A/N: I feel intensely guilty for going almost two weeks without updating properly and then giving you such a short chapter when I do update. To be honest, writer's block/burnout and general Events Of Life got in the way, including a whole bunch of stress from school.
Please forgive me, guys. I'll try to go back on this and expand it/revise it later on. And this next chapter is going to be a LOT more action packed.
I, just.. I'm really sorry, guys. I failed you this update. Hopefully you still enjoy the chapter.
When Tohru finishes his litany, a blue jail door appears before him. He recognizes it - Joker's Velvet Room, that blue prison. Now what is it doing in his little kingdom?
He sees Akira through the bars, fighting with..
What the hell. Tohru leans in to make sure he's got it right. A hook-nosed man with a deep, distorted voice yells at Akira, floating in the air. "YOU ARE CORRECT, I AM NOT YOUR ATTENDANT - NO, I AM THE GOD OF DESIRE YOU BEHELD IN THE DEPTHS, THE HOLY GRAIL KNOWN AS YALDABAOTH."
And the man vanishes. Tohru bursts in about the same time, blinking.
Akira's breath catches in his throat, eyes wide. "Adachi-san, you ass.."
He runs and hugs Tohru suddenly. Tohru grunts, sighing. "Yeah, yeah, I'm safe. Glad you are too," Tohru reassures. He hugs back, rolling his eyes. "Speaking of which, Joker.. if you're around, where are the others? Where is your-"
"Welcome to the Velvet Room," a strange voice says behind him, and Tohru turns around to find a copy of the hook-nosed man with a different voice.
"G'AH! Are you that god that vanished?"
The man shakes his head. "I am Igor, the normal overseer to the Velvet Room along with its other attendants. Yaldabaoth imprisoned me and severed this one's.." He gestures to Joker. "... attendant into two separate beings, Caroline and Justine. She has been made whole again."
"Wait, Overseer? But I thought it was Philemon and Margaret that ran the Velvet Room."
That makes Igor look visibly shocked. "You know of Philemon?"
Tohru nods. "Yeah?"
This little white-haired girl (presumably the one Igor mentioned) steps out, looking the spitting image of Margaret with longer hair. "Let me assist," she says.
She closes her eyes and a portal of blue butterflies opens. Through it steps Margaret and Philemon.
"Igor, my attendant, I am glad you have returned to us." Philemon smiles.
"Consider me relieved as well, Master." Margaret's tone is oddly fond as she claps her hands together. She looks down at the little girl and smiles wider, hugging her. "Lavenza, my little sister.." "Unhand me, bigger sister."
Tohru can't help laughing not just at the interaction, but at Akira blushing at both Margaret and Philemon. "Good to know we're having a family reunion," he chuckles.
Philemon nods. "Funny that you should mention, Fool of a new world - your fellow teammates are in this Velvet Room."
Igor folds his hands."The ordeal has sapped them of the will to keep going.. you must convince them."
"Go," Philemon says, "both of you Wild Cards, go with power and rejuvenate them."
Akira and Tohru smile at each other and run off.
Yukitaro Adachi - no, Yuuki Mishima - is languishing in a cell. His eyes are blank and dull. His limbs are limp. Oh, he breathes still, his heart is still beating. But the fire in his soul has almost completely gone out.
He is a breathing corpse.
He watches as a figure appears at his jail door -
"Yukitaro. Yukitaro, it's me. Come on. Stay with me."
Akira Kurusu, the figure is. There was something important he had with Akira.. a special memory. What was it? What had it been?
"Yukitaro, speak to me. Speak to me, Yukitaro fucking Adachi."
"I'm just Mishima.. and there's no point to going by that name anymore. There's no point to anything."
Akira slams his fist against the bars. He grits his teeth. "I'll strangle Yaldabaoth myself for doing this to you."
Yuuki furrows his brow. Why? Why does Akira care so much about him? There's no point. And that memory.. it's still eluding him.
"Yukitaro Adachi, you've undergone hell. You've faced your worst fears, you can't give up now."
Yuuki shakes his head with all of the energy he can muster. "That's why.. that's why I shouldn't fight.. anymore.. I've had enough of the pain."
Akira sinks his body against the bars. He reaches a hand inside. "Reach into your pocket."
"... what?"
"Do it."
Yuuki supposes he'd do it.. there's no other option, no other way out. He fumbles in the pocket and pulls out something soft and round. Shadow Kamoshida's eyeball.
Akira's hand cups his as Yuuki holds the eyeball. "You made a promise to me, Yukitaro. You would live as yourself, as your true self, and I would.. I would live as my true self too."
Yuuki looks up at Akira's eyes. In them, he sees a ruler's gaze. In them, the warmth of that memory returns.. whispers in the dark, a vow made between two sons of outcasts, the moment that made him embrace who he is.
"Yukitaro, once we get out of this, I'll tell you my true name. Believe in this. Believe in me. Believe in the fact that I will share the load on your back, and I will walk with you, and I will trust in you and fight at your side and damn all the people who would ever try to stop us."
Yukitaro Adachi looks up at Akira Kurusu and smiles.
The bars to the door vanish, and he hugs Akira when he steps through.
Tohru Adachi is running down the azure halls of the Velvet Room's bars when he finds Ryotaro Dojima. Ryotaro is sitting in his cell, head in his hands. His shoulders move as if he's crying, but no sound is coming out of the cell than the heaves of attempted sobbing.
"Dojima-san," Tohru says, crouching down on his haunches and lacing a hand around one of the bars of Dojima's cell door.
The sound is enough to cease Ryotaro's silent crying. "Adachi. Just go. Leave me behind."
Tohru shakes his head. His voice is firm, sharp with resolve: "I'm not leaving you behind."
Ryotaro looks up with a hauntingly blank expression.
"Nanako is gone. What purpose do I have?" he says, his voice worn from sobbing.
Tohru blinks, staring incredulously.
"Dojima.. She's not dead."
Ryotaro shakes his head. His voice seems to be getting more emotionless with every word he says. "She is. Namatame killed her, and we let him walk free."
Tohru reels back, staring with wide eyes. "She's not dead, Dojima-san! I can show you pictures, don't you remember what happened? You ordered a stretcher for me when I came back bloody and beaten, Dojima.. Ryotaro, how do you forget?!"
"Maybe.. You should give up too. Both of us should. It's better to sit here and forget."
Tohru grinds his teeth as he lunges against the bars, gripping them tightly.
"QUIT THAT SHIT! This isn't you!"
Ryotaro Dojima smiles a fading smile.
"Just forget with me, Tohru Adachi.. It will be so easy.."
Tohru pulls back. One of his hands curls into a fist, and punches Ryotaro Dojima in the face right through the bars.
It's a sudden movement, one that makes Ryotaro shake his head again. "What.. wait.." Ryotaro's eyes begin to clear of their fog as the bars disappear, his gaze sharpening.
"... Adachi, did you just punch me in the nose? What the hell?!"
Tohru suddenly pulls close, resting his forehead on Ryotaro's as he cups the side of Ryotaro's face in an oddly tender action. "Look.. I'm sorry, ok? It was, just.. I'm glad you're ok."
Ryotaro pauses, then chuckles soberly.
"I'm glad you're ok too, Adachi.."
"Hey, Ryotaro, what'd you mean earlier?"
"By what?"
"When you vanished. You were saying 'Tohru, you idiot, it's..' and then you vanished. Who was it? The person that you cared about the most that you were going to join?"
That gets Ryotaro chuckling again. "It doesn't matter, Adachi.. It's all ok now."
"Not entirely," Margaret speaks up behind them, and Tohru flinches back from Ryotaro like he's been burned.
Margaret's staring down at Tohru with an uncharacteristically bitter expression, like she's tasting something sour in her mouth. Her mouth is twisted, her fists clenched. The next words she says are spit out with ample venom: "You and the other Thieves still have a god to kill, Jester."
