flowerclips | ᴄᴇᴛᴀɴᴀ ✿ ɪɴʙᴏx

[ His reply doesn't actually answer her questions, but she can't say anything else as he grabs her hand. Tears are still steaming down her face. ]

A-Are we going back outside?

[ Zhn sticks close as he follows. He is absolutely ready to bite on Toki's ankle if it seems like he'll cause any more distress to Rei. Like Nekogami, he's primarily interested in Rei's wellbeing. Even if it'll upset her, he'll attack anyone who tries to hurt her. ]

[Toki will definitely be causing more stress. He doesn't answer Rei's question, because as soon as he opens the door, it's not opening to the hallway. They're suddenly at the entrance to the dorm, the courtyard sprawling out in front of them.]

Do you want to walk, or take the-

[The bus. But he doesn't get to say it. Only steps from the dormitory building, Toki is hit by another vision. He collapses to the ground and once again begins convulsing. It's been maybe ten minutes since the last one. Again, Rei gets to experience the imagery.

He's lying on the grass, staring up at the sky. It's pink, there's no clouds, and the sun is black. He stands to find himself surrounded by tall mirrors. Gold ornate frames, some oval, some rectangular, all tilted forward a bit, looming. There's one open space between two mirrors. A way out. It leads only to a path lined with more mirrors. The grass under his feet gradually turns to sand. It's fine grain, like beach sand, and it's purple, like in Samura. He follows the path for what seems like forever, twisting and winding, but not getting anywhere. The reflections in the mirrors turn to rainbow static. In the center of every one, a pair of eyes appear. Its eyes. The same ones. He runs down the path, desperate to hide from their gaze. Another opening in the mirrors leads to a yellow room. Once he steps in, the passage is gone. On one wall is a smaller mirror, round and just as ornate as the others. He doesn't want to, but he can't stop. He walks up to it and looks at his reflection. The sclera of his left eye is black. The iris bright teal. It's not his eye. A circle of blood forms around the pupil. He can feel it dripping down his cheek.

When Toki comes out of it, his fingers clutch at the ground, digging. He wants to scream, but he can't make anything work right yet. It's watching. It's the daemon and it's watching and he has to stop it... Those feelings from his past still overwhelming him. He can't move on his own again, he knows what he's going to do, what Rei will see. Fighting against whatever power is making him relive this, he manages one word to Rei. It's whispered and ragged, desperately forced from this throat.]

Run!

[Rei will find she can't. The force of the memory isn't done with her yet. "Adelaide" still has a part to play. Rei will only be able to watch.]

[ By the end of all this, Rei is going to be terrified of these eyes. She wouldn't be able to look at anything even remotely similar without breaking out in cold sweat and shakes. She can't even react to Toki's seizures properly before she has to go through another one of his visions. She comes out of it crying fresh new tears and even if Toki told her to run and she wasn't stuck in place, she wouldn't have. Everything is terrible and she wants to do nothing more than just curl up and sob until she finally gets it together, but she also won't leave Toki behind. She would only leave if she was forcefully dragged away so she stays, though Zhn desperately tries to heed Toki's warning. He tries to pull on Rei's sleeve but she doesn't budge. ]

[ She just has to watch whatever will happen next. ]

[She hasn't left. She hasn't left.

Toki's already screaming when he brings his hand to his left eye. He knows what he thought at that time, and it's coming back to him with an almost physical dread. The daemon must be stopped. He digs his fingers into the space between his eye and the socket, but it hurts too much and he yanks them out again, screaming louder.

But it has to be done. He shoves his other hand in his mouth to bite on while he makes his second attempt at destroying the daemon's presumed conduit. His fingers have gotten slippery with blood and he can't get a grip on the eye to rip it out; it's going to be a process.

Adelaide was able to hold him down and keep him from finishing his task. But she was six feet tall, and a vampire, and much stronger than Rei. He'd cried and pleaded with her to let him rip out his eye. He begged. Desperately. In the end, the blood oozing from the half-torn eyeball triggered Adelaide's need for blood and she'd bitten him in the neck and left him barely alive. This was an unfortunately memorable day: the first time Toki tried to remove his own eye, the day his best friend almost killed him, and the day he found out she was a vampire.

The memory will end here one way or another. Quickly, if Rei can stop Toki from tearing out his eye. Slowly, if she can't and he succeeds as he didn't in the past.]

