The Staging
"The year is 20XX… Ren has mastered every role that exists… every trope, every scene, all. The acting industry gotten to the point where everything is played out to theoretical perfection. Humanity has reached its pinnacle… The peasants are living in poverty… Ren face is on every wall, every screen. The great media propaganda machine brainwashes people to love the man who transcended human acting. Society bends to the will of the chosen one. After Ren finally attains godhood, he becomes the only viable actor left. He plays all the roles in all the films at the same time. He gets the all top ten entries in the top 10 actors. Monasteries are build in his name where monks levitate and honor his deeds in 7 different languages... Ren is everything, Ren is everywhere. Ren is all. The Ren Apocalypse took everyone by surprise, his growth is exponential. If left unchallenged, pretty soon he will gather enough power to conquer the whole world."
"But wait! An undercover group of acterrorist are planning a coup d'etat against Ren's Tiranny. Kyoko, Moko-san and Chiori from the secretive love me special forces! Viva la resistance!"
At that moment the lady owner of the Daruma's restaurant enters Kyoko's room. Kyoko is playing some kind of game with her dolls. The lady wants help with the costumers but Kyoko is having so much fun playing 'save the world'... seeing the little girl cheerfully holding the toys warms her heart.
She is so hardworking and helps me a lot everyday. I guess it is not bad to let her act as a child once in a while.*. The lady leaves Kyoko to her fantasies and goes back to the restaurant. *It has been a long time since I saw her playing like that... something might have happened at her workplace. Maybe she is relieving the stress...*
While entering the restaurant she perceives a curious resemblance:
"That last doll she was playing with... where did I see it before? It is strangely similar to the guy that dropped Kyoko from the work...*
Back in the room, Kyoko notices the absence of Chiori's doll. That is serious business, she begins the search around the room:
"Calling all the dolls! Calling all the dolls! This is not training! You know the drill, all the dolls should check in! One of the dolls is missing"
"Moko-doll?"
"What!" the doll says with one angry voice.
"Chiori-Doll?"
"Here in the closet!" says a falsetto voice.
"Ok, found the missing one, to the next. Rendoll?"
"..." The doll does not respond... he is sitting on a throne on the top of a little shrine, right above everybody, behind him was a poster that covered half the wall. This was all part of the previous play in which he was almost a deity. The power clearly went through his head.
"Tsuruga-Ren-Doll! Would you please report in?"
"No", the doll says with a condescending tone.
"Ahh, you think you are better than the others eh?
"You know that I am..."
"What makes you think you are so different from your comrades?" She says taking the doll with both hands.
"You said that yourself..."
"Eh?" Kyoko is looking puzzled...
"In the past don't you remember?"
"No..."
"Let me refresh the memories for you. When Maria originally asked for "Ren-doll"... who was in your hands at that time? "
"Well..."
"Right! It was me..."
"Yeah but why THAT makes you special?"
"You said it at that moment! I could not been given to her, or anyone... You made Maria another one and gave it at her birthday. This way you could keep me!"
Oh no! the doll is becoming self aware of his condition!* Kyoko thinks to herself.
"To summary I am special. I am different from the other dolls. You did something different to me when you made me."
This little guy is getting too clever, where is he going with this?, Kyoko is getting nervous.
"When you offered my lips to kiss a little girl I knew something was up! You think I don't know what you are doing? You use Maria as guinea pig for your experiments... "
"You are clearly distorting the facts!" Kyoko retorted openly knowing where this was going.
"You were so coward and irresponsible! Don't experiment in the others the things you are afraid of! You make a voodoo doll and is not even brave enough acknowledge your true intentions! Test it yourself! Are you afraid to kiss me?"
"Noooooo!" Kyoko says rolling on the floor. " When I made you a voodoo doll I had no ill intentions in mind! At that time Tsuruga-san really hated me, so I made you in self defense! SELF DEFENSE! I was going to stab you just a little if he was to bully me! I never though of any other purpose beside that! I had no impure thoughs!
"Ah-ha! So now you acknowledge I 'am' special. I'm a voodoo doll with some kind of connection to the real one..."
Damn it! This doll just got me...* she thinks snapping her fingers.
"How does this works? Why does he never feel anything? I get tossed, dropped, bumped and carried around without much care in your purse and yet the real dude is still out there without a scratch."
"Well, who knows... I think it works kinda like an antenna... with a better construction, you get a higher quality signal... Maybe I need to get the target proportions right? Or maybe I should put a piece of the target's hair inside the doll or something like that... I don't know..."
" 'I don't know' ? You are not even sure how to make one?" the doll seems angry, maybe he feels it was implied he is a low quality artifact.
"I was just testing out of curiosity, you are my first attempt OK! I'm no specialist! I never thought it might really work!"
