"Heeey, you've reached Yang! Well, actually, you didn't reach far enough, 'cause I'm not here right now! But don't yang up! Just leave a message on this baby, and I'll get back to you soon enough, okay?"
But Naoki nods and he absently runs his fingers across one of his eyes, remembering the pain of the magatama.] Yeah, they didn't bother to ask. It was a "special gift" one of them wanted to give to me.
[If he'd had the choice, he would've preferred to stay a human, but. It did save his life. Even if he knows what the purpose was behind it, now.]
[Naoki reaches over to her, twisting the ends of some of her hair. He hesitates giving the full story but after a moment or two of watching her disgruntled face...]
...He was interested in me, but more like what use I could have to him.
If he could get me to collect his candelabra from the Fiends and bring them all to him, then what he wanted would happen. [He rubs a piece of her hair absently in-between his fingers.] He would be able to make a new demon of chaos and raise an army of demons.
[ Naoki, if you are trying to make Yang any less baffled, it's not working. ]
Fiends are also demons, right? So he... sent you to get a bunch of candlesticks and that would make you more of a demon and then there'd be an army? Was this a Reason too?
Nah. As far as I could tell, he was serving his own agenda.
[SORRY YANG.] He-- Lucifer originally gave the candelabra to the Fiends himself, and me bringing them back was actually more like a test. But he and the woman lied and told me they were stolen by the Fiends and that if I could bring them back to them, I'd be able to get my questions about the Vortex World and why things had happened answered...
A demon, Beelzebub, told me the truth... Lucifer's planning on waging a war on the force, the "Great Will", that causes things like the Conception to happen. 'Cause the Conception happens in a lot of worlds, not just mine.
[He flinches (in surprise more than anything), bringing his palm up to his forehead and leaning back.
But, he wants to say, but he should've, he should've realised, especially how everyone was using him, down to Hijiri, and he opens his mouth but takes a second look at Yang and stops himself.]
Obviously, I don't know everything you've been through, but I'd like to think I know you by now. And the Naoki I know is the kind of guy who worries way too much about other people and tries to look out for others. If you don't have an answer, you do what you can to learn it. And you're trying to restore the world to the way it was, even if apparently everyone else wants you to do what they want.
[ She shakes her head, eyes still narrowed. ]
If you were fooled, it wasn't because you were gullible. It was because you were surrounded by a bunch of jerks who wanted to take advantage of you.
[Naoki's gaze cuts off to one side, a peculiar lump in his throat.
It's hard enough that he can't even say anything in response to her at first. He hunches over slightly, his hand raising up, curling underneath the horn at his neck. His fingers are tense, knuckles blanching.]
We haven't even known each other that long, [he says after a long moment, in a very quiet voice,] but you already get me that much. [She didn't say anything wrong at all. He hadn't thought she'd say all of that.] Even Isamu and Chiaki didn't get it or, at least, they stopped trying to understand.
...they were two of the people who had Reasons, you know.
[ You're not that hard to understand, she thinks. Solitary at first, but he wasn't really like that at all, and she's seen enough in training, during the times they'd just hung out-- how could anyone claim to know him and not see any of what she'd just said?
But as he continues, Yang stiffens, her blood running cold. Wait-- ]
Our... homeroom teacher was sick, or so she said, and she called us to the hospital where she was staying. Because we were there, all of us survived the Conception. But we were split up a little before it happened... and by the time I met up with them again in the Vortex World, I was like this.
[He lowers his hands, rubbing one over the other, fingers curled against the marks.]
I kept looking for them, but we kept splitting up, again and again. They wanted to make their Reasons.
... [ She reaches out now, grasping one of his hands and wrapping her fingers around it. She has no idea what to say, in order to be supportive-- so hopefully this helps convey the sentiment. ]
[Naoki lets her and while his face is blank, not conveying the wealth of feelings he has about this, his hand is so tense it must hurt him. It's only when the warmth of her fingers starts to sink in that his fingers twitch, loosening from a locked position and slightly curling.]
Yeah. And I wouldn't-- I couldn't support their Reasons. For them, it was probably just the same as me betraying them.
[And in the end isn't that exactly what he did-- he killed them, after all.]
[ It's perhaps her sisterly instinct that prompts her to take further action, or the memory of what Naoki had done after she'd dealt with Yurlungur's electricity, but as his fingers twitch, Yang draws his hand closer and wraps her other hand around it to press and knead at his palm with her thumbs.
As she does, she frowns. ]
Maybe so. But the Reasons you told me... if you'd sided with any of those, you'd be betraying yourself even more, right? Isn't friendship about accepting the people close to you, whether their opinions match up with yours or not?
[ Yang and Blake didn't see eye-to-eye all the time, but even then... hadn't her entire team searched for her for hours when she'd gone missing? Hadn't Ruby and Weiss reconciled, despite their differences? She can't understand this. ]
[Naoki blinks, as though pulled out of a deep daze, when Yang's thumbs press into his palm. He looks down at it, at her fingers, before looking at her face and her frown. Ah... He curls his fingers in response, gently flexing them.]
