pheasantboy | [ic] shadow pheasant's mementos inbox

She hoped this was the right place. It was a pain in the ass getting down here, but here she was. This was stupid and idiotic, she should have told someone, anyone, where she was going to be. She just needed to confirm.

"Hello?"

Oracle. His entire physical form rejects existence at the sound of her voice. You can do that kind of thing, when you're a Shadow.

Perhaps coincidentally, perhaps not, the tunnel wind fucks itself as he does so, reversing itself to eddy past her.

She sighed. "I'm not here to hurt you?" She didn't know what she meant making that a question. She glanced at her tracker. There was something here.

"Just come out."

That tracker reading is liable to wobble quite a bit, not to mention anything she might sense the old-fashioned way. Like the tunnel shaking around her with a low rumble; like the suggestion of something vast around her, whining in pain.

Between him and his surface-self, after all, only one of them remembers what it was to feel obligated, and to loathe it. Unless she gives him a reason to come out, he won't.

Great. This is just great. She sat on the ground. "They talk about you, they talk about Yoshizawa too. I don't even know what her first name is supposed to be." There was a pained laugh, "I don't know if you are in pain or angry or what. I can't tell. Which is funny cause I can normally read Goro easier than I can myself."

"Guess I'll start with an introduction. I'm Futaba Akechi, please don't call me Sakura. I'm also known as Glitch. I'm a pain in Shido's ass and I like to drain his bank accounts." She had a feeling he'd listen, even if he didn't talk back. "I've got food, It's not much. I don't know what you'd want, or like. Just after reading magpie's texts. I wouldn't like it if people talked about me. I can tell you what I've read."

...and knowledge, of course, is the key to him, as much as to his vapid ego who's left on the surface. There's a suggestion of movement far down the tunnel, and then two little yellow eyes watch her from the dark, as a presence coalesces on her tracker.

"So you're like Midnight. Not Violet, but Midnight. Not Oracle, but Glitch." His voice isn't distant, but right in her ear, as if in headphones, or into her mind. It sounds gritty and so, so weary.

"Are we married in your world?"

She visibly jumped. She wasn't expecting the voice so close. Strangely it was comforting to her. Then she made the most disgusted face. "Please never suggest we are married." She didn't know who midnight was, but it seemed the name changes were pretty common.

"No, we are siblings. We share the same sperm donor. Mom died, and You took me in. So that we didn't have some fun things happen I took Akechi instead of Isshiki."

"Siblings?" He shifts a little closer, blinking in and out, coming close enough that she can see the outline of his face in the light of his eyes. "So this is some parallel universe thing. How tedious.

"The fact that you're here, though, and not attacking me. That you took my name. That rather suggests we're not talking parallel so much as pretzel."

"A pretzel it seems by how many are shocked to hear that." She sighs. "Someone beat him to mom, he wanted to know why there were so many after her, found me, he knows the story a lot better than I do."

"Also, I'm not a fan of attacking any version of you... except I did sort of....kind of...told one I'd flay him like a fish. I didn't really threaten him, I was making a big tough guy thing. Then he asked questions and I think he got scared."

... and he starts to laugh, quiet and sinister, amused at her discomfort the way Shadows can be. "Oh, look at that. You are my sister. Though perhaps you should just have said you'd eat him, hm?

"Why are you here, then, Glitch?" He doesn't speak her name, for reasons of his own. "I don't believe you came down here to share your life story. You want something."

"Do you think saying I'd eat him would be more or less threatening?" She laughed, somehow it mimicked his in a way, the darker tone to her voice, or was it just because she didn't have to mask what she felt she was down here? "Honestly, I've done much worse than I'm willing to admit. First kill wasn't even in the metaverse."

Ah yes, why was she down here. "Do they talk to you? Or do they just talk about you?"

"Who gives a shit what they talk about?" Obviously he does, enough to coalesce for her at least. "They come down here, with their lies and their delusions, thinking we can be friends or that I won't spit on them and their help! Tear them limb from limb!"

Hm, that was sudden.

"I wish I could do tear someone sometimes." She sighed. It was just her an a shadow she could be a little darker. "I know exactly who I'd rip limb from limb." It had to be strange seeing her say all this with a big smile on her face. Though that is what most of her kills had seen.

