards acknowledging the family Olwin had so desperately craved and been too afraid to ask for. It took all of that and more, for him to realize—

Olwin hasn’t ever really been himself. Not until now.

He figures he might as well start with gloating, and lifts his head with a loud, triumphant cackle amidst the chaos of the room.

“I’m tall! I’m fucking tall, bitch!!!”

Even after Olwin lifts his head, Hisashi doesn't quite release him completely. The hug turns into hands gripping Olwin's shoulders, roughly shaking him back and forth with an obnoxious cackle of his own.

"What missing inches, bitch!? Y-- what the hell?"

Hisashi cuts himself off, attention stolen by the... Uh... Well, the Spirit Sedan that just flew through the air. It's a bit hard to ignore. It's quick, but he manages to turn his head in time to see it strike its target just after the other attack already thrown Alou’s way.

Ah, right.

Eyes settled on Alou's monstrous form, Hisashi's lips spread into a wide smile. The wild look in his eyes as he threw the horn onto the table returns easily-- naturally-- to his expression, and it's made suddenly clear that it was never the fangs that made his grin so dangerously sharp.

He gives Olwin one final pat on the shoulder, his joyful demeanor from a second ago giving way to something far more-- well, to put it bluntly, homicidal.

"Aha! Hey, you're good to go now, yeah? I would hate to miss out."

“Oh, I’m good! I’m—”

Olwin pauses and holds up a finger.

“Hold that thought.”

♫♫♫

He glances back over his shoulder with a knowing grin, unsurprised to find his own eyes staring back at him.

A vaguely incorporeal reflection waits just over his shoulder, moving in time with him as he turns to face it. It flickers and shifts—a kaleidoscope of dark-light-red-brown hair and brown-blue-grey-green eyes all set over the same mischievous grin. The two stare at each other for a moment before it breaks character, taking a lazy step back from Olwin and opening its arms wide in invitation, head tilted back in a noiseless bark of laughter that Olwin gives voice to as he—

—drives his fist into the metaphorical mirror. It cracks. It splinters. It shatters. The flickering stops immediately, each shard now well-defined and frozen into a fragment of who he’s been in an ugly, mismatched chimera of broken lies. Olwin surveys his handiwork with a pleased look on his face, shaking out his hand, which is entirely uninjured.

One shard here is Enrico—this one has Calvin’s eyes—that must be Felix’s hair—ah, there’s Cedric’s grin. That’s a nice place to start. He plucks it from the frame and holds it out towards Hisashi with a similarly sharp gleam in his own eyes.

“Show him how it’s supposed to be done.”

Because if there’s one serial killer here Olwin thinks is better than the others, it’s going to be his bestie. Obviously.

Seeing the offered supply of makeshift knives, Hisashi's eyes light up in a way that is entirely out of place in the context of this moment. It's giddy, almost, but he just can't help it; what better to harm your least favorite person with than the proof of your favorite's victory over himself?

Sharp grin momentarily thankful, he takes the shard from Olwin.

"Don't mind if I do."

Of course, he can't just walk up and stab the fucker with it like normal, no matter how much he wishes that's how this worked. After a moment of consideration and turning the shard over in his hand, Hisashi gives it a light toss into the air.

Before it can fall, the deep red of a soul planning to make its temporary escape from Hell coalesces around it, holding it aloft. Across the room, the same deep red blooms like a butcher's mark in dotted flame along a portion of the demon's torso.

You know-- around where the liver would be if he had to take an educated guess.

With only the slightest movement of his hand, the mirror shard cuts through the air with alarming speed and digs wetly into its mark with pinpoint accuracy. Unsurprisingly, Hisashi laughs.

"Yeah-- yeah, I think this'll work. You?"

“I’ve got wayyy more where that…”

Olwin’s gleeful arms dealing falters as he takes notice of the strings still reaching, catching, tangling themselves around the others. Some of whom he cares about. Several, even, if we’re being generous here. Okay, okay, most people. Geez.

His eyes dart away from watching a string snaking towards Arisa’s ankle, and he follows it back to the source at Alou’s skeletal wing-hand… things. He doesn’t know what to call them. He doesn’t have to. All Olwin has to do is point at them, just as Ruby’s chain winds around them to hold them still. He glances over to her with a grin, and then turns back to Hisashi to hand him another shard of glass.

“Can’t puppet shit if you don’t have hands, y’know?”

For the briefest moment, Hisashi's grin falters with an annoyed click of his tongue. Not at Olwin, of course-- it's the way the threads catch in the light and in his peripheral.

It's the way one gets too close to Eli. (Hisashi doesn't deserve to have kept the young man's respect, or his kindness, or his anything, let alone something even halfway resembling friendship; Hisashi is also too selfish to care.)

It's the way one gets too close to Ruby. (He's too selfish to care that the misshapen attempts at kindness he offers her will never make him worthy of seeing her fix things he never could. He still wants to watch. Maybe pay for her psychology classes.)

It's the way one gets too close to Arisa. (They're both terrible. Neither of them know how to care right-- how to love right. And isn't it such a terrifying, thrilling thing to think that one day, they might actually figure it out?)

It's the way one gets too close to Nike. (After all of this-- after all the time, and the struggle, and the effort it took to smother a hatred that was never his-- well, he'll be pretty fucking pissed off if they get killed by some stupid strings right when they’ve decided to be friends.)

It's all of these budding feelings that wear faces, and it's the threat of having them ripped away before he's had his selfish, indulgent fill. Lust was his sin for a reason, you know? And his virtue is that of a mother bear's blood filled mouth when a hiker treks too close to her cubs; of a wild animal that drops a freshly mauled carcass at your feet because he doesn't trust you to hunt well enough for yourself.