I thought that, too. I tried to understand, I mean, I thought I did get some of it. Roughly why they were going with the Reasons that they were, why they'd want worlds like that, and I kept chasing after them 'cause I wanted to talk with them.
[But no-one ever asked him so much what he wanted.]
I think they came to see me as a demon. The Demi-fiend.
[It's plagued him, too. The tenseness of his hand is slowly loosening as she presses her fingers into his skin, though. Feeling a wash of tiredness, he shakes his head.]
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But Naoki nods and he absently runs his fingers across one of his eyes, remembering the pain of the magatama.] Yeah, they didn't bother to ask. It was a "special gift" one of them wanted to give to me.
[If he'd had the choice, he would've preferred to stay a human, but. It did save his life. Even if he knows what the purpose was behind it, now.]
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[ Now she just looks disgruntled. ] I mean, that's kind of a major thing, and you didn't even have a choice...
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...He was interested in me, but more like what use I could have to him.
If he could get me to collect his candelabra from the Fiends and bring them all to him, then what he wanted would happen. [He rubs a piece of her hair absently in-between his fingers.] He would be able to make a new demon of chaos and raise an army of demons.
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Fiends are also demons, right? So he... sent you to get a bunch of candlesticks and that would make you more of a demon and then there'd be an army? Was this a Reason too?
[ SHE'S SO CONFUSED. ]
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[SORRY YANG.] He-- Lucifer originally gave the candelabra to the Fiends himself, and me bringing them back was actually more like a test. But he and the woman lied and told me they were stolen by the Fiends and that if I could bring them back to them, I'd be able to get my questions about the Vortex World and why things had happened answered...
A demon, Beelzebub, told me the truth... Lucifer's planning on waging a war on the force, the "Great Will", that causes things like the Conception to happen. 'Cause the Conception happens in a lot of worlds, not just mine.
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So he basically turned you into a demon so he could raise you into something super strong that would fight for him.
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That's basically it, yeah. --but, I wasn't about to go and give up on bringing back my world, so I stopped bringing him any more of those candelabra.
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Thanks. Though... I shoulda realised what was going on sooner.
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Your world got destroyed, you were pretty much alone, there were these weird Reasons...
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...Yeah. But I let myself get fooled a lot. I was gullible.
[He says it... like he's heard that quite a few times from others.]
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Hey, Naoki-- [ and she crooks a finger, beckoning. C'mere a bit. ]
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[Immediately leans closer with a confused face like what.]
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And flick him on the forehead. ]
You didn't have a whole lot to go on, did you? That doesn't make you gullible, dummy.
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[He flinches (in surprise more than anything), bringing his palm up to his forehead and leaning back.
But, he wants to say, but he should've, he should've realised, especially how everyone was using him, down to Hijiri, and he opens his mouth but takes a second look at Yang and stops himself.]
You really think so?
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[ She shakes her head, eyes still narrowed. ]
If you were fooled, it wasn't because you were gullible. It was because you were surrounded by a bunch of jerks who wanted to take advantage of you.
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It's hard enough that he can't even say anything in response to her at first. He hunches over slightly, his hand raising up, curling underneath the horn at his neck. His fingers are tense, knuckles blanching.]
We haven't even known each other that long, [he says after a long moment, in a very quiet voice,] but you already get me that much. [She didn't say anything wrong at all. He hadn't thought she'd say all of that.] Even Isamu and Chiaki didn't get it or, at least, they stopped trying to understand.
...they were two of the people who had Reasons, you know.
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But as he continues, Yang stiffens, her blood running cold. Wait-- ]
Your friends?
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Our... homeroom teacher was sick, or so she said, and she called us to the hospital where she was staying. Because we were there, all of us survived the Conception. But we were split up a little before it happened... and by the time I met up with them again in the Vortex World, I was like this.
[He lowers his hands, rubbing one over the other, fingers curled against the marks.]
I kept looking for them, but we kept splitting up, again and again. They wanted to make their Reasons.
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They wanted you to choose?
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Yeah. And I wouldn't-- I couldn't support their Reasons. For them, it was probably just the same as me betraying them.
[And in the end isn't that exactly what he did-- he killed them, after all.]
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As she does, she frowns. ]
Maybe so. But the Reasons you told me... if you'd sided with any of those, you'd be betraying yourself even more, right? Isn't friendship about accepting the people close to you, whether their opinions match up with yours or not?
[ Yang and Blake didn't see eye-to-eye all the time, but even then... hadn't her entire team searched for her for hours when she'd gone missing? Hadn't Ruby and Weiss reconciled, despite their differences? She can't understand this. ]
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I thought that, too. I tried to understand, I mean, I thought I did get some of it. Roughly why they were going with the Reasons that they were, why they'd want worlds like that, and I kept chasing after them 'cause I wanted to talk with them.
[But no-one ever asked him so much what he wanted.]
I think they came to see me as a demon. The Demi-fiend.
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It's not like you stopped being Naoki, so why was that so hard to get?
[ If they were his friends, why hadn't they bothered to listen? ]
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[It's plagued him, too. The tenseness of his hand is slowly loosening as she presses her fingers into his skin, though. Feeling a wash of tiredness, he shakes his head.]
I don't know what I should've done.
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