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[CLOSED]
WHO: Makoto and an Abyssal Tear in Reality (The Regent)
WHAT: The Regent has saved Makoto from the clutches of the Innocence entity, but at what cost?
WHERE: The Void
WHEN: Day 9 of Sovereign Citizens
WARNINGS: N/A
As the gate closes, Makoto will find himself awash in a bitter sea. It is empty and a cacophony all at once, a deep pit of howling disappointment, regret, and futility. Like the shattered remains of untold souls, only their despairs remaining, he is hounded by a multitude and is painfully alone all the same. Life has no place here. Not even the life of a Kenoma.
So, perhaps it isn't surprising when his first bit of company comes in a familiar yet undefined form, swathed in robes made of the same blackness that surrounds them. He can tell it's the Regent, even if he won't be certain how. Is he truly seeing anything at all, or is it a trick of the mind, trying to make sense of the immaterial?
"I don't often bring my Kenoma here," they comment, an ease to their observation despite the intensity of the scene Makoto was pulled from. "Not when they are still so new."
WHAT: The Regent has saved Makoto from the clutches of the Innocence entity, but at what cost?
WHERE: The Void
WHEN: Day 9 of Sovereign Citizens
WARNINGS: N/A
As the gate closes, Makoto will find himself awash in a bitter sea. It is empty and a cacophony all at once, a deep pit of howling disappointment, regret, and futility. Like the shattered remains of untold souls, only their despairs remaining, he is hounded by a multitude and is painfully alone all the same. Life has no place here. Not even the life of a Kenoma.
So, perhaps it isn't surprising when his first bit of company comes in a familiar yet undefined form, swathed in robes made of the same blackness that surrounds them. He can tell it's the Regent, even if he won't be certain how. Is he truly seeing anything at all, or is it a trick of the mind, trying to make sense of the immaterial?
"I don't often bring my Kenoma here," they comment, an ease to their observation despite the intensity of the scene Makoto was pulled from. "Not when they are still so new."
no subject
The events of his last few moments in Venera had compressed themselves on the threshold of his consciousness, so much so that at first he isn’t sure what had truly happened or what might have sprung imagined from the dying embers of a desperate mind. He recalls the dull and overwhelming dread inspired by the clawed fingers beginning to work his shard free of his body. He recalls — darkness, but not unconsciousness or undoing. Instead it had been a flood, a torrent that both seemed to well up from within him and sweep him away from that creature that had nearly claimed him. The harsh light and judgment of Innocence began to fade, and Makoto metaphorically met the dark with open arms, the force of relief so incredible that he almost didn’t believe it at first. He isn’t sure he would find safety in this familiarity — he so rarely has — but it was at least something he felt like he understood, that understood him. That’s what mattered, in the end. He had placed himself back into J’s hands time and time again, regardless of what had happened in the past and what might happen again, always because he had been and will always be the first one to accept him for who, and what, he was.
The Regent pulls Makoto out of Venera and into darkness, and for a moment he is a young man freshly unraveled of his mortal coil, brought into hell for the first time.
With the singular uniqueness of that touch, he knows who it was that came to his rescue before he even heard their voice. Where once he had cringed away from this touch, so probing and all-knowing, now he forces down his qualms and welcomes it; the admonished hound pressing its head into the palm of its master. In the end, he’s incredibly easy to win over.
In a way, it’s out of the frying pan and into the fire, though this “fire” is paradoxically cold. Vast. Empty. Seething. Inhospitable. It’s a melding of both physical and psychological fears that conjoin together into a yawning sense of thalassophobia, of being both painfully aware and horrified that he is tiny and insignificant in the face of such overwhelming futility and despair. Regardless of how hopeless the endeavor is, he tries to hide from it, instinctually curling in towards his core. It’s not until a form begins to materialize from the endless roiling dark that he feels any manner of lifeline — the Regent’s presence doesn’t necessarily save him from the influence of this place, but he can at least hold onto the fact that he’s not left to weather it alone.
