unrepentant | ic contact.

Of course I want that! I just thought

I thought you wanted to go back
[The unspoken hangs there: I thought I had to be ready to let you go.]

I do but

Listen if what they're implying is true, then maybe nothing is permanent. We might be able to come back.

[Might be able to come back she says, and Anakin, who always had to climb into a ship and go away, feels a fist wrap around his ribcage.]

You'd let us come with you?

[Frankly speaking, the idea that they might come with had never crossed her mind. She assume she'd dive back in, bury the dead and save who was left, then scramble to return to the train on her own. Her world, her mess. But then—]

Wait, you'd want to?

Sorry. I assumed you had Jedi matters that would take precedence, but if you're able and willing? We could use the help. Truly. You've seen it, it's a shitty situation.

And I would be grateful to have you at my side.

We do have things to do
[A beat, before he remembers again that 'we' is truly just he, this Obi-Wan is still from his future.]

That is, I do have Jedi matters, of course.
But I wouldn't leave you to face something like that alone.

Are you sure you can leave them for much longer?

[Written before she remembers. Toko swears out loud and types in a furious flurry.]

Forget I said that I forgot there's some weird time things going on. Maybe no time has passed at all at home. Some of the people here went back and returned to the train without issue, so maybe it'll be the same for the rest of us?

Sorry I'm just blabbering now but you really don't have to feel responsible or anything, I was facing it with a friend before so it's not alone. Not that I would say no if you wanted to come of course, I meant what I said.

[Oh my god just shut up put the phone down PUT IT DOWN.]

Toko

I want to come with you. I want to keep you safe.

[excuse her she had to go bury her reddening face in her hands for a moment]

This is so unfair

How is it that I'm only getting to meet you now?

I guess the galaxy's a bigger place than anyone thought.

So who are we going back for?
What do you want to do?

What an understatement.

It's going to sound so stupid but please bear with me.

The city I was in with Komaru has been under attack from Monokuma, which are those bear robot things, which were made to slaughter all the adults. [uuuuuuugh] There is a master controller that could be deactivated, but it's also a trigger that will set off bombs attached to every child in the city. It was a set up, we were being led to believe we'd save everyone getting rid of it but it would just make us the figureheads of a new wave of Despair. We need to find a way to disarm both the bombs and the robots safely.

And in the meantime, three of my classmates are trapped in another killing game in a separate location. One of them is being set up to die for certain, the rules are rigged because they survived the last game.

If I don't go back to the same point in time, it might be too late to save anyone. There's no way they'd last months alone.

[It was horrible enough to contemplate when she'd been sparse with details- long before he'd found himself in her memories, and long before he learned about the fate waiting at the end of the Clone War. Anakin nods as he reads along, grim with understanding- but instead of picturing it as an outside observer, he prepares now with the knowledge that they'll be leaping into the thick of it.]

So we'll need to negate the bombs and the robots before we go in for your friends? Or do you think we'll be able to pry them out first?

I'm honestly not sure which is the safest bet. But Towa City was already my responsibility, and Komaru is alone there.

Do you have some idea how to work with programming and robotics?

[She'd had a flash of something like it while drifting in his head. Just not enough to be sure.]

Binary was my first language.

Sheesh you really are Mr. Perfect, huh?

Well I didn't want to say it

So what do you mean, Towa City is your responsibility? How big of an area are we looking at?

Lucky we're all here to do it for you.

Well, it's our responsibility because we have to keep people from finding out that it was a supply hub for Despair. That's where they got all their robotics from, and who knows what else besides. No one knows that yet, and the global situation is too fragile to allow any more chance for conflict. That's why Komaru and I agreed to stay and fix it ourselves. We have to protect the remaining survivors from anyone looking to get revenge.

The city itself is a man-made island, so it's cut off from outside help right now. But we only need to worry about Towa Tower. The controller should be somewhere in the top floor. It's half wrecked, but not as bad as a lot of places.

[He can begin to picture it in his mind as she explains, and only belatedly does it occur to him that this must be the marriage of their memories. That she's supplying the borders, but that what he'd seen through her eyes is filling out the rest. Hallways and staircases, big cold rooms- the exits.

