[F1-PP] The Value of a Life

[Raidou 1]

"Observably yes. I was willing to put down Gabrandr and for two simple reasons." Finding no ire in her words, despite the fact it started to seem as though she was troubled. Tapping the side of a tea cup, finding a strange bit of irony in the fact, for once, he wasn't the angry one. "One, none of the evidence suggested that Gabrandr was anything more than a hostile. Attacking first, aiming a bunch of weapons at the ceiling above us. A snap of his fingers, like his creator, could have had the entire place cave in. As much as we'd like to believe he was at our mercy, we were still at ends." Running numbers through his head back then, the sheer volume of an entire castle dropping on their heads would likely have killed more than at least one player present. "And Two, Gabrandr can respawn. Our lives are finite, but a single instance. What is worth risking for wagering that one life against another with virtually infinite? The gravity of the situation was, we cannot imprison a mob, we cannot permanently erase one either. Give it time, and like so many before him, Gabrandr will be a part of a quest if the Cardinal isn't done with him." Tasting a bit of the tea, and again his face sours. Almost exhausted, he reaches a hand to his face, and rubs his brow. This was the first time he'd ever shared his perspective so openly, and it was almost taxing. Normally so closed off and guarded. He was trying to allow himself to be honest. 

"I was glad to be mistaken, because the cost would have been far greater than anyone should have been willing to pay. Often it seems that most forget that they will die, for one wrong move. One misstep or assumption. Carelessly rushing off toward greatness with heads held high, forgetting the most mundane preparations and being forgotten in a crypt somewhere. Do you know who Arhkan was?" a single name, meaningless to most. With that simple addition came the truth, that only he would ever remember this fellow. The rest of Aincrad had completely no idea of his existence.

Reaching into his pocket and tossing another vial down to the creature, which forms almost a set of tendrils to snap the glass and lap up what awaited beneath. "He's a familiar, by the game's standard. Yes, and I don't take too much stock in how it makes others uncomfortable. Juiblex exists like anything else, has needs like anything else. In more ways than one, he is a representation of honesty. People can want, desire the cute cat, the pretty fox or the beautiful dragon. Desire, to view the world through rose-tinted glasses. That isn't a need, or necessity. Not everything that is will be pleasant, but exists all the same. The nightmare that I become while wearing him, it's honest. More pure than some infatuation, but out of shared desire to protect."

Raidou turns in his chair, reaching down toward the small glob, and it latches to his skin. Establishing something not entirely like a plated glove on his hand. "It's not exactly a fancy tie, is it?" spoken as his hand dripped droplets of ink still taking shape. "NIGHT, the truth is, we are all ugly sometimes. Do things we are not proud of. I just choose not to hide my mistakes. I accept them, learn from them. I have no problem looking like the bad guy, or the monster. If it means I save just one more person. Despair or Fear. Hope and Unity. Both are strong motivators, I'd like to think a bit of both are in order. Believe what you will of my intentions, like my mistakes, I have wholeheartedly accepted vitriol from my peers. I no longer care, as long as they survive long enough to hate me."

[NIGHT 0]

so much movement, and night had only so little patience. the moment she understood how their was taking on a cyclic manner, she decided not to waste her time.

a hand raised. a quiet motion to sit and bide her time, connecting her thoughts. the player allowed herself to sit in silence, contemplating raidou's perspective. multiple holes for such blanket, black-and-white statements, and little to show for it. it was almost like what he was saying and doing paralleled each other. a farce.

her eyes drifted from the ceiling, to the other customers' tables, to the table. her index tapped on the side of that wooden surface. and she thought, so badly, to have wanted to sink into slumber then, be taken by the world -- for there was just too much to address in the man.

ugh, why was she the one to do it, then? it wasn't as though she knew him personally.

once night slid her hand onto the table and sat up on her chair, the player took a deep breath. paused for a few seconds, before exhaling, ready.

