hadriel | 012✖; (audio)

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012✖; (audio)

"Um. Hey."

[Judging right away from the tone and lack of Russian inflection this time, the one known as Safronov has checked out, and Rey is Rey again.]

"So it looks like at some point when being... unwell, the upper floor at the Speakeasy lost its Casino manager, Firo. He helped to organize the whole thing with me when Delight's bar went out of commission, so... Would rather not have to keep handling the place solo. If anyone would like to help there in any way, it'd be appreciated."

[She'll leave the convenient signup at the Speakeasy/Casino available for those who wish to help.]

"And, um. Sorry for those who had to deal with one of my... other selves." [Yeah, she remembers. Some of it, anyway. She has complicated feelings towards Safronov.]

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「Okay, surely that would complicate things. But people don't exactly need to know all of this, do they? Atem often doesn't like using the private channel, but, this is not about him (when has it?).」

How many?

Eight, including Safronov. Nine if you count the original prototype.

[That one Rey is never sure about, but FREYJA is the one who set Rey on who she is now, for better or for worse.]

Edited 2018-04-12 03:59 (UTC)

The one in the picture?

「It is not exactly a question, probably more than gauging the reaction to it. He never meant to know this much about Rey without her knowing, but then again, when she did what she did to herself and brought Safronov back, surely she knew what she was getting into.」

Picture...

[It takes her a moment to remember what he's talking about, and then it hits her.

[Safronov.]

Ah, yes. That one. FREYJA, or... Fiona. [The latter being the name Undine wanted. Something that didn't identify her as a subject, but as a person.]

「Wait... wait! That name... The way it sounds.」

Freyja...

「He has to repeat it, feel it rolling off his tongue. Freyja... Freyja... Rey?

Oh, is that it? Or is he hearing too much into it?」

Wouldn't you count her?

[If by "hearing too much into it" means "eyes/ears(?) on the prize", then you got it, little dude.]

Guess it'd make sense to. She... was the one that Undine wanted to help.

[So FREYJA/Fiona had that much going on. Not that that worked out, in the end.

[But at least Rey can vaguely recall Undine having come up whenever during that conversation. At this rate, she'd almost be surprised who close to her hasn't heard of that woman now.]

「There is that name again, but now he knows what it means. Fortunately, just knowing who she is, is enough for Atem, he will not bother her about it, it would be just stirring sentiments that surely had been kept in check for a while now.」

Do you remember them all? Your... other selves' lives?

Yes, every one of them. Both the lives they lived and the ones they thought they lived before. [She pauses. Maybe she should elaborate on that:] Most were given fabricated memories; didn't know who of what they really were.

Safronov was obviously different from the rest. [Much like Rey is different, too, but that's a given.]

Didn't always remember them, though. Barely even knew my own name for a while. Guess I hadn't gotten the memory "treatment" the last time or something.

[Or maybe it just wasn't possible, after what had happened to Safronov. Rey has only theories in that regard, and no answers.]

「Not remembering your own name... Atem swallows at the thought, for a long time he was fine like that, not knowing about himself, not knowing his own name, but now that he had it all again (almost all), thinking back, it truly had been terrifying. He had become something absolutely unrecognisable for a while. If it hadn't been because of Yugi and his friends... How is that he keeps making things about him? It was very hard not to relate to what she says anyway.」

I'm sorry that you had to experience that.

「That's pretty much what he will say about it.」

[Rey was also a much different person then than the one she became after regaining those memories. If she didn't have her brother -- who she didn't even know was as close to a blood relation as she's ever going to get for so long -- Rey would have slipped so many times. Hell, she had even come close to snapping a kid's neck had he not talked her down from it. Moral compasses are good to have when you've got none.]

Don't be. It's... probably better than what would have happened, anyway. I'd have just become someone's tool again, brought out whenever it was convenient for him. Maybe it's better to have known nothing at first than to learn that everything I thought I knew was just a lie, anyway.

[She knows how well that worked out for the likes of Stone, who went beyond enraged that she ended up causing one of the greatest cataclysmic events in history.]

「If only she knew... If they both knew.」

Maybe so... 「And then, he adds.」 Rey, I didn't mean to bring any of this up. I'm sorry.

「But he did, didn't he? You never know what you'll find when you don't know what you're looking for, he should know better.」

Told you, didn't I? No one tells me what to do anymore. So if I really didn't want to talk about it, I could have easily just made you shut the hell up. [You know, almost kind of like how you dodged her question earlier, Atem.]

Those things that happened, they... happened. There's nothing I can do to change that, except to learn from the past when I move on.

"The only certainty is forward". That's what one of my old selves believed. [Something she recalls Stone saying before, even. A mantra that Rey's precursor had played in her head even to her dying breath.]

Besides, you said you knew what some of that other shit was like, so.

[Maybe that just gets Rey in more of a sharing mode.]

Edited 2018-04-13 06:21 (UTC)

「So rude, Rey... Enough to make the kid smirk a little.

That sounds like something certain someone he knows would say, about the future. But the thought gets lost at the following, that sounds like an invitation of some kind.」

I did. 「He sighs, silently. She shared, maybe he should too.」 It wasn't exactly what you went through but... I know how it is to be in someone else's mind, to be there, but not quite.

[Apparently it's honesty hour. No Sorrow needed.]

What do you mean, "not quite"?

「It's better this way. Nothing is really forcing it, it doesn't mean it's easy to talk about it.」

I told you before, I died long time ago, but, for a time, I shared a body with someone else. I would sometimes take over, be... alive, for a few. I didn't do it all the time, so I was never quite there.

Ah. That makes sense.

[Only to someone like Rey in such a world would what Atem just said make any realistic sense. But hey, she's got the conscious of eight other people in her head. She's not one to talk about logic.]

So, it was sort of like possession then? [Pause.] Wait, does that make the body you're in right now yours?

Edited 2018-04-15 05:21 (UTC)

I guess you could call it that... 「It sounds bad, doesn't it? He doesn't want to get too technical, so, it works.」

Yeah, but don't worry, it's not his either. When the time to get separated from him came, I was given this body so a ceremonial duel could take place. If I was defeated, I would move on to the afterlife, and I didn't, I would remain as a spirit among the living.

「He makes a little pause, remembering mostly.」

I lost, and then I got there.

「His luck.」

[That explanation works enough for her, and a concept Rey can understand because... well, look at her situation.]

Were you hoping to lose, so you could move on?

「What a loaded question.」

No... that's not how it works. I gave my all. I had to, if I didn't the duel wouldn't have hold any meaning. It was not a half-hearted ordeal.

[She figures it's not as simple as hat. It rarely ever is.]

So you would have been okay with either outcome, whether you won or lost?

[Though it sounds like that's not how it was supposed to go.]

「There is a bit of silence from his part, a pause as he thinks about it, not that he really has to, it's all he can think about on some days.」

It would have been unfair for my partner if I had remained where I didn't belong anymore.

「But that doesn't say if it would've been what he really wanted.」

[That might sound a little familiar. Rey doesn't remember everything that happened with Safronov, but flashes still occur from time to time. While she couldn't have allowed herself to stay, it was within Safronov's power to let them both die. Even if that meant suffering an endless loop, Rey could easily see her last self taking little issue with the experience.

[But Rey is here. With episodes of splitting headaches, sure, but Safronov did what she could to make sure Rey came back. For whatever reason...]

Mm. Guess it would have been.

...

When you say "partner", do you mean the person you were possessing, or... [Sorry, Atem. Rey knows one other person who refers to their "partner" and they're fucking.]

「Of course it would have been, what kind of life would Yugi have had if he was there within his heart and taking over every time, not allowing him to grow.

The person he was possessing...? it definitely doesn't sound good. It's better than explaining it all, right? The last thing he'd want is Rey's pity. She has her own stuff going anyway.」

Yes. He was 「is?」 my best friend, my... 「soulmate, if he got mushy, vessel, if he got technical; he lets the word die out. It might not be hard to hear the struggle in his voice.」

His name is Yugi.

[What Rey feels then isn't anything remotely like pity. At least, it isn't any more than he feels that way about her.]

That... must have been nice, actually. Never really had any sort of relationship with my other selves like that, but what I have isn't so bad. They're still part of me.

Maybe he's still part of you, too. Even if you are apart now.

[It's a nice thought, anyway. Rey still talks to her selves out loud from time to time, when no one is around. It kept her sane when in complete solitude at the sky prison.]

「Safronov had made that distinction clear, but he hadn't thought of it the way she says it, she's right, it is a great way to look at it as opposed to the lonely one he assumed.

But that... That's one of the sweetest and yet saddest things anyone has told him, maybe just because of the fact that he doesn't talk about. But she leaves him speechless for a moment. They had told him, hadn't he? That they would never be apart, that they would always be friends even if thousand years went by.

It's a beautiful feeling, one he wants to believe in.」

Thank you, Rey...

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