He’s in quite a state. It takes a long moment for the meaning of words to filter through his mind, and before it does, he’s already started to say something useless like, “You…” but the rest of it drifts away. You saved me. It’s evident and obvious, and not worth expounding upon (especially since “saved” might end up being a matter of opinion). His brow knits, and he tries desperately to piece his thoughts together and line his words up properly. It’s like trying to play the piano with frostbitten fingers.
“Why - did you bring me here? …I —”
He’d failed. Sure, they had managed to recover Kaeya’s shard, but how much of a victory was that when weighed against everything else? Would it not have been a suitable punishment to allow him to suffer whatever consequences he might have faced at the hands of that creature or the Pleroma?
Unless they had a more suitable alternative in mind. Given the nature of this place, how being here crawls up the full length of his spine and injects him with an inescapable sense of dread… he feels a pit form in his stomach, worried he had answered his own question.
no subject
They don't answer him immediately. The weight of their presence seems seeded throughout this place, some aspect of them working their will in the background even as they give him enough attention to hold this conversation. He will feel as if the form he's identified is an avatar, not the entirety of their being.
"I hadn't expected you to challenge that being a second time."
Something probes the area around Makoto's shard. The Regent's hand, perhaps?
"I remember you telling me you weren't a warrior. That to fight was simply beyond you."
no subject
It will take him more time than he has woven between the Regent’s words now to try to attempt to piece out where he might be, what exactly the nature is of the entity that he’s currently speaking with. The more he turns this thought over and over in the back of his mind, the less it seems like the right question. Is “Where?” even the right question to be asking in such a place? Is it even truly applicable?
A sharp breath draws in through clenched teeth; it’s purely instinctual to cringe away from the unknowable touch probing at it, similarly disquieting as when the Regent had searched his mind but magnified by multiple magnitudes. His left hand encloses around his right wrist, white-knuckled and vice-like, and his shoulders shake; it takes every ounce of self-control not to try to stop whatever might be happening on reflex, some kneejerk reaction to existential entropy.
He swallows, then a derisive sound catches in the back of his throat. He clamps down on a welling feeling of shame. “I’m not,” he replies, words brittle and bitter. He’d been — a schoolboy. And after that, well… Raw strength held no power in Hell, where physical violence couldn’t write a permanent end. The perception of power is what actualized it; the longer shadow one cast, the more fear implicit in one’s name, the stronger a demon was. His reputation had grown faster than anyone might have expected a former human’s to in the three and a half years he’d been there, but he would admit freely that the methods he had pursued were… relatively non-transferrable to the Regent’s campaign.
He hates thinking back on the first words he’d shared with them; he had still been playing by Hell’s playbook, making a fool of himself as he failed to adapt. He hadn’t wanted it to become a habit. Damage to his ego is perhaps the most profound motivator for Makoto.
“I’ve become something I wasn’t before… I’ve done so more than once. I could do it again. Or, at least, I thought…”
But moderate skill with a weapon and a few new tricks aren’t going to allow him to stand up against warriors who have been fighting all their lives, let alone a creature older than all of them.
no subject
There is a trace of empathetic connection there, though the Regent's side is difficult to make sense of among the hopeless screams of this realm. There is a flicker of acknowledgement, though, as if they believe what he is saying.
"Truthfully, I've believed in your promise since your earliest defiance of that self-categorization. At the shrines, wasn't it... against the same enemy, even. Among others."
That feeling of acceptance is now tinged with something almost like pride. Or perhaps just pleasure. They appreciate his efforts, one way or the other.
"You're fought more fiercely, more vindictively, than many Kenoma gifted with far more suitable attributes. That has not gone unnoticed."
no subject
But despite being sphinxian and centuries old, J was still just a man. When it comes to the Regent, there is little real comparison to be made. But past experience means he doesn’t even attempt to fathom the source from which that acknowledgement and understanding originated. It seemed to come just as much from all about as it did from the figure he could just barely make out nearby. But he accepts it, jealously even, avaricious for that which he’s been denied for most of his short life.
At first he feels like he can’t believe their words. He wants to — desperately, actually, just as much so as when J had whispered into his ear that he must have found Earth confining, that as a demon in hell he would rise to his true potential. He struggles because he perceives the past events that the Regent references as failures. His body broken, potential recruits and marks slipping through his fingers, never quite able to defeat one of his enemies in a way that really mattered… The effort never felt like enough. He had only ever been rewarded for results. This provides a natural defensive barrier to what might otherwise be considered considerable praise, but fortunately enough, the undeniable sensation of external acceptance and appreciation erodes at it, slowly but surely.