"for starters, about the issue with gabrandr." it pained her to have to revisit what she thought she made plain and clear. "it doesn't matter what reasoning you can give if you'd decided to state from before that you valued the lives of such 'sentient allies' as much as any other player. the moment you tried to argue against having made the decision you did was the moment revealed that you'd failed to realize your discrimination. likewise, in the act of protecting such entities, any player choosing to do so puts themselves at risk of being turned against." she stared at the man. "hirru and the backstabbing. it's a catch 22. either you take a life you'd declared and considered worthy of a player or watch one of your known and trusted allies be turned on against by another. it's a trolley problem, and they both have an equal amount of risk. equal being the keyword here," night emphasized, "lest you forget."

"and another thing about it -- the hesitation to act due to unseen probabilities." the player titled her head, almost scowling at this point. "did we not just discuss how our lives are being run in aincrad? if the developers had so wanted to, as you'd said -- 'a snap of his fingers, like his creator, could have had the entire place caved in'. now, why didn't it? why afford the player base all this time to build trust into an existing society instead? where people oppressed in it can flourish and discover liberty and life?" she shook her head at the notion that the design of the game was simply about death. "they must have had another motive. it's just like life. the point isn't to see one's journey to its end, but rather the journey taken within it. overthinking what's given is how you miss the point."

had she time to call upon another waiter, she would've asked for a glass of water, plain. even if it had costed her col -- damn the establishment -- the conversation they were having was running long enough as it was. night turned to raidou right after, fingers pulled together in a fist.

"you say you were glad to be proven wrong about the popular vote. yet on the stage of the boss, it was easy to pinpoint you as being the literal first person to object to his plea of mercy. subsequently, you did little to sway the thoughts of the others." night found herself scoffing at the observation, swearing she could've barely remembered anything from beyond the noise. "and i doubt you'd changed your vote in earnest, given that you even did. not like i could see from the other side of the lines."

then there had been something about the desire of perception. that somehow, his macabre aesthetic placed him above the others who might have chosen otherwise. "and i don't even know why i have to point this out," she sneered, offense mixing in with humor, "but what you think 'being honest' is like to you doesn't make any one else worse off for having a different perspective of honesty. and if you say you lack some sort of infatuation as opposed to the commonly accepted norm, then i'd be damned if you even mention that thing--" her index shot towards jubilex, molding itself onto raidou, "-- as a partner. you chose to elevate it to that position relative to yourself." there had to be some sort of irony there she wasn't able to see. "if you don't like fitting in your tastes with your peers, then that's fine. but that doesn't give you the right to look down on them, either."

with a breath, night folded her arms.

"and just the same, i don't know why you're just as quick to assume everyone hates you, either. you speak of some desire to look at the world through a specific lens that colours one's worldview. well i think you're wearing the same set of glasses too, raidou. you think it honorable to carry some burden of looking after players when they might not like you? what are you, bruce wayne?"

that had once been a jest before, but now it felt like a jab, the same way it soured in her mouth when it wasn't to a stranger she pitied. the glance that followed had then been to the liquid mush, and night decided to correct her response. "i'm sorry -- eddie brock?"

with a sigh, night watched the water she'd asked for from earlier arrive at their table and took a swig of it the moment their server released it. the woman almost downed the entire cup in one swig. she gestured the waiter away with a gasp.

"well i for one don't mind laying myself the villain, either, if it helps you get your story straight. and unless you've got something better to reason with, i'm tired of this charade, raidou. we're both players too busy trying to spin narratives around heads. what happened to the bluntness you showed gabrandr the other day -- where'd that go?"

[Raidou 1]

A quiet stance as NIGHT spoke her reflection, peeling pieces apart and misinterpreting most of what he'd define. "The key word is allies. We simply do not have the luxury of catering to enemies hoping they will decide to be allies eventually. Our manpower as players is limited, even more so as our numbers diminish. Putting them down humanely is all we can do, and that is not limited to just the cardinal's creations. Some players do in fact fall under that scope." He allowed the grim reality of that statement to sink in, eying that glass and silently wishing they were elsewhere where he wouldn't have to suffer. "I stand by the decision I had made regarding Gabrandr, and in a heartbeat I would still make it. It wasn't a flight of fancy, something I just decided to do on a whim. He was an enemy NIGHT, and as much as we like to believe that we held some power over him, we did not."

