Event || In Your Worst Memory

[0301120113092025]

Characters: All Heroes of Light. Only those who signed-up can start a memory.
Where: Interdimensional Rift
When: May 27th - May 30th
Summary: The Heroes of Light relive some of their worst memories, with a twist. All characters participating in this will be physically missing from Crystallis for the duration of the event.
Warning: It depends on the memory.

Where you were or what you were doing— It does not really matter. Not any more. Everything around you freezes, nearly as if time itself stopped, as if the world was frozen in time. And before you have a chance to understand what is happening, you can hear a voice right behind you.

"Kali Shashidhwaja."

Should you turn around, you may see a child who seems to be the only one aside from you unaffected by what is happening. And as she stares right at you, it makes no doubt these strange words are aimed at you. But before you can reply to her, the world around you collapses. Reality twists and shatters... Or maybe you are the one who is collapsing and shattering away from reality as you know it. No matter what the answer is, it will only take a few seconds for you to find yourself sinking into a void, Crystallis vanishing into the distance. There is nothing but darkness as far as the eye can see.

And once again you feel different: all the powers from your Jobs are fading. Not only that, but you might find that your Crystal is gone and your clothes back to what they were before you woke up in Crystallis. It is silent, cold and before long it feels as though life itself is slipping out of you... And yet, slowly the world reforms around you. The darkness fades away and a new world appears, yet at the same time this is not a world.

This is a memory. The question is, is it yours or that of someone else?

Comments

[theendiswherewestartfrom]

"I know no such thing." Jack quirks a quick smile. "You don't know who I am." He looks up at the boy, but Anthy racks with pain again, and he focuses on her. He will not help anyway.

"Anthy," his voice stays gentle, murmuring, just for her to hear. Give her something to focus on. He half-hefts the girl in his arms, carefully, as if intending to just walk out of here with her. One hand goes to her hair, gently smooths it down. His touch is impossibly soft, soothing, as if he was handling his own daughter. His eyes track up, briefly, to the other figure. The one up there gets stabbed with swords, he feels them move through her.

"Why are you in both places? I can't get you out of here unless I free her, can I?" This place is impossible, but Jack is an impossible person. There has to be some kind of twisted logic to it all. Always is.

[flowershrine]

Anthy looks at him and tries to speak, but it is the boy's voice that answers. Instead she clutches to him, pressing to hear his heartbeat instead of Utena's screaming. She counts the beats, uneven to her ears - like a waltz. Jack is a hero, he wants to be and she can feel it in the core of her being.

"Once there was a Prince, who fell ill under his duty. His subjects called for him to help them, but his sister who tended to him knew; if he left he would die. So the little thing went out to the crowd and paid what he could not. Her choice changed them both - made her the Witch and he the Devil."

She glares at the Phantom of her brother, eyes peeking through the space Jack's arm and torso make.

"Dios tells a story no longer mine, but it is still hers a until this plays out. I hid one I loved and bore the hatred for it. In turn he used me," she pushes away from Jack, a gentler pantomime of Utena's push from Akio. "He used me and countless others to get his power back, when what he sought wasn't his to regain."

When the pain stopped Anthy knew it was too late. The Rose Gate opened and her vision tunneled once more, forcing her to stagger back towards Jack. Running her fingers into her hair, the tears came and burned her cheeks as they fell.

"I'm here because it was my fate to be. I was to be offering for my brother because I thought it was the only way and it's only because of Utena that it's any different."

As the whine of metal grew close, loud and angry Anthy began to tear at her hair.

"Please, Jack - she shouldn't have to pay for this! It's not fair, please..."

She'd watched enough to know there was no use. Utena dangled at the edge reaching down, ignorant of what would befall her, just like always.

"Please. Get up! "

As the memory of touch fired across her fingertips, Anthy brought her hand to her chest. Blind with tears, she tried to step forward and failed.

"Don't do this!LEAVE ME THERE!"

It was a fool's errand but Utena had done the impossible too. That hope was promptly thrown out of the window, she felt the pull of her drop bring her to her knees. The blades entered her vision and Anthy, as stupid as she knew it was, couldn't help but reach for her, nails scraping against stone futilely. Darkness flooded everything and a single word was heard above the thunder of crashing metal.

"UTENA!"

[theendiswherewestartfrom]

The sound stabs right into Jack to break his own heart, not of the blades, but of the scream that leaves every inch of Anthy, her whole being going into it. Despair, hopelesness, and a touch of guilt. But now, Jack can see what is happening here. He has heard that same sound, with a different name, in his own heart. Utena, she reaches for Anthy, tries to save her, tries to fight for her, even tries to take her place.

You know. I'd trade places with you. If I could.

The scene resets, it starts over again, but Jack still holds Anthy firm in his arms. Tears fall, not just for her, and for her love, but for his own. The words he has to say aren't just ones he knows Anthy has to hear, but that he knows, for himself.

"This isn't your fault. You can handle this, I know. You can stay, suffering and dying, forever, and you'd never want anyone else to have to go through what's that like. But her. She loves you, doesn't she? And that means that even though you think this is your fate, she'd never leave you behind."

His eyes briefly squeeze shut. "And that isn't your fault. Your love didn't get her hurt. Didn't get her killed. It's not your fault that there's something so horrible out there that would use that love to hurt her. She would have always done anything to save you. Even if it was impossible. It- it would have always ended this way."

Remember me.

[flowershrine]

"No!"

Anthy struggles against his grip, reaching for Utena as she sobs. Utena had only been last in a long line, moved towards this point with great and careful cruelty. The poor foolish girl - all she wanted to was help. And at her brother's order, Anthy made sure she was lied to and coerced - a child forced to play at being hero. The stab in the back was more repetition than anything, evidence of the betrayal made manifest.

"It's my fault. I lied to her, I delivered her to him."

She began to shudder as the onslaught of blades began, grip weakening as her grief took her. It was only fair, right? Her love meant the destruction of anyone who received it. Dios had been destroyed long ago by childish selfishness and now Utena was to suffer for naivete.

"I couldn't let him go and it made him something worse and now she's paying for what I did. It's my fault! It's my fault!!"

Platitudes for something he didn't understand, that's all that Jack offered her. He sounded so kind...so much like her, forgiving without knowing that weight. As if regret made things better.

"Death would have been kinder! She was wiped away like she was nothing! I--"

The rest of her words were stolen by a screech as she was overcome with pain, the blades under her skin threatening to break through. Breathing shallowed, she whimpered as she prayed for relief - whispering.

"I promised her. I promised. I'm so sorry, Jack. I hope she knows..."

[theendiswherewestartfrom]

A hand goes to Anthy's cheek, tenderly, a thumb wiping away tears, as he cradles her close, but as gently as he can. He tries to look in her eyes, to get her to focus on him. The words he speaks are out of experience, pain, not empty at all.

"So long as you remember her, she isn't gone. She was here. She existed. Because she touched your life. And she loved you. It was real. Even if all you have left is your memory, that's enough."

He was here, he loved me, he trusted me, he followed me into danger, and I got him killed.

"She fought. She would have always fought. It didn't matter if she could actually win. Didn't matter if you hurt her. She would still fight for you. Don't regret that. Honor her actions."

A woman Jack doesn't know, but a fight that he does, a struggle that he knows all too well, because it's been fought by him, fought in his name time and time again. He won't tell her to let it go. Pushing it away and running has never helped Jack, it's only brought his footsteps to where he is right now.

"She knows. She'll always know. You didn't mean it. You're sorry. And with her last breath, she would have forgiven you."

[flowershrine]

The mere idea of forgiveness sends Anthy over the edge, wailing. It feels like an eternity since she's cried this way and longer still since it actually meant anything. Her vision tunnels as she clutches to Jack, sobbing as if she were that child terrified for her brother once more. As the drone of the swords drew close, as usual, she braced for something that did come - if her concerned expression was any indication.

"Something's wrong."

The sound of drawn metal drew her attention, as Dios began to feverishly mutter. His skin was beginning to shine with sweat and his brows seemed to furrow with discomfort. Long strands of pale hair stuck to his body

"Her fault...couldn't let me breathe...couldn't let me go...left me...abandoned me."

The repetition of the memory seemed to slow to nothing now, besides the Phantom of Dios, whose eyes were clouding further by the second.

"Something is very wrong, Jack."