Makoto handles praise… poorly. Gracelessly, just as one who had never really been given it freely or unconditionally might. No matter how much he fights to keep down a rising tide of overwhelming relief and vindication tinged with vague panic that fills his chest, he can’t control it all. Tears pierce hot and fierce at the corners of his eyes, and in simultaneous gratitude and shame his shoulders bow forward.
“More than anything — I didn’t want to be dismissed like that by you. Not again.” Their attention passing over him with the lazy disappointment of a potential wasted. It had been a splinter under his skin, maddening him. He would have done anything, and though that had originally sprung from a place of bitterness, circumstances change. A pause, then he continues, unable to keep a small quaver out of his words, “Thank you, Your Excellency.”
no subject
They do seem to be narrowing their focus onto Makoto here, though, far more than they have with anyone else thus far. There is a weight of their interest and attention that can be felt, and his emotional, wavering reaction doesn't seem to disrupt it at all.
"Then you may appreciate that this is not something I'd do for just any Kenoma," they say, their presence sweeping ever closer, their ghost touch against his spirit more concrete. "You declined my offer before, I know, but given the occasion... I may be able to provide some benefits, even if it is no longer optional."
He'll feel it, then, like a claw sliding in past the surface of his shard. His soul does not fight to repel it like it had with the Innocent, but the invasion of space is apparent. It stabs like a needle, an injection soon to follow.
"How the Kenoma screamed, at its touch. Shameful, really. It has the power to end worlds, but no mind, no ambition to push it forward.... a shadow, helpless but to flee from the light as dawn arrives. I, however... am its essence, perfected."
Their voice of so close now, it feels almost as if it's coming form within him.
"Partake of me, and stand firm beneath the full might of the sun."
no subject
It’s one thing not to draw the Regent’s ire. It’s another to earn their passing praise. It’s quite a different thing to fall beneath their intensifying attention; he feels less like he’s under a spotlight and more like he’s under a magnifying glass, slowly beginning to feel the sun’s rays focused through the lens. It’s not that it hurts. Not explicitly, or at least not yet. But with the satisfaction of acknowledgement comes its other extreme: fear of being exposed, of being vulnerable, of being trapped.
He tries to keep his breathing steady, tries to accept the words as they are given to him; their presence now feels as real and tangible as a coat draped around his shoulders, and just as close. His heart hammers in his chest — it’s impossible to tell whether it’s excitement, apprehension, or anxiety. The qualms that had prevented him from taking the Regent’s offer earlier haven’t disappeared; they’re still there, but their volume is drowned out by the strength of Makoto’s fury and disgust at the creature that had placed its mark on him, that he still wanted nothing more than to tear apart with his own hands. He holds onto that anger; he keeps it clenched between his teeth, and that at the very least spares him from the disgrace of making some sort of pathetic, frightened sound at the now very real and tangible touch to his shard. Precipitous with intent, potent action to follow through with the promise of their words. He might remain silent, but he still flinches, a shudder wracking his shoulders; bone bites white beneath his knuckles.
As close as they are now, they become harder and harder to doubt. As they speak of the Kenoma and their relation to it, Makoto can feel the veracity of the words. He feels like he can see the shape of the offer that’s being given.
No, power has never come naturally to him. Everything he’s ever gained, he’s been given, or he had resorted to stealing it. But the whisper of power he had felt when Shimmer had roared in his veins, the promise of potential that the Regent murmurs into his ear now… This could be it. To exact his vengeance, to pull the curtain down on all of this, to finally be allowed to one day escape the pain and die feeling fulfilled rather than pointless. Too good to be true. There’s no way for him to know for sure, but it is far too tempting not to reach for —
His throat feels raw when he replies, “Whatever you give to me, I’ll take - down to the very last drop.”