Most people may have been stirring, twisting in their chairs or fiddling. But Raidou wasn't, an almost stagnant atmosphere loomed about him. Existing and yet steeled and focused on the current exchange. "Someone has to be willing to make the tough choices, make the call when it matters. That is what tanks do. Everyone else might have seen the glass half full, but I simply saw it half empty. In the worst case, which person was worth sacrificing in that chamber if we were wrong?"

Lifting his dripping hand to his chest, the creature sliding down the space between his neck and vanishing out of sight. Point proven. "Simply enough, Akihiko is playing god. If we are right where he wants us, why worry? Why not play with his toys? The Cardinal System, or Aincrad itself, is a social experiment. Forcing us to deal with circumstances outside our control, which are in his. There is no reason for him to snap his fingers, we are his playthings. This includes Gabrandr, or perhaps it doesn't. Truth is, we have no way of confirming it."

The familiar tightening around his skin, watching slowly has his armor rating climbs with a little added icon on his HUD. "It's a game, it's his game and his world. We are just the pieces he can move around. Overthinking is exactly how we survive at all. Embracing our experience, growing against the demands of the system. Attacking multiple facets at a time, pushing the boundaries of his purview. Hope that he can only see through one lens, and hope that his attention is elsewhere when we act. It's a game of chess."

His voice seemed gentle and yet adamant, as if so many words were coincided in his tone. "I threatened Gabrandr, mainly to see how he would act. How he would respond to the stimulus and show him that I was not afraid to take his life. The fact was, he was concerned about losing it. Wasn't he? He wanted it to mean something. Was it programmed? Possibly, but that seems a strange oddity to program for. If Akihiko 'assumed' we would spare him, in reciprocation of the last 'NPCs'"

A bit of hesitation on the tongue, where normally he was likely to snap. "To put it bluntly, you don't know a damn thing about me. Who are you to assume how I view anyone? Put myself above anyone? I have put my life on the line for you, for Yuki, for Hidden. If I valued my life more than yours, then why would I? Just because I am willing to wonder, hope or dream where we can actually succeed this. That makes me high and mighty? Operating from elevated position? We aren't beating this by ourselves, no matter how high numbers on a fake screen raise." Leaning back and clutching a hand to his face, pushing lines into his forehead. "Yet, if I don't cater to the view that is expectant of me, that makes me looking down on others? Pretend that I am some benevolent 'ideal', what would you have me wear or pretend to be? Instead of embracing the truth, and taking the advantages I've found whatever shape they take?"

Thickening black lines sliding up to his mouth, as if asking to manifest. But they don't as he raises a hand. "Thank you, but no." as if spoken to two participants in this trading of thoughts. "A fair comparison, because I am not afraid to show that I am trying to get us out of this mess. Whatever it takes, and protecting people like you that like to pretend that everyone is polite and caring. That everyone just has your wellbeing and happiness in mind. Not that they are painting a target on your back and waiting to skin you alive. From my experience, few actually understand the gravity of the shit we are in. This disgusting blood filled place, where every second another life ends. Say that no one hates me, and yet..." He gestures a few specks of black across the top of a table as he gestures to the girl.

"You've proven me right, no matter how many times I have been there to help you or would have been without a second thought. I live in fact and reason, it is you who is spinning the narrative and failing to see a chance for escape when it's staring you straight in the face."

[NIGHT 0]

night wouldn't remember the entire story afterwards. because, in here, she'd snapped.

it started with a simple retaliation. one of many. perspective pitched against perspective. a simple narrative between two players.

 

"The key word is allies. We simply do not have the luxury of catering to enemies hoping they will decide to be allies eventually."

"that's wrong. hirru had afforded that luxury for himself at floor 23. he afforded it and that decision was turned against him afterwards."

"Putting them down humanely is all we can do, and that is not limited to just the cardinal's creations. Some players do in fact fall under that scope."

"just because you're human, and they're not? who the hell are you to determine what the definition of 'humanely' is? who gave you that right?"

"I stand by the decision I had made regarding Gabrandr, and in a heartbeat I would still make it. It wasn't a flight of fancy, something I just decided to do on a whim. He was an enemy NIGHT, and as much as we like to believe that we held some power over him, we did not."