Hisashi's virtue is a selfish, distorted, sanguinary sort of kindness-- but it is a virtue all the same.

And that's all they matters right now, isn't it?

All of the inner reflection is, in actuality, encompassed in hardly more than a second. The falter in Hisashi's grin passes, and he snorts derisively.

"That is a great idea."

Like before, Hisashi takes hold and control of the shards Olwin provides him with. This time, however, it's the thread controlling hands along Alou's back that the red marks for butchering.

When the shards fly forward, they strike at the joints, cutting deep into the tendons and rendering each maimed limb immobile and their accompanying threads slack. Only two are completely ruined, but Alou's reach is still impaired all the same.

And it’s not as though they’ve run out of ammunition. Olwin will simply hand Hisashi pieces of himself to wield as a weapon for the both of them until he has no more to give. But… well. He’s always been rather good at making more.

#mm trial #cedric #hisashi

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hellmouth-manor · 3 months

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PRECIOUS || RUBY || FINALE

[♪♪♪]

“I meant what I said. I’m not mad at you.”

Freshly returned to life, Ruby looks just as she did when she first walked through the manor doors. Well– not exactly the same, right? There’s the blonde hair and the familiarly vivid blue eyes, of course, but there’s much about Ruby that will never look quite the same ever again. The spent time at Hellmouth Manor will linger on her like ash- Ever-present in the sharp edges of her haircut. In the little scratches and bruises persisting from one accident or another. In the smile she brandishes now, despite it all.

“But that’s not going to stop me from thrashing your sorry ass.”

It’s Micah that comes to mind first. How they both lied to each other, shamelessly, when they first met. Brick walls made of fear and shame, that seemed to crumble so effortlessly once the two of them actually started talking. The warmth of that memory spreads to her fingertips, and she feels something… rough.

A large gemstone, glittering ruby, in the shape of a heart floats between her hands. She sees herself reflected in the grooves and the bevels, distorted images staring back at her. Relentless and stubborn and angry and all the other pieces of herself that she had tried to cut away.

But it isn’t just her in the reflection. There are images of the chaos in the room around her. The heart becomes overwhelmed with light and sound and the faces of the most important people in her life.

Shoji shines the brightest, of course. The kind of radiance that she wants to be jealous of but, truthfully, just wants to see it glow brighter. She’d compared him to the Sun once, and how apt it feels even now. Warmth that reminds her that there is always room for joy, for laughter, and humor in her heart, no matter how dark it gets.

Mirai and Olwin come into view on either side. Mirror images of the sin of Envy, and her compatriots in that regard. When Ruby holds the heart against her, she can feel the sincerity of Mirai’s hand, assuring her that she wouldn’t have to be alone, teaching her that tenderness and gentleness are not signs of weakness, but a kind of strength that eclipses any show of raw power. And Olwin- it’s nice to put a human face to the name. It suits him, she thinks. It’s a name she’ll always associate with bravery, with resourcefulness, and a truly undying spirit.

Hisashi comes into view next. There's a part of her that’s still quite wary of the man. Miranda, too, and the image of her brings a soft smile back to Ruby’s face. One who showed her the importance of baring one's fangs, to live for oneself. And the other who showed a patience and understanding that Ruby didn’t deserve, but will remain endlessly grateful for.

So many beautiful faces. So many new pieces of her life. Oh, how she hopes to one day have the strength and character to rival Minami. Or a levity on par with Kamiya. Hell, even the composure and tenacity of someone like Arisa.

Whether she considers them friends or not, everyone here in this manor is someone important to her. All of it, all of them, are a part of her now.

Moreso than the manor itself, the people inside of it have changed Ruby.

And then there’s Alou. The centerpiece, as it were. One could argue he is the most important person of them all. Were it not for him, she wouldn’t be here, and she wouldn’t have any of these people- these connections- to begin with. But, when Ruby sees Alou reflected in the heart, she starts to press it against her palm, squeezing until shimmering, spider web-like fractures start to form across its surface.

“This is where it ends for you.”

Slowly, bits and pieces of the gemstone start to fall away. Chips and shards break free, and an intense, almost fiery sort of light starts to spill from somewhere deep inside of it.

“But, for me…? This is just the beginning.”

Ruby closes her fist, and the heart shatters. Pieces of useless rock fall to her feet and scatter apart- shiny, but unimportant. No, the important part was always what was locked away deep inside.

To be honest, she had half-expected it to be completely empty. Something spills out, though. Heavy, but comforting, and long enough that unwinds all the way to the floor. A chain- intertwined metal links of cobalt and scarlet. Another very important person comes to mind and Ruby, under her breath, asks her sister for one last favor.

“Hey, Sapphire, lend me some of your confidence, won’t you? For real, this time. Not just some silly little mask I can put on to feel better about myself.”

She tests the chain’s weight in her hand, swinging it over her head in a wide arc. It almost feels effortless, but it brings up another smile as it reminds Ruby of the long ribbons she and her sister used to play with when they did gymnastics together. The next swing tests the chain’s length, and it clears the length of the room easily, winding and tangling itself around one of Alou’s wrists as Ruby keeps the tension of the chain pulled taut.

“Whatever happens to you, after this…”

Another flick of her wrist, and the chain rearranges itself to wind across several of Alou’s limbs.

“I hope you’re able to find peace. Love, too. The real kind, I mean.”

Once more, Ruby pulls the chain tight, allowing gravity and physics and the crushing weight of her resolve to do the rest of the work.

“I’m sorry it couldn’t be in this life. Better luck… next time.”

#mm trial #sapphire #submission

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