The flesh of a demon, or whatever inexplicable essence the Regent was poised to inject them with; whatever he wants, whatever it takes.
no subject
He will feel his soul being entered by a foreign body, then, one comprised of sheer agony and despair. For a moment, the howling sorrows of this void feel like his own; every self-destructive impulse he's ever felt rears its head again, beckoning him down into the emptiness. Oblivion is his spirit's destiny, he feels with a pronounced clarity. What path could there be but suffering and woe?
Yet, dangled as he is over that abyss, he is not alone. As he plummets, those same clawed hands grab hold, drawing him upwards. He will not succumb to the dark, the untold voices of the Regent say to him. Instead, he will become their harbinger.
If his only future lies in destruction, then why should the rest of the world enjoy a kinder fate?
At first, it feels like his shard will simply shatter under the pressure. Distilled contempt for life courses through it, disgusted by any creature that experiences even a facsimile of it. Yet, those gnashing fangs of destruction are bound in the chains of something stronger. As the Regent commands for them to heel, they comply.
When Makoto finally finds his way back to the living world, he will wake on the floor of the Regent's throne room, as if having been torn apart and stitched back together. The Regent sits in their throne, looking him over in a way that seems curious despite their lack of expression.
"...You survived. Good."
no subject
He had not been the first human brought into hell to become a demon, and he would likely not be the last, but he had been the only one to ever adapt to the erosion it worked on one’s humanity, the lack of mooring it gave for the human conception of sanity. Perhaps the mortal world had been ill-suited to him, or perhaps he was just that furiously stubborn. Because there’s not much in Makoto by ways of strength or constitution that gave him any advantage over anyone else — no, the only preternatural gift he had was tenacity, and often to a self-destructive degree.
The closed panes of his shard feel like they fling open wide, and an ocean comes pouring in. He had expected pain. He’s no stranger to it, but this is something different. It had all the presence and immediacy of a physical wound but a full, uncharted depth beneath it: anguish, hopelessness, and loss form an immense column crushing down on him from above, and yet he has so much further left to fall.
I could die here. It’s a single, plaintive thought, and one he’s had more than one time in his life. It might have been easier to just allow it to happen. To give in, to allow the skein of his scant twenty years of tormented life to unravel and wash away, made unknown and anonymous in an endless void of the same. But — no. He’s never been that person, not since he’d had his simplest and most noble death stolen away from him by J. He won’t allow all he’s suffered to amount to nothing. He narrows his attention to a blade-like point, grits his teeth, and harnesses every scrap of vindictive fury to hold himself together until that point which clawed hands reach out to arrest his downward momentum. The weight of it all is still there, and it still feels like it could overwhelm him at any moment, but … he forces himself through it. Up until this point he’s paved a road with the detriment of both himself and others, all for the mere chance to tear loose from destiny and fate the only thing he wants.
J. No matter where he goes or what he does, the man haunts his thoughts. For a single moment, the thought of him doesn’t come accompanied with a suitably violent tableau; he doesn’t necessarily think of destroying him as he often does. But if the end is inevitable, and their oblivion is inexorable… he wants to do it himself. To rip the life out of him with his own two hands, equally avenging and compassionate, and then to bring everything else crashing down so that he could join him. Him, and everything else with it — because, after all he’s seen and felt, out there and in here, it was just as well. It was the only way.
And the Regent has offered him a means of doing so — exactly what he’s wanted, all along.
He wakes up.
Makoto struggles to consciousness like a drowning man gasping for air; it blinks back in for him in degrees, but he doesn’t wait for it. Despite a fierce agony that radiates through every part of his body — one that reminds him most of his every nerve screaming in anguish whenever his head was removed by careless or malicious force, but slowed down and drawn out — he forces himself up onto his elbows, and then onto his knees, attempting to take stock of himself with searching eyes and cautious hands. After the damage he’d sustained in his fight against Estinien, what he had just endured, and given how he feels now, he expects to find himself falling apart at the seams, but…
They’re right. Despite it all, he’s survived. He slowly looks up to look at the Regent upon their throne, pale eyes trying desperately to appraise more of a reaction from the expressionless veneer of the mask.
“Was it - Was I … successful?”
no subject
They seem pleased, at least, that after choosing him for this purpose he made it out the outside. Something about their genuine, pleasant surprise gives the impression that arriving as he has wasn't necessarily a guarantee.
