[video] forward dated to 9/13

[appraiser]

Ryoji Mochizuki shared a video.
09/13 near Apprassage

[ The video starts up, dark, silent. A bedroom, if an empty desk and neatly made bed and too many cardboard boxes count as a bedroom, and then the view flips over with a soft ] Oh. [ as the user finds the front-facing camera instead of the rear that he always uses on his phone. ]

Hi... It's been a while.

[ The bottom half of the screen blurs as Ryoji draws his knees to his chest where he sits on bare floorboards, phone in his hands. He doesn't introduce himself— doesn't need to, when his name is up there for people who don't know him, his face right here for people who do: the people he's recording this video for, whispers in an empty room. ]

I'm back. I know there are probably questions as to why, or how... and I can't really explain it well myself. But I'll answer the best I can, if you want to ask, texting or in person.

[ Ryoji sits up a little straighter now, looks a little more serious. This is what he meant to say: a confession. ]

But before that, I want to say that I'm glad to be back, however it happened... a second chance like this. I also want to be more upfront about myself, and there are things I want to say to a lot of people.

There was a time in the past where I was a monster: I'd hurt a lot of people, and I ran from all of that, hid myself away, and pretended it hadn't happened. The memories I've been experiencing, I kept the good ones close, the bad even closer, pretending they weren't real and that they have nothing to do with me. I thought... that it would be better to forget about all of that and return to a simpler time. Unconsciously, I think that's what I did. I went back to before everything happened, to start over, and do better this time. But I got it wrong. I made myself forget, but I wasn't forgotten...

[ He's rambling now, a little, so he turns his eyes away from the screen, staring off at something in the distance- it's the moon reflected in his eyes, only half. ]

There's somebody I still need to say goodbye to, but after that... I want to see so many of you. I owe a lot of "thank you"s and "I'm sorry"s and "I love you"s, and I want to be with people again. I don't want to leave this world or its people ever again.

So... I'll see you guys soon.




( ooc: forward dated to 9/13 to give myself a buffer. replies can be via text, or an in-person if you want to fast-forward to ryoji showing up at your character's house/class/chance meeting at some cafe/hi roommates/he'll be finding people around town somehow. for his cr, please assume he checked up on them, whether it's handwaved or not! )

Comments

[appraiser]

...I don't know. I want it to mean something, to somebody else. I think I can stand here and find meaning in anything if I tried hard enough, but to have somebody else look at my work and understand something about me, that would be amazing.

[liberal_arts]

I think, first, you should find what it is about yourself you're trying to express, then.

[appraiser]

[ That's even harder. What he wants to express is...

Ryoji frowns, grip tightening on the jar of paint— and then he dashes it onto the ground again, watching the paint splatter and run all over the paper. This time, it doesn't soak through, the paper already saturated with black paint and unable to hold any more, so the white pools and spreads, some getting onto the floor but he'll offer to pay for cleaning services later. ]

Frustration. Above all, I'm so frustrated. At myself, at the entire situation, at how I wanted to start all over and not worry about consequences.

[liberal_arts]

-This time, Kasen didn't flinch.-

There we have it... How do you think your friends and family will react, if they knew that frustration, how deeply it ran?

[appraiser]

[ but Ryoji does, hand stilling over the mess ]

...I fear they won't like me anymore, if they knew.

[ If they knew he had the capacity to be angry and violent and all these terrible human things. ]

[liberal_arts]

...

In all brutal, selfish honesty, I can relate. But not in the way that may seem normal or empathetic of an artist, or even a friend.

-Kasen stepped beside Ryoji, looking over the ink below, how the white and black always seemed to bend together, never melding into grey.-

And yet knowing your feelings, and what you've been through, perhaps your honesty with your frustration will make you better than us all. I don't think I'm ready to face the truth of myself being suggested at the edges of my consciousness. I know for certain no one I know is ready for it either.

You have every single right to be frustrated. And your worries on how people will react are not unfounded. But in the end, I don't think we can ever be anything other than ourselves... Even if what we are is not congruent with who we perceive ourselves to be.

[appraiser]

[ He's so unsure. He's told people before, about how he hated what he'd become— what he's yet to become— and he's met with the same sort of answers: he will always be him; the him here and now is the one that's real.

Ryoji shakes these muddled thoughts out of his head, placing everything down onto the ground so his hands can find his pockets and not do any more damage that he already has done. ]

It's hard accepting everything, when there's always an urge to fix what's wrong. But it's not wrong, is it... It just is what it is. The same with you. Can I ask what your "truth" is?

[liberal_arts]

...

I am a tool for killing.

-He was a sword. There really wasn't any dodging around that truth any longer. He'd felt it for some time, but the visions that had come to him most recently only confirmed it. He did not see events through the eyes of Tadaoki Hosokawa. He was not that man, and did not live his life.

He was a sword. And swords only existed for one purpose.-

[appraiser]

[ Ryoji looks up sharply, clearly rattled by the admittance. As a Persona, Thanatos could be seen as something similar— but in Minako's hands, he is a partner, not a tool, and although he also killed, he did it for her. He accepted that, and was okay with it, but Kasen said he couldn't accept this truth just yet. It's no wonder why. ]

You mean... like an assassin? You don't have to kill here. You have your own free will, and...

[ He's mumbling now, trailing off, because after everything that Kasen had told him, he surely knows all that already. ]

[liberal_arts]

-Kasen raised a hand, waving off Ryoji's words. They were platitudes, they both knew it.-

"The purpose of swords...
is to cut in each motion...
What am i to cut?"

The very meaning of a tool's existence is defined by what that tool is used for. A sword is a tool of killing, it can serve no other role. That's is an intrinsic part of Japanese warrior philosophy. I may have focused on the arts in school, but I remember going over that much in my boyhood.

And I... am a sword.

[appraiser]

[ Why...? But that's just...

He tries really hard to think of another purpose swords would serve— ornamentation, maybe, or a symbol of power— but all these things boil down to the fact that swords are used for hurting and killing. He can't imagine Kasen being those things at all. ]

...Do you mean literally a sword? Physically a sword?

[ That's impossible, he'd like to think, but he can't really say anything is impossible anymore. ]

[liberal_arts]

-Kasen stepped aside, moving past the work on the floor and heading over to where a katana was set up in a tasteful display. Ryoji would recognize it as the weapon Kasen had used during the incidents in the mansion. Kasen gingerly took it from its stand, slowly drawing the sword, allowing the light to catch the metal of the blade as he did so.-

This sword, specifically.

[appraiser]

[ Every fiber of Ryoji's being urges him to step back and make space whenever anybody draws out a sword, and this time isn't an exception, him shuffling his feet and trying to play it off as looking at the blade from another angle. ]

You... become it? Or one just like it?

[ He's not really sure how to ask without a demonstration, and he doesn't know if Kasen can even do that. ]

[liberal_arts]

In all honesty? I have no idea... I simply know that I am this sword, and this sword is me. It is as much truth to me as needing air to breath. -Ironic to use a biological example, he thought, but he couldn't think of many other ways to illustrate the point.-

[appraiser]

[ ...Ryoji kneels where he is, staring at his reflection on the blade. As scary as Thanatos, or Nyx, or even Pharos was, he'd always had a sense of being a person. Turning into a sword though... he can't imagine it. ]

What is it like? Can you think, or feel, or...?

[liberal_arts]

I can't think of any other way to describe it besides disassociation. I have thoughts and feelings, as if I am still a soul within the blade, but they are not... human thoughts, or human feelings.

[appraiser]

That's sort of like Thanatos... But different, in that I eventually gained control.

[ These words, he mostly mumbles to himself, but to Kasen: ]

Are you held by the same person each time? Do you trust that person?

[liberal_arts]

-Kasen wanted to ask about what he thought Ryoji had mumbled, but the question caught him with another thought.-

Y-yes... A man named Hosokawa. In my memories I feel an intense loyalty and gratitude to him, but...

[appraiser]

[ Loyalty and gratitude are good things; they're things he felt towards Minako too, when she's the one who summons him instead of him summoning himself. It felt natural and right to fight by her side. But Ryoji doesn't miss the stammer at the beginning of Kasen's reply, not the hesitation towards the end. ]

"But"?

[liberal_arts]

But... The person I am now has no idea how to feel about this Tadaoki Hosokawa. Everything new I learn about this man complicates things even further. And yet our souls are intrinsically linked, now... -Kasen sheathed the sword once more, setting it back in its stand.-

[appraiser]

[ ...That's true. Ryoji straightens up again, thinking that he was so, so blessed that the person linked to him in his memories is somebody whom he felt the same affinity towards in his own life. ]

It doesn't seem fair... Knowing you must be connected to this person, but missing all the memories, emotions, experiences... everything that makes that bond real. That's hard.

[liberal_arts]

What I do know is that he used me to kill... senselessly so. I knew it was important to him, but in my own mind I can find no reason why he did the things he did. This disconnect makes these truths that I am faced with that much more troubling.

I can't turn away from this truth, and yet I desperately wish I could. I am locked, gazing into a void, knowing I will soon become one with it, and can do nothing to stop it. Or if I even should.

[appraiser]

[ Ryoji draws a breath, because yeah, he'd forgotten. A sword is meant for killing; he can't project his own beliefs onto Kasen's experiences, that isn't fair either. He stares down at his feet, unsure of what to say for a moment. ]

I can't say which way is better either. I... have always believed in fate, and that things happen for a reason. I don't know if this is going with or against it either, but if you're instinct is to reject that reality, then I think that's the right way to think.

[liberal_arts]

Perhaps...

But that goes back to that frustration, doesn't it? -Kasen turned on heel to face Ryoji again, gesturing at the painting below.-

I'm hardly the only person experiencing things like this, and for some of us they don't even have to do with their crisis of self. Do you think this frustration is natural now?

[appraiser]

[ Ryoji rubs at the back of his head, mind uncertain even as his heart already knows. ]

...Yeah. It's natural, and everybody goes through it. Even though our individual experiences are different, the solidarity and empathy is there because we can, in part, understand each other.

[ So. There isn't any point in him hiding or feeling shame about those sorts of emotions. It's natural, it's understandable, and it's fine. ]