Karma trips going down the stairs. "Ow ow ow ow ow!" He falls the rest of the way down them.

"CUT!"

"I'm fine!" The boy stands up with a bloody nose. "I'm just fine!"


"Speak to him, and he'll suck out your soul."

"I would never." Fyodor protests. "I'd rather break someone slowly!"

Karma takes a step back.

"CUT!"

The redhead gulps as he eyes Fyodor.

Atsushi puts a hand on Karma's shoulder. "Don't worry. He'll mostly behave himself after Kunikida threatened to call the cops on him if he does something bad."

"That's…not quite reassuring."

"It's not meant to be. You're lucky, you leave after this episode. We have to deal with him for at least eight more."

Karma shakes his head in disbelief. "I can't believe your director lets him stay."

"He's insane, but Mori is paying him to act insane, so it's a good fit." Tachihara says from behind them.


"Ace is rather slimy, isn't he?" Kouyou remarks.

"His face is totally punchable." Chuuya adds.

Mori nods. "He's a disposable character, so we hired a sleazebag actor."


"The first to flee for shelter." Kouyou reads from the script. "This Ace is a coward, a slimebag, and all in all utterly unlikable, I see."

"That's the point." Mori reaffirms. "He's going to be here for only one episode. Why not?"


"Financial capacity is in itself a kind of strength."

"You mean like Fitzgerald?" Tachihara says from the shadows.

"CUT! You make an excellent point, but GET OFF THE SET!"


"So Ace is trying to recruit Fyodor? Is he insane?"

"Overconfident, more like." Karma mutters.

"True."


"Who called me a town doctor?!" Mori yells. "I was an excellent surgeon in a big hospital before I went to the black market!"

A scriptwriter clears her throat. "You wrote that part of the script."

"God DAMN it I should never have accepted being this character."


"Um, is Ace really Gifted?" Karma asks warily.

"No. He's just good at sleight of hand and card tricks." Mori reassures the boy. "He's not able to kill you with a thought."

"Thank god." The boy relaxes.

"On the other hand, Fyodor might have tampered with the collars. We don't know."

"Shit."


"Your parents sold you to a human trafficker?!" Tanizaki gapes at Karma.

"Not for real! I have two loving parents! Why would you even think someone would do that?"

"Well Atsushi had one set of foster parents sell him to organ traders and most of us don't exactly have great family situations, be it dead parents, a bad stepfamily, or whatever."

The scarred boy blinks. "Oh. Sorry. Well my parents are great."

"Great, man. You're lucky."


"My Ability allows me to control consciousness and space. Except it really allows me to remove parts of people's brains."

"CUT! Thank you for that entirely pointless explanation, Fyodor. We really needed to do this take over again."

"You're welcome."

"That was sarcasm." Mori glares.

"Oh, I know."


"Fyodor, I must say that though you are a creepy-ass bastard, seeing you humiliate Ace at cards was very cathartic and amazing to watch." Mori plays the footage again. "Look at his face!"

Kyouka is munching on popcorn and watching intently. "It's amazing how horrified he looks."

"We didn't tell him that the game was going to turn out this way, so that's his actual reaction." Mori informs her. "It's perfect."


"Fyodor's giving in far too quickly, I thi-he's lying, he's definitely lying." Gide says. "He said his ability was to erase brain bits, so he has to be lying."

"Brain bits? Don't writers know better terms than that?"

"It takes a lot of brainpower to make words work and we only use it when we're actually writing." Poe chimes in.

"JESUS! Poe, have you been here this whole time?"

"I left during the movie filming and the flashbacks. I had a novel to finish."

"You are as quiet as your raccoon, dude." Mori puts a hand on his racing heart. "We need to get you a bell or something."


"So Ace got outplayed by Fyodor? I believe it." Atsushi says. "Fyodor is indeed crafty."

"And crazy." Mori adds.

"Mori, he's standing behind you with a knife."

"Fyodor I will call the police do NOT fucking test me right now!" Mori snaps without turning around.

Fyodor slinks away.


"So now we show a suicide on the show?" Dazai says, frowning.

"We're using shadows to hide the worst bits and Ace is going to be suspended by strings so he doesn't actually die."

"Smart."


Atsushi gapes. "Memorized the-how? You have an insane memory, Fyodor!"

"Oh, it's not that hard."

"It really is."

"Allow me to correct myself. It's not that hard if you're me." Fyodor preens.


"He just killed a man and yet he acts like he's looking at a stain on the wall."

Fyodor grins wider. "I've killed before, it's nothing new."

Karma takes a step away from the man.

"CUT!"


"Mercy of death? Crime is thought? The great silence? Mori where did you get this material?" Kunikida demands. "Fyodor's a creep, but not nihilistic!

"My nihilist friend was happy to help out again."

The bespectacled man groans.