"Yes." He hisses it, but in the way the tide can be said to hiss in and out. "Every one of them! Bring them down here and I'll destroy them! Every part of them shredded into dust, from the clothes on their backs to the pity on their stupid, smiling faces! I hate them! I hate them!"

He's stepped out of the shadows, so she can see him properly. He just looks like a Goro, albeit distorted with rage, and hunched a little with—something that definitely isn't rage.

And he's refocusing on her, considering her with an odd gleam in his hellish yellow eyes. Hm. Could be bad.

She somehow felt validated in is hissing. He hated their pity, something he wouldn't get from her, so he was safe on that front.

That focus wasn't great, she felt a little on edge. There was a small part of her hoping he did something. That needed to be restrained deep back in her mind. She shouldn't feel that way.

She sighed, the familiar pull of the curse persona she held locked up. It normally happened when she wanted to tear something, she pushed it down though. "Glad someone at least understands that feeling."

He understands it better than anything. But despite his power, he falters, as if he wants to pull away from her, back into his darkness; he replies as if she was Oracle, who judged him.

"You don't understand that feeling. I felt you watching me every time, from Prometheus. Sometimes I acted up just to piss you off."

"I don't know what you are talking about, this is my first time seeing you, and I have yet to 'judge' you." She sighed.

She wanted to comment that he hadn't pissed her off but decided better. "I'm not Oracle remember, I'm Glitch." Was the memory thing applying to him too?

He remembers everything his surface-self forgets. But he also has his own distortions and his own self to contend with, affecting what he sees, feels, thinks... everything.

"You're Glitch. Of course you are." And then he really does step back, seeming confused. "Did you really flay someone? A little girl like you? Did you enjoy it?"

She nodded, "Technically I hit his artery too fast, but that was the plan." She moved to sit more comfortable, her legs up close to her chest.

"I enjoyed his suffering, I drugged Goro to get out. I don't even know that he knows what I did." She had complicated feelings about it, but she knew given the opportunity she wouldn't have sliced her neck like she did.

The Shadow is squinting at her again, trying to see her more clearly, and not the ghost he carries with him. "Mm. I don't want to speculate about your Akechi, Glitch. Given the state of you, for all I know he's as bad as..."

His face crimps into an ugly knot of a scowl: as bad as that piece of shit walking above while I'm trapped down here. "Would he have been horrified by what you did? Or would he enjoy it? It's hard, you know, to let yourself enjoy things."

Edited 2024-01-27 01:53 (UTC)

"I honestly have no idea how he'd react." She sighed. "I don't exactly admit to drugging and sneaking out multiple times. If I did he'd be on the lookout for it." Then she'd be cut off from her side projects. "He's not as well put together as he puts out, he's got his own dark side, I'm sure he's got his own side projects, destroying everything he ever wants."

"You don't like your counterpart do you?" She hummed, more an observation. She wasn't sure how he'd react to questions about himself.

It's fascinating, in a dark sort of way, to hear the ways she's betrayed her own Akechi, her sibling, as she put it; his eyes gleam as he listens. Of course, then she mentions his ego, his surface-self, his literal worst, and he steps back, snarling and hissing like a cat.

"Fuck him! I don't care about him! I want him dead, and nobody will kill him for me!" Okay.

Edited 2024-01-27 02:02 (UTC)

Were the gleaming eyes a good sign or not, he at least seemed to like hearing her darker thoughts. He was a shadow why wouldn't he?

She leaned forward, interested. There's a look her eyes that she can't quite place either. "Why do you want him dead? Would that free you from here? Or is it something else? I haven't met him frankly, I've only seen the things they discuss about him. I don't like what I hear. Too preppy for my liking."

They talk about him? Of course they do. Stupid as he was, he liked it, couldn't stand that last month when he felt like a ghost. How little he'd known.

Is she seriously asking, though, this little murderer with Oracle's form? "Yeah. It would free me. Free both of us. Why, are you going to do it for me?"

Free, of course, is a euphemism here.

"Tell me more." She grinned, her perfect disarming grin, the one that said she could never hurt a fly.

She hadn't felt useful in a while, she needed that feeling again.

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject