A conversation, long overdue. The amnesiac kept to her steady pace, the staccato thrum of heeled leather her only accompaniment for the journey ahead. Across the pungently herbaceous kitchen, where Chihiro was taking great pains to sear a hunk of pale meat, tongs held high and tiny head barely poking over the stove top. Through the emptied hallway, smothering the phantom fingers creeping up her covered neck at the sight of her attacker, listless blue eyes and raw, pinked flesh. Her destination lay before her - the door that was in every respect a bastion, barred and standing vigil against trespassers like herself.

Kirigiri called the attention of the occupant within through her covered digits, impacts dully reverberating through the thick wood. The door retorted with its own softened echoes, and the investigator's ears perked to the stimulus.

Laughter. Silence. Then laughter again - different... boisterous and bodied.

The door pitched open, revealing the occupant who was not at all expected. Lilac eyes briefly widened in surprise - the gesture subdued for most, discordant for her.

"-ndeed, m'lady. I apologize for not grasping the nuances behind their majong gamesmanship." said Hifumi, bespectacled face turned away from the door.

"Nonsense, you've nothing to apologize for..." Celeste assured, hand flitted over her still-trembling mouth. "Akagi simply demands far too much knowledge of the game from the average layperson. Even I occasionally find myself rather disoriented at times while browsing through their best excerpts-"

Then her round, red eyes fixed themselves onto the opened doorway. The merriment melted of the Gambler's face like warmed, wilted plastic.

"I'm afraid we'll have to continue our pleasant discussion some other time, Yamada." The Gothic girl informed, expression sharpened and taut like garrote wire.

The rotund ultimate nodded in acknowledgement, taking his leave from the conversation with respectful discretion.

Red eyes bore into her own, steeled expectantly. Lilac blinked first. Kirigiri preferred to think her submission an apology - no, lies were unbecoming of her.

"Well?" The Ultimate Gambler chastised, head tilted and talon beckoning. "Discuss. Your. Purpose."

"May I enter?" Kirigiri tentatively requested, gloved hand rested on the door frame.

"Please do." Celeste acquiesced, eyes never leaving her mark. Shivers crept up the investigator's spine - feeling very much the intruder the former likely thought her as.

"I've come to understand my actions were... excessive." She began, emotions blanching as the words twisted of their own accord, furtively seeking to salvage her pride.

Did not like to apologize. Rather troublesome.

Another trait the girl she must have been possessed. The second inconvenient inheritance, beyond her scorched hands sheathed in leather.

"Quite an apology you've given, dear." The Ultimate Gambler deadpanned, pallid hands clasped onto each other at the palm. The talon rubbed at the back of her hand in a way that must have broken the skin. "Is your pride truly that unflappable, despite your transgressions?"

"My actions were a necessity." Kirigiri insisted, uncertain where the words came from and why they continued to. They would do nothing but subvert her own cause.

"Oh, I don't doubt that." Celeste conceded, rolling her thin shoulders. Her gaze broke to inspect the steel talon adorning her digits. "We'd all have been dead without them."

"Then I fail to see the cause for concern." She replied automatically, privately uncomfortable with the direction her attempt at an apology had taken of its own volition.

Why am I like this? Have I always been like this?

A degree of truth would have been welcome - rolling anger, seething glares. Something to indicate a measure of targeted emotion.

Instead, The Ultimate Gambler retained a poker face of untarnished porcelain. Then she began to giggle to herself, quietly and disconcertingly. It evolved into laughter that evoked the primal discordance. The kind of rolling sound that bore teeth, rumbling from the back of one's throat to end at another's at the lightest of provocation.

"My point is you've gone too far with it. And you'll pay for what you did." Celeste-fucking-Ludenberg plaintively stated, as if already in attendance to her speaker's funeral.

"How have I gone too far? How would you have done it, in my position?" Kyoko returned, fighting to remain unfazed at the declaration.

"Not in my case." Celeste promised, doll-like nod preceding her next statement. "That other bitch too."