[ It takes Rei an entire two seconds to register what Toki's doing to himself and to realize that she can move. It's only during his second attempt that she finally runs forward and tries to do anything, but she's small and weak. She could barely use the bats against the Shadows when they first entered the dungeon. What good is she against someone who's determined to rip out their own eye? ]

[ She's hysterical, screaming and crying for Toki to stop as she grabs onto his arm. She can barely make out her words through her sobbing and Zhn steps in, tossing Rei to the ground. She doesn't have the time to get back up before he sinks his fangs into Toki's hand and jerks back. He's tired of having to play gentle or take on a more passive role in this dungeon. He knows that Rei will be upset, but she wants Toki to stop. If it means that he'll have to potentially mauling Toki's hand so he lets go of his eye then so be it. At least it'd be easier to heal a hand than an eye. ]

[The pain in his hand is not a memory and Toki registers it, but the determination to finish this, to get rid of the daemon eye is too strong. He just takes his other hand out of his mouth and shoves his saliva-covered fingers into his eye socket. His screaming is louder, as there's nothing in the way, and Zhn's fangs ripping through his flesh bring more panic.]

[ Rei tries to stand up and run back to Toki to stop him, but Zhn releases the hand in his mouth to push her back on the floor. He knows that even with both Rei and Ananke's strength put together, they won't be able to hold down Toki's other arm. He won't be able to do anything either, at least for the long-term. Who knows if this rampage will go on forever, so he tries a different approach. ]

[ He grabs onto the back of Rei's sweater and drags her far enough that she won't get caught into the crossfire. He then uses a series of Mahamaon and Mamudoon skills, using them one right after another. They only have a medium chance of actually working, so he tries them over and over until Toki dies. A simple revival skill will do the trick to bring him back, but first, Zhn needs to kill him in order to get him to stop. ]

[Toki takes no notice of Zhn's spells, just continuing to act out his part in the memory until he's dead. At that moment, the door to the dormitory behind Rei will glow blue.]

[ Rei is inconsolable. Zhn is part of Ananke so she knows what he did. She knows why Toki has finally stopped and lies motionless on the floor. Although Zhn acted on his own, it was still her desire for Toki to stop that led to this. He is part of her and whatever he does, she does. She just killed her husband and nothing right now will alleviate her grief. ]

[ It's Ananke who helps Rei up and guides her towards the door while Zhn drags Toki by the collar. Walking through, they arrive at an empty hallway of the dungeon without any Shadows to disturb them. It's silent asides from Rei's sobbing. Zhn gently lets go of Toki's collar and watches silently as Ananke walks on over to cast Samarecarm, reviving and fully healing Toki. However, their Persona user is too distraught to even watch or take notice, on her knees with her face buried into her hands. ]

[The next thing Toki is aware of is that nothing hurts. Not physically. But the memory is fresh in his mind, how he felt that entire day, and knowing Rei was there and watching it all. Her screams he barely heard over his own. And she's crying now.

But it has to be over. He's not lying in the grass anymore, there's no warm sunshine. Toki sits up slowly, leaning against the wall. He feels his left eye, and it's intact and healed, though there's blood all over his fingers and half of his face. He doesn't want Rei to look at it, so he scrubs at his face with his sleeve, but it's only making streaks.]

Rei?

[His voice echoes loudly and he hadn't meant it to be that shaky.]

[ Any other time, she would rush on over to Toki and crush him with a hug, but not this time. Hearing his voice is relieving, her mind processing through the grief to figure out that Ananke must have revived him, but it also brings a wave of guilt. Rather than clearing her tears, it only makes her cry harder. She doesn't get up, she doesn't move, it's as if she's completely ignoring Toki, but she's very much aware of his presence. ]

[Toki follows the sounds of her crying, and doesn't hesitate to wrap his arms around Rei when he finds her. He doesn't know what to say, and his hug is clingy and desperate.]

I-I'm sorry...

[He's trying so hard not to cry too, but it won't last long.]

[ She doesn't lower her hands for a few long seconds but she eventually pulls them away to cling onto Toki. Pathetic. She's the one who caused his death, but she can't stop herself from seeking out his comfort. ]

I-- I killed you-- I couldn't stop you so I killed you--

[ She can barely manage out her words from her hiccups and tears. She feels exhausted, her head hurts, and her throat is raw from all of her earlier screaming. They're only halfway through the dungeon but she already has nearly reached her limit. ]

[That starts the tears for him too.]

I couldn't stop.

[He didn't have enough willpower to break out of it, and he'd forced her to kill him. Everything hurts inside thinking about how she had to feel when making that decision.]

I'm sorry you had to- had to... But I'm okay now. You saved me too.

[ It'd be a while until she can shake off this guilt. With the conclusion of her Shadow event, she was able to learn that it's still worth living even with all the terrible things that may happen so she won't let this incident break her, but it may be a while before she can revert back to her normal self. ]

[ She pulls back a bit, just enough that Toki could still have his arms around her and that she could put her hands on his face. She examines him carefully, which takes some time because she can't see very well through her tears. ]

Your eye... i-is it okay? You-- you tried to...

[ He said that he couldn't stop so does he remember what he did? Was someone controlling him and that's why he acted the way he did? ]

I-it's okay.

[He won't let go of Rei entirely yet, but he moves one hand to her face to brush away tears, a little too delicately because he's worrying about poking her in the eye.]

I- I did... That was a memory... Back then, Rex- he's a friend- he... fixed it. I... It wasn't like... I only...

[Being honest with Rei through any situation seemed like it would be easy when they made that promise, but there are parts of his past he doesn't want her to know. Because it terrifying, and he's ashamed of how bad off he was at times. Toki takes a deep breath, and he will finish.]

I only tore into half of it- my eye- at that point, and Rex was able to heal it with magic.

[ It's all right, Toki. She'll try to get rid of her own eyes later. It'll be fine if they're poked. ]

But... But why? Is it because the daemon? And those... visions?

[ She sounds unsure about that last point because she doesn't know if those were visions but she doesn't know how else to describe them. ]

[Visions. It was his memory.]

Did you see them!?

[Did she feel what he did? The crushing weight of impending doom and unimaginable terror?]

I... It was... I thought, at- at that time, that my eye wasn't mine. The daemon that I made a contract with, I thought he was looking through it, or- I wasn't...

[Toki bites his lip, because he feels like screaming. How can he expect Rei to deal with him after seeing these things? After knows how he was, and that he might become that way again. It hasn't been long since the surgery and it might not have even worked completely. Toki may be heading towards another breakdown and not even know it.]

I was very... unwell at that time and I had thoughts that were, that didn't make sense logically, but I didn't realize that? I thought to get rid of the daemon, that it only made sense to kill the part of it that was there. But the visions weren't about that daemon and it was my eye, but I...

[ She doesn't pull back her hands from his face, still holding him and keeping him close. She watches him bite his lip and looks at his eye, the one that he tried to rip out only minutes ago. She runs her thumb just above it, going over his eyebrow. Her sobs have calmed down, not as hysterical as they were originally, but her breath occasionally hitches now and then. ]

... you just thought you were doing the right thing. You did it because you wanted to get rid of it, even if you had to hurt yourself.

[ Is she right on her assumptions? ]

[She's exactly right, and Toki was told by multiple people that his reasoning there was crazy.]

Yes... I was already blind in that eye; it didn't work anyway. I thought that it could be a conduit and I wanted to stop it.

[To him, it had made sense. It was easy for him to assume that the eye belonged to the daemon, especially after having those visions. His left eye used to be brown like the other one, before the contract. If he couldn't see through it anymore, who was?]

The eyes in my visions belonged to a monster they called the Herald of Night. They knew- the... Daybreak knew and they didn't tell me. The knew about the Herald through other Seers, and they knew I had visions about the same eyes, but they didn't tell me about it.

[Everyone was supposedly so concerned with Toki's mental state, that they kept vital information from him on so many occasions. It did nothing but let his imagination and his own inferences drive him to extremes because he was scared.]

[ Perhaps it's because she's already fallen in love with Toki and has promised to stay by his side that she's able to completely be on his side when multiple people weren't. Or it might be because she possibly would have done the exact same thing if she was in his shoes. She did break down last month and somehow convinced herself that it'd just be better if she kills everyone so they can be together in death so it's not as if she's completely reasonable all the time. He'll soon see that she'll also jump to extremes when she's pushed. ]

Is Daybreak the school that you told me about? The one that didn't let you go because they said it was your own good?

[ Toki only brought up two main locations, Tokyo and his private academy. The way he talked about the latter and how he's currently talking about how Daybreak knew something but didn't tell him seems similar. ]

[He's finally releasing his hold on her. It's not going as badly as he thought, not right now.]

Yeah, that was the name of it. Almost everything bad that I'll talk about... happened there.

[He can't think of anything particularly good that happened in Tokyo either, but his childhood seems so far removed from the experiences of just last year. They haven't faded enough yet.]

[ When he lets go of her, she lowers her hands, but she still moves to hold onto his. She doesn't want him to think that this changes any opinions of him so she stays close and lets out a small 'mm'. ]

... it's not your fault that you did all that. They didn't tell you anything and you were just trying to do something right. Maybe if they told you that the eyes weren't from the daemon, but a different monster, you would have done something different.

[He certainly wouldn't have tried to gouge his eye out twice, though he went off the deep end in other ways after knowing who the eyes belonged to as well. Because there were more and more visions until it was all Toki thought about.]

Thank you.

[That's what he has to say to Rei, because she's the first person who ever, even for one minute, put themselves in his place and could understand his motivations on some level. He didn't think he could ever love her more than he already did, but he can. After the memory floor, still in this dungeon, when it should be nothing but sadness, Toki feels joy.]

You're welcome.

[ She squeezes his hands. That experience was terrible and she'd never want to go through it again, but it gave her some insight into just how terrible that school was. It let her know what kind of traumatic events that he went through and although she wished that they never happened to him at all, she can understand him better. ]

I'll always love you. I... did some things that didn't make sense either, so I understand. You can always tell me anything.

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cw: eye gore

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