"says the one who wants to make allies out of them." her hand had shifted from its fold to the table. what was once a single finger tapping upon wood had slowly became the drumming of several. night was becoming impatient. "if we didn't believe we had the power nor the agency in any situation, we wouldn't have gone into it, raidou. you claim you have agency in your trade with jubilex. that's what makes him your partner. do you not believe you have something to offer people whenever you meet them? then how do you turn them into allies? you have a guild, don't you?"

 

and where there was frost on one end, night found herself the core of a burning star. almost as though the temperature between them had shifted -- a volcano on one end, a tundra the other. night's figure was hazy, likely, in the periphery of an onlooker -- image distorted from the anger she couldn't contain. warping, reshaping, coming undone and reformed.

"Someone has to be willing to make the tough choices, make the call when it matters. That is what tanks do."

and then, in one moment, it stilled.

it collapsed.

because she remembered damn well what happened at that dinner in the dark.

“He…told me that…that there was purpose in protecting those whom could not protect themselves. That we shouldn’t search for one to walk the path with, but instead understand that we may be forsaken to walk the path ourselves – and that that is okay.”

the memories blurred. the world faded away.

the grasp of that cup in her hands, that now empty glass once filled with water, only shook in her palm.

it felt like ice, ice between soft, pliable skin. warm, pink skin. blood-pumping-through-real-veins, burned-with-the-fire-of-life skin.

it felt like the moment--

--she placed her hands on nari's shoulders, a stern look in her eyes. gritted teeth. pushing, almost, a growl.

"listen to me. your goal isn't noble if your intentions never were."

 

a black hole. everything else was swept up in it, ignored. boiling hot. night felt as though she couldn't breathe.

words that were coming from the same man who had sentenced a woman, lost, to die.

she heaved, almost asphyxiated. like the emanation of death was so powerful from raidou that she'd almost wanted to keel over, hold her breath for one moment so that they couldn't take in the same air. as though it existed in aincrad. but it was stifling, none the less.

night was just quiet. listening, hollow, somber. her tongue stuck to the roof of her mouth. in her eyes, the world was a murky mix of daylight colours and

red. red. a seething, burning red. red the colour of blood stained on concrete now muddied by the weather now only recognized as a sign of life once lived. red the color of conflict the only mark of its fleeting existence through temporal hallways on stone. red, the shade of crimson, the very hue that spoke of danger that festered the more that it stayed present, the more that it became apparent.

it was raidou's hazy figure, a black shadow in a red. red. a seething burning red. against the white of the skies above.

 

tomorrow, it would be a good day, because the skies might be blue.

 

 

"I threatened Gabrandr, mainly to see how he would act. How he would respond to the stimulus and show him that I was not afraid to take his life."

night finally returned to the present, the moment she thought it vaguely important. she let him continue speaking, as she had been doing so, but that line struck her like an arrow through a foreign target. a red flag, witnesses caught unaware. a danger. a menace, even.

night wasn't so sure just how ready she was to fight it.

"To put it bluntly, you don't know a damn thing about me."

had she the time, the energy, the effort; had she the bravery and courage of what it took to get the point across, night would've done a number of things. she would've let herself feel what it had been like to be judged by the system -- unfairly, yet again. orange cursor spinning, only illuminated by the white light of the backdrop pouring into a shoddy, run down tavern. she'd only once seen it, seen its potential under warm light in stale, humid aid.

she would've pointed out the flaws in his argument, like a game she could've played all day. it was all in the words he'd spoken before. were it be that their conversation had been on paper, all night would've needed was a hi-lighter to mark out the sentences where his intentions and remarks contradicted themselves. submitted that as a thesis on why night couldn't trust him, on why she thought the leader of such a reputable guild was so dangerous, so repugnant.

"Who are you to assume how I view anyone? Put myself above anyone?"

she would've opened a portal to the past if cardinal would let her. dragged raidou by the collar of his cape and tossed him into the brink, made him lay on hardwood floors as she stared and stared and stared at the hatred, the disdain she had for his ideals pushed upon nari, pushed upon a newbie who hadn't had a concrete sense of the world as he believed himself that she did. she would've made that toss hurt, forced him to listen, forced every bit of him to understand how much both the women were hurting in that singular moment because of his actions. because of his beliefs.