"Maizono?" Kyoko supplied. Who else could it have been?

The Gambler nodded in acknowledgement, a split second of vulnerability - posture that looked far more fragile than it ever had before.

"Don't get me wrong. Sayaka Maizono has been relegated to F-tier by now: her existence a blight to be remedied the moment I'm liberated from this gilded cage." Celeste promised distantly, in a manner that left the stoic before her suppressing a shudder. "But I do understand her - how she's been wronged by you. And I sympathize where I cannot forgive."

What?

So she asked.

"My anger towards you would have faded, were it not for that unseemly display you insisted on." Celeste stated, hands now rested gracefully on her skirted lap. Would have been, were it not for her digits sinking into the fabric, tugging and ruffling the elegant couture.

"And what display did you find problematic enough to judge me so?" Kirigiri inquired, regret giving forth to genuine annoyance she hadn't felt since the trial.

"Your cruelty." The Ultimate Gambler condemned, voice devoid of everything but vindication. "Your apathy."

She felt her own gloves tighten in her knuckled grasp.

How dare she?

"If I recall correctly - and I'm rarely wrong in my recollections..." Kyoko stated, tone projecting a void of strangling calm. "I've saved everyone's lives on that day, despite the absurdity and interruptions levied by some of those very same individuals. Yourself included among their number."

"At the cost of invading us. Our privacy. Our truths, without a care in the world but to engage your damnable inquisitive nature." Celeste refuted again, stalwart in her belief.

"I've only gone as far as I needed to." The trial's chief investigator insisted, containing herself tightly. "Even your own case was a necessity."

"And that I truthfully acknowledge, for most of our cases." The girl humiliated at the trial admitted, nodding in a way that left her ringlets bobbing. "But Miss Maizono's, however, was needless. You did nothing less than attack her."

"She attacked me!"

Strangling would have, strangely enough, been preferable. It was difficult to do - how she knew that was an enigma in itself - and could be hampered if they were even remotely similar in strength. The phantom needles crept against her tie-bound skin, tracing and scoring her ashen neck, creeping towards her now-trembling throat. Bile festered and blistered its pervasive corrosion in the pit of her stomach, and her breath hitched and caught at the rancid, rancid memory.

"After you provoked her." Celeste condemned, uncaring of the other girl's state. "No, that's not the correct word. After you unraveled her - secrets and pains and everything in between, before an audience and for your own unabashed interest. You did far more to her than she could have ever done to you, even if she hadn't been stopped."

That can't be right.

Kyoko repeated the sentiment numbly.

"No, it wasn't right." Celeste concurred. "Everyone deserves their own delusions. And you robbed someone of that. You've affronted me. You've affronted my standards, and I don't care in the slightest who the victim was when the killer of their dreams soldiers on unfazed and ignorant. How. Dare. You."

"But she attempted murder." Slowly, cruelly - impulsively, but murder nonetheless. "And we needed to expose her, for all our lives - yours included."

"But you have. And you did. And you never stopped, even when the confession came. Even when she begged and pleaded for her own end, finding it preferable to the humiliation that you so cruelly insisted to heap on her being. 'Liar', I recall you condemned her to be. In pursuit of a truth you ought to have respected as a matter of decency."

"It was needed to understand. For the victim's closure." Words. They were words. They rang hollow. Celeste snarled and seethed, looking like a different person altogether.

"Bullshit, Nancy-fucking-Drew. They didn't care to, and the knowledge has sullied them and their actions. You've done admirably prior to that, but your bullheaded hard-on for that invasive truth of yours cost a girl her dignity, her victims their friendship, and possibly one of them their lives, should a single one of us act out of line. ANY one of us."

That was wrong. She did good. She has done good.

I've done everything I could, within my power. Buying precious time, hunting down the liberating truth. Stalling our executions.

Yet here she was, tethered fabric hiding away her own consequences, watching sanity slip away as she mechanically recited findings, observing friendships crumble from strain, chastised by someone she'd came to seeking peace to their conflict - and her own responses had been found terribly, terribly wanting.