"Now it makes sense why you didn't want the fairy 'Corn' to know about these kind of dolls. He would discover you use magic for your own self centered motives. Not only that, you involve inoccents too. Having no prior knowledge, and not being a certified witch doctor... How could you give direct instructions to Maria-chan on 'how to make your own voodoo dolls' when you don't know yourself. I bet you made up the rules every time she asked something new!"
"It's OK. None of the prototypes worked..."
"But the principle stands! What about your magic ethics? Even if it didn't work you should be careful with the dolls and what you do! And don't involve children in these experiments!" He says outraged by Kyoko's reckless behavior. After a short silence the little doll calms down and continues.
"Ok... I'm a cool guy, I will let this slip by. But to put this matter to rest, we have to test it out definitively. This way my existence is safe to everyone..."
"Wait! What are you talking about... what are you doing" she says crawling back.
"If the real Ren was to kiss you... He would look you right in the eyes, like this..." the doll says with a smooth voice
Gahh! That's a mini emperor of the night! This is all one big elaborate trap!* Kyoko falls on the floor.
"...He would slowly approach you like this", the doll is slowly approaching Kyoko's face
"Yeah...?" Kyoko is blushing a little. She starts to remember the day she fell on the target's apartment, more specifically in the kitchen's floor.
"He would hold your face like this". The doll put his little cotton stuffed hand at the girls cheek.
"Yeah... that would be killer... I mean no! Wait! "
"And then finally he would kiss you like this! Hmmmm"
The doll is slowly approaching his final destination. The 'lip to lip' contact is imminent. Kyoko closes her eyes and prepares for something to happen. Before that happened another voice echoes through the room.
"Mogami-san!" the voice says so fast it sounds like a single syllable. This leaves her frozen in place with the little Rendoll in her hands. (They are about to kiss each other).
"Mogami-saaaaan!" the voice says with the intonation she knows so well. This sends electrical shocks through her spine. Kyoko salutes like a soldier in reflex. She drops the doll but her eyes are still closed.
"Could you please explain me what I saw and heard happening in this room? Were you imitating my voice and talking to a little doll as it was me?"
Kyoko is speechless, no excuse comes to her mind. There is no safe way out of this one. Not only her doll hobby is exposed, now she can even be charged with illegal practice of magic. All seems lost, but she is not going down without a fight...
"I prefer the term emulating... imitating is saying the exact same thing... emulating is saying something else just like the original, you better look it up...".
"Maybe the term you are looking for is fantasizing. Ha-ha. You really did fantasize about me uh? "
"..." Kyoko is too ashamed to respond.
"Oh! Speaking of correct terms, you should use 'puppet doll'... voodoo dolls have nothing to do with actual Voodoo religion! That's is a made up term, you better look it up... "
"Oh...Kay?..." She opens her eyes, A shining fake smile completely blinds her sight.
The voice continues on.
"So from what I understand... you involved Maria in some kind of experiment with magic dolls. Are you that kind of fool? Do you really believe in magic? You know magic isn't real right?"
"..." Kyoko has no answer to this.
"Believing in something yourself is one thing, but involving someone else in your machinations is unforgivable. From what I just heard, you would entice Maria with something she likes, despite you knowing deep inside it is wrong... You would even make up the rules as you go when you fell it is convenient!"
"...", Kyoko still has no answer to this. Even if she had an answer, she is too intimidated to respond.
"Just because someone is younger and more gullible than you doesn't mean you should manipulate them! You should be the adult of the relationship and bear the responsibility!"
"...", Kyoko is at a loss on how to respond. She concedes that this is a complete win for the "Rendoll-MKII"'. She was not capable of countering any of to the second doll arguments and thus failed the test. She decides to stops the 'play' midway, stores all the toys in her closet and proceeds to help at the restaurant. Some ideas still remains at her mind.
While helping in the restaurant, she considers adjustments to staging test at her room. The "Rendoll-MKII" is a formidable adversary and was spot on in each and every of his lines. During this play, he was a proper representation of the real Tsugura-Ren and everything that man stands for. Aside from little adjustments on the "Shining-Fake-Smile-Mask", the RENDOLL-MKII is ready. He is the latest model when one speaks of Ren-based doll-technology. He a is little bigger than the one Maria was gifted on her birthday, has more accessories, and of course it's first 100% proportional. This is necessary to proper replicate the felling of the real one. A feeling she remembers way too well, because in the past Ren surprised her talking to the little Rendoll. He never saw the doll and only heard a mumbling speech emulating his voice. From that day on, the feeling of dread of almost being caught was etched in her memory. Today at LME was a confirmation these fears, as she was unable to counter Ren inquisition 'ad lib'. After letting it slip out that the doll was special, every other answer she had was compromising. In terror of having the other dolls found out, she was not able to explain her obscure hobby and all she could do was freeze there in panic while Ren kindly asked for a doll.