"You'll notice that the Pleroma's infection is gone. It could withstand coexistance with a regular Aion's Kenoma, but not even a fraction of mine."
They lift their claws in a semblance of a shrug.
"Of course, most Aions would struggle to accept my essence in the first place."
no subject
Makoto does recognize that distinct brand of aloof, pleasant surprise — that of a wayward child that has finally managed to find his way home. He accepts it but somewhat shakily, realizing after a moment that it likely means that he had weathered that storm entirely by his own merit. A flicker of pride animates him, and he uses it to galvanize him to further pick himself up, settling into a kneel of genuflection.
As the Regent mentions it, he searches through his confusion for proof; his right hand hovers an inch or two away from the back of his neck, though he doesn’t have to retrieve and look at his shard to sense that the lingering presence he had up until this point gotten begrudgingly used to was wiped clean. Despite it all, that’s a relief — that he won’t have to have the looming threat of that accursed creature’s curse slung across his shoulders anymore.
A faintly pained smile quirks at the corners of his mouth. “I wouldn’t say that was done without any struggle…”
His wry humor is a flash in the pan. His head dips in a bow, and his gaze casts downward. He thinks carefully for a moment before continuing.
“I can’t stand to think of what I might have become… What that thing might have made of me. For saving me from that fate, I - owe you everything.”
It feels… easy to say. So much easier than he thought it might. Uneasy fealty to J and an up-and-down relationship with his former employer left him… wary of authority, to say the least. Able to work within its confines, but overly mindful of carrots and sticks. So much of his thoughts toward the Regent before had been dictated by bitterness of perceived dismissal and fear at incurring punishment. But… what he had just suffered. Just a piece of their essence injected into him had almost been too much to bear, and he would have thought he knew suffering well enough by this point. He wouldn’t dream to offend them by believing he understood. He doesn’t think he’s capable. But everything he recalled the entity saying, be it at their address or the banquet or their meeting after his first run-in with the Pleroma creature, seems to take on new color, fresh and tangible context. Where before he rationalized his arrangement to their cause as that of convenience and mutual benefit, he’s starting to realize he feels very differently now. As harrowing as this ordeal has been, he feels granted new perspective. New purpose.
He looks up to set the Regent in a level gaze, pale eyes sharp as steel. “What will you have of me in return?”
no subject
"A piece of my power is now at your disposal, and I would have you exercise it for the good of my cause. Sparingly, of course. I do warn that it may harm you, if used excessively. The Kenoma abhors life in all its forms... it's only through me, my doctrine, that it can be wielded towards a better end."
no subject
He dips his head. “I’ll do everything in my power.”
His power — what little there was, now bolstered considerably by what the Regent had instilled in him. The thought of it causes a riot of nerves to seize up in his stomach; it’s hard to parse at first, but the closest thing it reminds him of is how he felt when he was still human, so fearful of what he might be forced to do should his compulsions overwhelm his self-control (and self-loathing). But this is different still, just as he’s different still: more like the sudden realization of a new capability and the sudden responsibility and expectation that came with it. Judiciousness has never been Makoto’s strong suit, not in the heat of the moment when his blood boils and races blindly through his veins, even when his own safety is on the line — by this point, with his track record, that might be obvious. But rather than a strength stolen or personally discovered, this was one willingly given… He doesn’t want to misuse or squander it.
“Yes, Your Excellency. I will keep your warning in mind.” A brief pause. “I feel like I understand that about the Kenoma now, more than ever.” Memories of what he saw and what he felt in the Void press into the space behind his eyelids every time he blinks. He tries to ignore the thought, forcing himself to his feet; it’s not a very graceful movement, as all of the injuries and events of the last several hours now catch up with him now.
“If there’s nothing else you would tell me… I would ask for your leave.”
With his head bowed somewhat, he can see that he’s left the floor a bloody whorl beneath his feet. He frowns, after a moment adding, “And my apologies for bleeding on the floor.”
no subject
Makoto will be free to rest up and seek medical attention from the Citadel's healers. Further words don't seem necessary.