We have to protect the remaining survivors she says, and this makes sense to him. But she continues- from anyone looking to get revenge and Anakin is aware of the dangerous places that his own thoughts threaten to go. He turns his mind away from it and to their planning instead.]

Alright, so after we destroy them, then what?

As much as I hate to leave the city as is, we'd have to find the other killing game right away. It might already be over by the time we get there. I don't know all the specifics but it's more of a free for all this time. They're not bothering with trials or executions or covering their tracks, they're just attacking each other point blank.

Komaru's brother is trapped there. [Whether he had connected the young girl in the wreckage to the petrified boy on the chopping block, she can't say. It's not important right now.] So are Asahina and Kirigiri. They'll be the biggest targets in there.

Other people are trying to free them too. We could probably join Master Byakuya and have him catch us up.

[Only after she hits send does she realize her error.

Is it right to even call him Master anymore?

Would Anakin take offense? He hadn't seen much of him, right? She hopes not. Truly. Every day she feels more the fool.]

[This too is a different- because he reads these names and they aren't just ideas anymore. He can see their faces behind his eyelids, feels recognition within his chest because of Toko- because of what these people mean to her.

They'll be the biggest targets in there, she says. And Anakin finds his attention turning over and over on this point. Why them? That too is followed by a thought not his own. Master Byakuya could catch them up. His eyes land on the words and a tangle snags in his stomach. That's Toko too. Before he catches it, before he puts a stop to it, Anakin finds himself thinking of the end of their time in that traincar- when he could subsume the edges of himself in someone else. In her.]

If you decide you want to stay, after everything, that's okay you know.

Edited 2022-01-18 16:36 (UTC)

I don't have a future with him.

[An admission that guts her to ruins. She's not over it. She's scared to look him in the eye ever again, knowing what she does now. Knowing what she's done and how much he hates her for it.

How much he was right to do so.]

It was just another crappy story I made up. I was dumb enough to believe it.

When I'm with you, I don't have to imagine anything.

I'm not a writer like you. I didn't even learn to read until I was twelve or thirteen. On Tatooine we would remember our stories and have to tell them to each other, but that meant sometimes things would change too. Names and places, stuff like that.

You don't have to decide your future right now Toko. I just want to go the same direction as you and we can figure it out when we get there.

[It's lucky, she thinks, that they met while she was still under Byakuya's thrall. Otherwise all those pathetic habits — following him like a shadow, peeking from hiding spots, declaring outlandish things while he shoots each down and tries his damnedest to shake her — would have been fixed on Anakin. Even though she fell hard and fast, she held back long enough to see him. And more poignantly, herself.

Below her skirt, her number ticks down.]

I suppose I'll just have to make something new. Like you said. Stories can change any time.

I'd like that. But only if I can follow you, too.

What about your home? I don't know if I'll be much help, but I'd like to try.

[Now there's a question. What about your home. Anakin's gaze lifts to what he knows is the roof of a traincar, but has always looked like a strange, foreign stretch of sky. To end the war he thinks the quickest way through will be to confront Palpatine- a man he's considered a friend for almost his entire life. He believes Obi-Wan and Cal, the future they've seen brought to bear by a man Anakin didn't have the heart to kill.

Does he have the strength to do it now?
That's probably the wrong question. Whether he has the strength or not, he has to do it.]

Are you kidding? I can't wait to fly you around the stars. You'll be piloting ships of your own in no time.

[If they were speaking in person, she'd catch the misdirection. And while the state of his world and what it's about to become presses hard on her mind, she still has stars in her eyes.

One day she'll learn to read him like a paperback. Just not today.]

You want me to pilot?

I can't even ride a bike! I'll crash it into some asteroid for sure!

Edited 2022-01-24 17:36 (UTC)

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unrepentant - 2022-01-25 16:40 (UTC) - Expand

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shiftybladesofcray - 2022-01-25 16:51 (UTC) - Expand

ic contact.

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Danganronpa Spoilers

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1/2

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me: text tags! also me: not gay enough needs more meta

If this ain't a whole mood

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