"I have put my life on the line for you, for Yuki, for Hidden. If I valued my life more than yours, then why would I?"

would that firm anima would see its leader now -- a figurehead of something important, stood so resolute for a goal that could be achieved, only to have that dream be born on the backs of someone unwilling to put that effort in. as much as they believed that raidou would stand for something so foundational, so concrete, so too did its company follow, and yet-- yet his words would ring hollow. there was nothing on the line to fight for -- not for the people of aincrad. not for freedom, not for hope, not for escape.

"Just because I am willing to wonder, hope or dream where we can actually succeed this."

define we, and night would've given you a simple answer: it isn't us.

"That makes me high and mighty?"

she remembered the specific line from before. an honesty of a nightmare in comparison to infatuation. it sounded like make believe. she wanted so badly to not believe.

"Operating from elevated position?"

she remembered again that cue about firm anima being communal, everyone an equal. she tasted so badly how it felt like to want to be wrong, because she understood otherwise.

"We aren't beating this by ourselves, no matter how high numbers on a fake screen raise."

in a distant land, somewhere in the world she didn't know, there must've been two figures, of red and blue both, arguing about numbers. like a flex. like a game.

night would not be part of that journey. instead, she wondered if raidou truly, truly believed that the players of aincrad didn't have any hope without the assistance, the trust, the understanding of cardinal itself. she wondered for a moment what the definition of ourselves would mean, and in light of that understanding, she would've reinforced that answer if asked to give.

it's not us.

 

"Yet, if I don't cater to the view that is expectant of me, that makes me looking down on others?"

she knew the fallacy in this one. sophistry. she didn't have the energy to point it out.

"Pretend that I am some benevolent 'ideal', what would you have me wear or pretend to be?"

her eyes to from the goop in his hands. her eyes returned to rest on raidou's hazy face, that darkness.

"Instead of embracing the truth, and taking the advantages I've found whatever shape they take?"

advantage. advantage, something echoed out to her. like a sick twisted game of spotting the lie, burning the truth. and yet she remembered how fair he'd made it out to seem, and how dark she'd made it out to be on paper.

it seemed that way, now. a point only proven right by time.

when those dark lines crawled over to his jaw, she noticed them. almost didn't, from the harshness of the light. almost hadn't, from the shadows cast by the morning sun. and in that hesitation as he raised his hand, they stopped.

"Thank you, but no."

(night wondered what would've happened if he hadn't stopped himself. hadn't stopped jubilex.)

"A fair comparison, because I am not afraid to show that I am trying to get us out of this mess."

it was like watching a man, struggling to become human, finally reveal the threads that stitched him together, like muscle fibers, proving himself and his identity.

"Whatever it takes," the monster breathed, "and protecting people like you that like to pretend that everyone is polite and caring."

it only spoke leagues about himself that the man believed not everyone is polite and caring.

"That everyone is just has your wellbeing and happiness in mind."

she finally raised an eye brow. did they not?

"Not that they are painting a target on your back and waiting to skin you alive."

had she the courage, the voice, she might've asked.

"From my experience, few actually understand the gravity of the shit we are in. This disgusting blood filled place, where every second another life ends."

(there wasn't any blood to be spilled in aincrad. yet the man was donned, from the neck down in a robe, robe a shade of crimson. of dried blood.)

"...Say that no one hates me, and yet..."

he pointed her way.

 

and had this been anyone other than night, perhaps they would've realized they weren't watching cinema. that there was something deeply, unenticingly and horrifically traumatizing about the man who called himself the leader, nay, the face of firm anima. that, as though it was a secret borne in plain sight, everyone had just looked simply and left.

this was a man who had seen more blood, more gore, more depth than cardinal had ever to offer. while the players of aincrad advanced, he descended.

desecrated.

had been made to rot himself to the very flesh and bone that he was wearing.

willing to have strewn tar-like substance across it, in the hope, in the name of getting it right.

 

night wasn't a therapist. so she simply just stared.