As an act of self preservation, Kyoko designed the staging test to train for the fateful day... the day when that man will find her playing with a little Ren doll. It is a matter of time, she knows, and preparation is the key. It's like they say: practice makes perfect. After thinking hard about this problem, Kyoko came up with a 'staging within another staging setup', (an 'act inside another act'), or a 'second order play of shame', that's how she like to call it. In these, she gets caught and shamed by Ren. The real goal is to prepare the answers in advance so that she won't stutter. Thinking deeply about it, at any given moment Ren can bust the door open and find her playing with a doll, even during a second order play. How is she going to explain that? To be really prepared, she needs yet another doll and a "third order play of shame" in which she gets caught twice. In fact, this reasoning is recursive, and can go forever. She is stuck in this nth-order-play-of-shame-loop, a solution would demand an infinite supply of Ren dolls, but she realizes finally that Ren will never be interested in going inside her room in the middle of the night, so the conditions for the loop will never be met if she keeps these tests inside her room at night. As long as she is disciplined, she can stop at two dolls.
She is almost ashamed of this setting, she has perfect information about the subject, prepares in advance and the guy is completely and utherly in the dark. Even so, the the sad truth is she might still get herself in trouble if caught off guard.
Kyoko finishes helping the costumers at the restaurant. She wants to try her setup again with the difficult level set from 'Emperor of the Night' to 'Shameless Playboy' and see if she is able to figure out something worth saying. She have to prepare for other moods of the target too but it is getting late. She decides to sleep early instead, tomorrow is another day and last night she did not sleep that well. With a little effort she tries to recall exactly what happened in the dream that made her wake up. Suddenly it hit like a truck. All the pieces of the puzzle falls in place and everything fits. If this is some kind of "spooky action at a distance", this is the full picture she has of what probably happened:
-Kyoko makes a "puppet doll" using herself as the model, it has perfect proportions and even uses her own hair in it. (Hey, this one might actually work!)
-Kyoko comes to the conclusion that testing her own puppet would be as dangerous as a neurosurgeon operating himself. (I'm not having any of that!)
-Kyoko considers asking "Moko-san" for help with the puppet but reconsiders when sees the way Kanae throws the old "friendship doll" around.
-Kyoko forgets the puppet collecting dust in the bag for a long time.
-Kyoko declares the experiment a failure without further evidence.
-Maria asks for help with puppet dolls in a later date.
-Maria receives the bag with sewing materials and the doll, (She is a big responsible girl, she will not mess up...).
-Maria gives the bag away at the first opportunity (Damn it!).
-Ren gets his hands on the doll, cuddles it to death.
-Kyoko has the dream.
She fidgets in her futton pondering.
What if... I mean... Supposing Tsuruga-san got the doll from Maria-chan yesterday, that means he had the doll in his possession during the whole night.*
Kyoko tries to remember the order of the events in the dream.
In my dream I was little. The room was giant. I couldn't move. I was tied and held by my back. Almost as if I was... a doll...* She punches the palm of the hand against the other fist. *Tsuruga-san was huge. He was sitting on a bed. He was holding me by the rope and looked at me in the eyes.*
She is not entirely sure, but comes to a conclusion:
Maybe the dolls antenna's power was amplified during my sleep! I was probably seeing the world through the doll's eyes... wait... That explains everything! I was the doll in his room yesterday! We are 'entangled' or 'superimposed' somehow. That's the only logical explanation!
Well, everything fits... except the part when Tsuruga-san finds the me cute and cuddles my hair. That part was dream hallucination obviously...*
After this realization. Kyoko mouth is wide open in disbelief and desperation, she is rolling on her futton covering her face as she finally understands the implications of what happened today: Ren was able to get away with the puppet. She was spacing out, entirely vulnerable, and didn't want to reveal her secrets. (she was never good at hiding things from him to begin with, so she decided to stay silent). In the end somehow he got the puppet. Now, in a sense, she is literally in his hands! To makes matters worst, that guy is leaving on a business travel and didn't tell when he is coming back...
Now all she can do is to wait for her inevitable doom... her life is already forfeit.
End of chapter
Trivia/Extras
When Kyoko is role playing there are some rules in effect on the field. Refer 'Da Rules' below for more info:
Spell: "Mogami-san-calling'
Type: Summoning spell, a commoner is called.
Effects: Elemental damage can be added,
level 1: eletric/shocking, through the spine.
level 2: cold/frezzing, the whole body.
level 3: upgrades to 'Kyoko-chan-calling' with fire/melting effect.
Spell 2: "Puppetmancer's kiss of death"
Type: Curse?
Effects: Unknow