"But you don't understand." Celeste interrupted, curling her fingers idly - as if it were the most interesting thing in the room, while the listless stoic found herself dragged back into the world that grew more uncomfortable with knowledge. "It would be against my principles to condemn someone who didn't know better. And you might not see it. I've determined a measure of penance for your actions - nowhere near enough to atone, but a demonstration of regret that may indicate you not being beyond redemption."

Kyoko nodded limply, massaging warmth into her own forearms that had grown deathly cold in her musings.

I've done everything I could have. What more could I have? What else was there? It was needed. It was needed. It was needed.

It had to be. It must be. It was.

"Then expose yourself." The Queen of Liars commanded, flicking a talon at the investigator's bound ascot, expectant. "Understand your actions. The consequences we had to."

The tie came undone clumsily, dropping onto the carpeted floor. The pockmarked flesh chilled from exposure, unbearably present and notched with nail-long scars.

It hurts. It hurts. It hurts.

Came the barrage of phantom pain, threatening to carve her windpipe to ribbons, then following through on the threat.

Again. And Again. And Again.

Kyoko whimpered, the sound choked and pained just as she had been mere days before.

"Well done, Kirigiri." Celeste congratulated, sounding almost sympathetic, then knowing - none of it registered amidst the investigator's traumatic haze. "Now, the gloves."

Her left hand began peeling away at her right, gripping the loose gap within the tip of the appendage until a sliver of flesh exposed itself.

Cracked. Discolored. Raw. Blazing.

Bubbling.

And her right hand had folded into itself while her left had taken to concealing the mottled flesh, along with a good bit of her wrist. Her own grip was bruising but it was far better than letting it go, common sense be damned straight to hell. Her breathe quickened until the world lightened and her vision swam with unmentionable colors.

Salt. Iron. Blood.

Kyoko had bitten her bottom lip. She hadn't let go yet.

Then she did. Blood trickled down her chin but she paid it no mind. If she were any lucky it would drip onto her jacket and bounce off harmlessly.

There is blood. I am in my jacket. I have teeth digging into my lip.

Facts. Facts rooted truth. She would claw her way back to reality before the blur overcame.

I'm in a room. I'm trying to apologize. I failed at that. I'm being condemned for my actions.

Reality was reality, no matter how unpleasant. It dragged her back down onto her own shaky legs.

"Shame." Celeste Ludenberg shook her head, disappointed. "There might have been promise yet. Suppose you'll never truly understand. Or simply never care to."

And the Ultimate Gambler had dismissed her. And she'd obliged. And she'd walked wherever her legs carried her to, as far as they wanted to go.

And she'd done everything she could.

Today was the big day.

Well, the big day was supposed to come a few days ago now. Until it got interrupted by a lot of little days that made it hard to feel excited about them.

The Ultimate Programmer had grown wonderfully under Sakura's tutelage. The scant few days had instilled a lot of discipline in his system, in the form of sheer and unadulterated exhaustion weighing his slender limbs down. But there was another role model he wanted help from - and he was an actual guy to boot!

Guys - real guys, all tough and confident - liked meat, right? Real meat like pork, thick and juicy with the fat and oil dribbling down the plates. It would make a good bribe, for starters. Not that he probably needed one - Mondo seemed nice enough, saving him and all back then - but there was nothing wrong with a bit of an incentive, while also being a thank-you all in one.

The meat seared beautifully, and he'd turned it on it's other side after five minutes of pan contact. Then came the onions that made his eyes water, minced with three cloves of garlic that reeked like no other. Admittedly, he should have prepared them already, but it had been a while and foresight wasn't the first to come with memory.

The slan had come off browned beautifully once the time had passed, and he'd stuck in in the oven until it roasted as close to perfection as he remembered. Chihiro craned his short neck to see the beautiful brown fond stick to the bottom of the pan. Then came the almost-improvised vegetables, rolling the onions and garlic into the fondant until they softened and turned translucent. Then the water - the school didn't stock their kitchen with alcohol, go figure - to deglaze. Finally, the pork stock, which smelled heavenly. The reduction would simmer down within minutes of the roasted pork chop.

The girls he grew up with were amazing, and no one questioned why he'd always tried to slink away whenever he needed to get changed. He didn't always succeed, and the loses were rather... memorable. He was a boy going through puberty, after all. But cooking came now, and he'd hefted the meal somewhere it could cool down. Alter Ego laid within the back of his idling mind, with their astounding development and emotional learning capability.

And he'd brought the meal and searched for the role model in question, finding him sitting alone by the cafeteria. Practically inhaling bland, over salted cup noodles.

"What?" Mondo stared, confused at the half-pound of plated pork loin where nothing used to be.

"it's... um, a little something i made for you. as t-thanks for saving me back then." Chihiro explained shyly, putting their request on hold until the reception turned positive.

The Ultimate Biker's expression flipped a bit, across different states that didn't make sense together or in sequence. Then his mouth gaped, followed by a confused head tilt, then followed by a blinking eyes and a look of knowing recognition - the kind that one just knew drew the wrong conclusion. "Thanks, I guess..."

Chihiro smiled at the acceptance, handing over the cutlery with a bow, joining his role model for their meal. "you were really brave back then, helping me."

Confused blinking. Maybe Mondo didn't remember? "Uhh, yeah, I guess... don't worry nothing 'bout it." he replied, biting into a cube of tender meat.

so cool...

That kind of strong - where you did impressive things that didn't even register anymore.

i want that...

"c-can you help me be strong like that too?" Chihiro asked, fingers fidgeting uncertainly. He could always say no, which would be sad. There weren't many others to look up to.

"Huh?" Mondo replied, confused. "Don't you have Ogre and Donut to help you there? You three seem pretty chummy all the time."

yeah. but they're girls. they're good at making me strong and tough, but they won't help me be a guy.

How about going around saying that? The idea itself had caught in his head, weighted down by the sheer stupidity of it.

It was difficult to get across, even to the few who knew. They'd always assumed it to be something about gender identity or something. He'd always been trans or gender fluid at first guess (and yes, he'd done plenty of homework on those two topics. You could only go on for so long hearing the same buzzwords that didn't apply to you until you could pinpoint exactly how it didn't apply to you.) from most people. It wasn't gender identity - it would be rude to put that with the people actually suffering from that. It was just a matter of bravery, in that he wasn't. Which he might solve, if things go just right.

Sakura and Hina were awesome with the hardware aspects - cardio and workouts daunting enough to make it feel like his muscles would slough off at the joints. But the rest of it? The being proud of yourself? Going against everyone's expectations, even if they were right that you were bad? Asking girls out?

"well, um..." Ideas, ideas. How to get the point across? "i-i want to train with you."

Mondo's eyes widened in recognition. He looked away, face deep in thought.

Or so Chihiro imagined, unaware of this little thing known as context.

"W-Well, I'm uh... real flattered and all." The Ultimate Biker slowly claimed, rubbing the back of his neck.

Oh no, I might have overdone the pepper and spices.

Chihiro assumed.

His face is starting to flush now.

Chihiro assumed correctly.

"But I'm not sure if I'm... the best pick for someone like ya... you feel me?" He tried to let down, as easily as possible.

"but you are!" The Ultimate Programmer insisted, causing the taller man to flinch and drop his fork. The silverware clattered onto the ground, forgotten. "it has to be you! i don't want anyone else!"

"I... uh... erm..." Mondo trailed off, avoiding eye contact at all cost and furiously fixed on slicing the pork loin to chunks. Which Chihiro had noted was an attempt to stall the conversation, shoving the seasoned chunk in his mouth and likely shrugging the conversation away.

This was, (un)fortunately, the only time in this conversation where Chihiro had demonstrated a modicum of perceptiveness.

"it has to be you. please try... for me?" The boy batted his wide eyes, aware at the gesture's effectiveness but ignorant of some very crucial context.

Mondo had redoubled his efforts, failing to ignore the loaded statement and choosing to instead redouble his efforts against the trap that was pork loin.

So The Ultimate Programmer reached out to the Ultimate Biker Gang Leader, and for perhaps the only time in recorded history and simple sensibility the latter flinched first. His scrawny arm gripped at a tussle of loose leather, owner trying and failing to free his jacket from his grasp without leaving his seat.

"promise me. please."

A promise between men. That's what Mondo always said.

it had to get through, right? right?

And it did, though not in the way either assumed of the other.

"F-Fine." Mondo stuttered, which the boy found confusing. "I'll try, I guess. No promises, though. If you can't deal, it's fine to bail. You're really overestimating me here, y'know?"

"no way! and i won't bail on anything!"

Success!

Chihiro chose to stay with Mondo for his lunch, rather than accompany Sakura for their mid-day routine. She'd understand. Probably.

Mondo, on one hand, had finally cubed his pork chop, using the knife in the other. The Ultimate Biker had taken to shoving mouthfuls of meat at through the point of a knife as quickly as humanly possible under Chihiro's unflinching gaze.

This is, unfortunately, the lightest our story ever gets.

Oogami had taken to shadow sparring in the time being, swinging her shinai with the poise and form she'd found lacking. Another repetition. Then another. Until she got it right, or her body had reached its limit. There was no point in overexertion, after all, given how daily practice got one far further than even the most effective models of the former. Simply, calculated efficiency, much like herself. Less applicable to the one joining her on such short notice.

Garbed in copious protective equipment that mirrored her own was a masked figure, hefting their own shinai in challenge.

"Good Afternoon, Miss Oogami!" The man bellowed through his mask, and Sakura replied in kind. "Good day, Taka. Are you perhaps interested in a friendly spar?"

"I Have Prepared Myself With That In Mind!" The Ultimate Moral Compass declared brightly, shifting into a prepared stance. "I Kindly Implore You To Avoid Bruising Me Too Badly, If At All Possible."

The Ultimate Martial Artist laughed, hearty and amused. "You have my word no serious harm shall befall you. Now prepare yourself."

They readied and faced one another, excitement hidden behind Sakura's mask for an opponent that might pose a challenge.

An overhead swing, with the fraction of her strength brought to bear. Taka chose to dodge instead - prudent, respectable, knowing not the force behind the blows. He countered with a high swing that would have stricken her across the head (Men), dodged with instinctual ease as her pale mope of hair whipped.

"You're rather capable in the art, for someone with without the relevant talent." She complimented, circling her opponent with earned caution.

"Martial Art's Foundation Lay In Discipline, Sakura." The prefect answered, twirling his weapon with flair his opponent had thankfully allowed to pass. "I've Some Years Of Training In This Art As Well. In Truth, I May Not Have Participated Had You Been Practicing A Different Discipline."

"Then it is fortunate indeed." Sakura replied, muscles relaxing slightly. "My sparring partner for the evening has yet to show themselves. Shame really, though I readily admit you're more versed in this method than they had ever shown.

It was perhaps unfair to Chihiro, given her slight figure and inexperience, but a challenge she was not. Resolve was their shared strength, and the tinier girl lacked even the musculature to maintain even basic forms. The improvement came readily, though. Just not enough to pose a challenge.

Not as quick as the wood swinging towards her hands (Do), which was enough to jar her back into the match. She raised her practice blade and stepped into his guard.

Then he'd fallen as if stricken by something beyond a blow of a blade. In a manner just as horrifying as she'd remembered it to be, on that fateful day.

Sakura caught her opponent, thick and sinewy hands splayed open to maximize surface area and avoid painful angles for the fallen.

"Are you unwell?" She asked, concerned and sparring tool discarded. "I'm not in such urgent need of an opponent, I assure you."

"I Can Still Stand..." Taka assured, struggling. "It Would Be Remiss Of Me To Yield Merely To My Body."

"There is no shame in understanding one's limitations." Oogami gently rebuked, shaking her head after placing the boy down. "Pushing beyond them is irresponsible. Unfitting for someone of your admirable discipline, rest assured. Please don't overexert yourself, Taka."

"The Spirit Is Willing." The Ultimate Moral Compass insisted, out of principle. "But Heeding Your Superior Experience On The Matter."

Good. Sensible.

"I'm afraid my beverage selection is rather plain." The Ultimate Martial Artist apologized, handing the exhausted student a bottle of capped mineral water.

"This Is More Than Kind." Taka asserted, taking a greedy gulp and downing half its contents before speaking. "Thank You For Your Generosity."

"You are most welcome."

The pair sat on the mat in silence, Sakura's muscles aching for stimulation but consideration kept her figure firmly planted to accompany her brief partner.

"Your stamina is rather concerning." She warned, unable to force down the thrum of disappointment at the lackluster conclusion of their bout.

"Indeed." Taka agreed, forcing a deep, uncertain breath. "The Incident Has Left Me Lacking For Nearly Two Days Now. I Hope It Passes With Time."

Understood. She imagined stifled lungs, choked with moist and smothering heat. "I pray that it will as well." Sakura promised, hands briefly clasped to pantomime the gesture. He responded with a dip of his head, accompanied by heaving breaths as he began to peel the wire mask off.

"I've Actually Come For A Different Purpose Altogether, If I May Be So Frank."

The Martial Artist rested her hands upon her thighs. "And what purpose would that be?"

"I Seek Perspective On Such Matters." Taka clarified, coughing into his fit wetly in a rather concerning way. She eyed him warily in case his condition worsened. "I've Come To Doubt My Own Judgement. To A Limited Degree, Of Course."

Hmm.

"Are you perhaps referring to your decision at the trial? To spare the girl her punishment?" A confirmatory nod came in kind.

"Why does my opinion even matter, with regards to such? I don't doubt my perspective, but hinging your talent's growth on someone unrelated and untrained in your field may compromise your own development." He must have seen that. He was not blind.

"That Is Precisely Why It Matters. I Must Understand What Drives People To Their Views, Even If I Personally Cannot Agree With Them." said Taka, face rigid. "And I Happen To Stand In Admiration Of Your Unyielding Discipline Regardless. Your Thoughts Would Matter A Great Deal To Me, Miss Oogami."

Is that so?

"You flatter me, Ultimate Moral Compass." She acknowledged, eyes shut in contemplation. "Though I'm afraid I cannot mirror the same glowing outlook. Are you certain you find the information a necessity to your own strength?"

"Of Course." Taka assured, sweat-stained face blazing. "Please Grant Me Your Insight."

"Do you believe yourself to be brave, Taka?" She asked, firmly staring forwards.

"I Would Like To, One Day."

"Do you view yourself disposable, Taka?"

"I Would Believe Not, Though Some Have Insisted Otherwise." He stated plainly, shaking his head. "It Would Be Remiss To Not Take Such Into Personal Consideration."

"I see." Oogami quietly noted, continuing. "Then you are not a fool. Merely foolish."

"How So, If I May?"

"Do you intend for a future?"

"Of Course. It Would Be A Failing Not To."

"What kind of future do you seek?"

"One Where I Can Stand By My Own Name With Pride. As My Children One Day, Might..."

The Ultimate Martial Artist chose not to pry, sensing his hesitance at just those words and proceeding with the little she knew.

"Honorable. But do you intend to have a place in it?"

"As Much As Possible."

"Yet you don't seem troubled by the idea of it not being the case."

". . . Don't I?"

"From your response to this alone."

Taka quieted, eyes lidded to lost thought. Oogami downed a slog of sweetened whey while he pondered.

"I once fought in a Team Mixed Martial Arts bout, years ago. When I was slighter in figure and oft-underestimated."

The prefect eyed her body curiously, as if the idea of a smaller Sakura was incomprehensible. She paid it no mind and chose to elaborate.

"One of our opponents was a wiry man, lacking in strength but burning with the same determination I see in you." Taka seemed flattered by the information, which would eventually prove anything but once she continued. "Seeking victory, even if he could not bask in it. He was among the few who'd taken my renown earnestly - he gave up on techniques both of us knew I could overpower with ease, or attempting to land blows I could meet and match until he could bear it no more. Instead, drew me towards the edge of the boundary before flinging himself, mass and momentum barreling, seeking to topple me out of the ring."

She paused to ensure her charge's attention, which he returned whilst silently musing for the meaning in her tale.

"He nearly succeeded, but didn't - so it no longer mattered. And there was little honor in his action. Success was salvaged with deceit, not technique or training. Failure came humiliatingly for what I knew was a veteran fighter, despite his elementary plan. He'd surrendered his pride for the possibility of victory, and nothing came of it."

"But You Said He Was Brave?" Taka interrupted, gauging a response.

"He was. He surrendered his pride for his comrades and his goal. His sacrifice was brave, but pointless ultimately. And I was denied a proper opponent, and their comrades were left outnumbered and soundly defeated for his error. Despite what had been written, no one truly won that day."

"You Were Stronger Than Him - You Even Said So." The prefect intruded, arguing a cause that didn't register to the nostalgic fighter. "What If That Were The Only Way They Could Have Won? If He'd Tried And Failed, Then That Would Have Left Him On The Path To Defeat. Do You Truly Believe He Had A Chance Against You?"

"No, I do not." Sakura retorted, nodding deliberately. "But he was not alone. They had not planned the act - his allies were as surprised as I was in that brief instance. It was an impulse borne of misplaced initiative and misjudged necessity. If he'd endured, fighting properly, perhaps his allies would have aided him quickly enough to prevent his defeat. Perhaps even quickly enough to spell my own - which I doubt, but will never know until the possibility of a fated rematch. He'd surrendered himself to his notions, and that led to his team's ruin. Gambling and failing, even when the slim possibility of success was already tainted by the means he'd taken for it."

"So Are You Saying I Should Have Allowed Sayaka To Die Then? In The Name Of Cooperation?!"

"No. I did not intend to imply such." Sakura admitted, bowing her head. "I apologize. It was merely a recollection from a past I'd began to long for again. Think little of it."

"I... I Apologize As Well. I'd Asked For Your Opinion And Chastised You For Your Candor." He bowed his head in kind. "May I Ask You Such Directly? Stripped Bare Of Metaphors And Memories - Do You Believe I Acted Rationally? Kindly? Properly?"

"I'm uncertain... there is no precedence for such in my experiences. It was simply my view on the principle, coupled with the frustration the denial of a proper bout had instilled in me. With lives at stake, I don't believe I could guarantee maintaining my stance on the matter - despite how I likely implied such."

"I See... Though I Am Relieved, Somewhat, That Someone Else Remains Just As Uncertain As I've Grown To Be." He stated, then quietly blanched at realization. "No - That Was Wrong. I Would Not Wish This Intrusive Doubts On Anyone. No One Deserves To Be A Kindred Spirit In Suffering."

"You've not offended me, Taka. I am comforted in the reminder that everyone doubts, as twisted as it sounds in our circumstance."

"But Am I Mistaken?" Concern, doubt, unbecoming of a role model but natural from a person lost. Sakura sighed and mustered advice she'd never put into practice.

"I fear I am the last person you ought to ask for such criticism." She confessed, sullenly staring at her booted feet. "As long as you've acted according to yourself and your beliefs, you've done well for yourself. The doubts never cease, but take comfort in the decisions you made despite them - right or wrong as they may prove to be."

AN:

Kleptor: Right back atcha! Couldn't shout you out last time because it was really late and I didn't have it in me to do anything more than copy-paste stuff.

FranFranWriter: Glad you're invested in the story. And yes, Mukuro is a lot of fun writing like this - her being a syncophant/doormat didn't really sit right with me, given her free time events and THH conversation. Also yes, I felt like an evil bastard coming up with that. Beta even tried to playfully talk me out of it :P