 

"You've proven me right," he said. "No matter how many times I have been there to help you or would have been without a second thought. I live in fact and reason," he said, "it is you who is spinning the narrative and failing to see a chance for escape when it's staring you straight in the face.

 

 

 

 

for a second, she'd truly believed him. like a dead man walking, he had to make his speech. what was left of him to be preserved, so that his spirit would've lived on, some way, some how, in the form of another.

and then she realized how that escape would've looked like.

a dead man walking.

night would've fought any reason to listen if it meant she got to live.

 

so she shifted. she pushed herself out of her chair. her eyes were set away from raidou as she knew exactly what she had to do.

 

when the reaper came knocking,

"i'm going home."

you run.

[Raidou 1]

NIGHT seemed to freeze, as a glass in her grasp began to splinter and fracture with her clutching it so tightly. He'd allow in silence for the girl to speak her piece, something stewing beneath. Milling about behind an insistent parade of tapping and small give-aways that played through body language. Others within the building seeking solace behind any object they could muster to place themselves between the tension from two players accented and of obvious higher levels. Seeking shelter from the conflict. It wasn't until the girl would leave, presumably hunting for her own exit, that Raidou breaks the silence. "I wish that I had any right. But I don't, and I will pay for it some day."

A squeak of a chair as it slides out, dragging against a hardwood floor. A hand clutches the back of the chair and slowly adds it back to the table, moving for the girl's glass, which was on the verge of shattering. To the counter, he places both cups down and adds a handful of extra col for the damages. "Eventually reality will sink in, and I hope that the cost will not be a dire one." No matter how sour the exchange, Raidou wished for her to survive this, the same as so many others. A motive he had learned what felt like eons before, still imprinted on his actions to this day. The world was hideous, murderous in its consumption of life.

Yet the girl seemed adamant that it wasn't

Even still, his tutor rang in his ears, from what felt like lifetimes before now. 

Mind if I give you some pointers?

The ring of a bell as he exits the small café, back into the relative abustle morning. Glancing to his surroundings, checking if the girl had simply escaped to somewhere nearby, but not hide nor hair. Maybe once he would have pursued her and begged for forgiveness, and even still the taste of making her as uncomfortable as he did was venom to the tongue. He had to let such things to rest, else he'd drive himself insane trying to understand her and others like her. Raidou's perspective was soured by a myriad of renditions of players being slaughtered for nothing, which was nigh impossible to convey to those that had not witnessed it. His methods, his motives and his actions. All three mirrored his resolve to make a difference, change the lives of others and ease their burdens. So that the nightmares that hung around every corner could be handled without risk, without the fear of loss.

The truth was, even as a tank, he couldn't be everywhere at once. But as a guild master, in title alone he could be. Giving them the tools they needed to live. Not for the flavor of sovereignty, for rule or control. The very notion that she had clung to, that he desired some magnitude of power over another, was abysmal. A man of few honest words, labeled differently simply for being different. To him, Aincrad was an ever-growing and ever-changing place, riddled with all manner of newly formed death traps. If not from creatures, then players. 

Slowly reaching into his pocket and unfurling a pair of glasses. They slide on the space of his ears, being pushed into his nose. "We live in two different worlds, don't we?" Spoken to no one, as he moved for the warp gate. Muttering something, sees the thing light up in a pale blue color, screaming with a slight white noise before a pulse fires him to some other destination. Into the mists that he'd hid himself in, allowing the thoughts to become solid in low volume: "I wish it was different, frankly I like your version better." A sharp inhale, the murky moisture, stung the inside of his nose. "But if I hope to protect anyone, I can't stop. Even if they forget me or hate me after." The soft click as a door finds its way shut, a blunette rushes out with a terrible looking black liquid. An obvious failure in a bottle.

The reaper wasn't dead yet, and had something to live for. To fight for.

[NIGHT 0]

Thread Summary

[total]

Raidou
+ 30420 xp | 2340 * 13
+ 4763 col | (xp * 0.15) + 200

NIGHT
+ 28080 xp | 2340 * 12
+ 4414 col | (xp * 0.15) + 200

Spoiler

[thread progression]

14040 words | 468 sections | 2340 base