It's inevitable this would happen. Maruki isn't one to stand idle on a topic forever, nor is he stupid enough to ignore the elephant in the room. The death of cognitive researchers, by Akechi's hand and not. A world beyond Maruki's comprehension that has nothing to do with the Metaverse and everything to do with the power hidden in it. Outside of it.
Akechi will kill Maruki if necessary. If Shido doesn't relent. If he's at the top of the list with no way to be removed. Without hesitation, he will grasp his throat, press a cold muzzle to his skull, twist a knife deep into his heart and rip it apart.
There is no question where his priority lies. No doubt. Maruki will die if he must. Akechi will make every attempt to stop it before it happens - like his warning to the Phantom Thieves on television programs and in person. His playful offer to Joker that he knew would be declined.
Akechi is heartless, evil and cruel, much like the man that never raised him and not like the woman who tried to. Brutal facts he's aware of. Accepts. It's all necessary for his greater goal. He doesn't care about anything else.]
No, I won't.
I refuse. If you die, then you die. I will not keep a false memory of you alive, in my consciousness or otherwise. When I remember you, it will be as a cold, lifeless corpse.
[Motivation. Loss. A dangling foot brushing against an overturned chair, not a woman resting carefree and content on a couch.]
It would be a gross disservice to you to keep around a wish. If you want me to remember you, and keep you in my thoughts, you should persevere and stay alive at all costs. No matter who comes after you or what happens -
You should fight. If it comes down to it, your life is more valuable than whatever sycophant appears before you.
[He doesn't stand a goddamn chance against Akechi outside of the Metaverse. He hopes Maruki tries anyway. Knows he will.]
For the record, though I don't intend for this to happen for awhile, I want the same. If I die, then I'm dead. Ignore it or remember a corpse. There's no need to stay alive in someone's mind as a bastardization of who I was.
Trust me, I have no intention of laying down and accepting death with no alternative. It's been brought up enough times, even obliquely, that the possibility is on my mind. But of course I'll fight. You don't have to worry about that, Akechi.
As for the rest of it...
Do you really believe that? That the memories we hold of others are a disservice to who they were. Of course our memory is colored by our perceptions and biases, but does that make it any less real?
These are genuine questions. I've never thought of it this way before.
[ Ignore it or remember a corpse.
Impossible to do either. Maruki knows what he'll remember. Laughter through a stone wall. Steady hands wiping blood off his back, as gently as an inherently painful act could be. Shoulders aligned next to one another with steam rising off the water, empathy extended. Nights of training, the thrill and exhaustion of battle shared. Mirrored petulance in a cafe. Shared looks of understanding, of recognition. I'm glad you're here, repeated between them again and again.
To forget the person Akechi's shown himself to be would be a greater disservice than anything else. ]
I'll honor your wish, of course. You're very adamant about it and I respect that.
SIGH CW: VIOLENT THOUGHTS, MURDER, SUICIDE. I GUESS.
Before I arrived here, there was someone who lost his life. It would be stretch to call us friends, but we spent a fair bit of together in the short time I knew him.
And in that time, I learned who he was - strong, capable and full of an unyielding will. Who I am to try and recreate that in my thoughts, when he is no longer allowed the opportunity to show the world?
[Hot cups pressed into palms, laughter around flickering vending machines that took coins without dispensing, silence in a sweltering bathhouse a few feet from his home and-
Joker wouldn't have waited a traitor to keep his memory alive. So Akechi won't.]
What good does it do to think about whether my mother would have liked the garden out back, when I never knew if she liked flowers to begin with? I could sit and fantasize that she might, but she has no power to fight it.
If she hated flowers, I'm destroying the little bit of autonomy she had while she was living. I remember her as she left me because she deserves to keep what was hers. I remember him as he left me because he deserves to keep what was his.
And I will remember you if you leave me, because you deserve to keep what is yours.
[And those who have chosen to stake their lives in festering rot - whose worlds are so marred in death, exploitation and destruction-
Shido and all his cronies, all his followers, all his sycophants-
Akechi included in those cronies, followers, and sycophants-
He will make sure every last one of them has their memory desecrated with every misdeed, every disgusting, vile act, every bit of harm they ever committed. All in the public eye, their autonomy lost, never to be returned - the cruelest life imaginable.
Akechi can only hope when his memory, actions, and disgusting cruelty is brought to light that-
Maruki will choose to acknowledge his wish - remember a corpse. Knows he doesn't deserve it and-
It doesn't matter. He doesn't care anyway.]
Of course in saying that, I understand most don't show their true selves even while they're alive. [Maruki.] But that doesn't matter to me - with those I respect, I will continue to acknowledge how they want to be perceived. Most are able to make that choice.
[ Antithetical as it is to his own point of view, it does all at least make sense. Nothing Akechi's saying is without merit. That's the worst part. ]
It must take a phenomenal amount of self-control to avoid thinking about them in that way.
[ Which is to say, he doesn't buy that Akechi can keep that up one hundred percent of the time. No one could.
But it's likely that he has trained himself to keep it up more often than he doesn't. A young life moulded by loss will harden a mind in ways few other things would. ]
We're coming at it from opposite sides, but what I find interesting is that perception drives both. How others want to be perceived versus how you perceive them. It's an important thing to consider - after all, as I've made clear enough in that paper you read, I believe very little in this world is more powerful than perception.
You really do give me new things to think about all the time. Thank you.
[ ... ]
You've never mentioned anyone else from our reality until now.
Of course. Conversations with you are always enlightening.
No matter how our paths diverge in other areas, I will always agree with you that perception is a powerful force, no matter what form it takes or in what reality it occurs in.
As for that person - there wasn't a reason to mention anyone else until now, so I didn't.
There is actually one area in which we agree entirely here, but in a more roundabout way.
I've found in my practice that when people are quick and eager to share about those from their realities who aren't here, they mostly talk about who those people were in relation to them. I could tell you all about how our fellow dreamers feel about their family members or closest friends or lost loves, but I could tell you very little about who those people actually were.
It isn't a bad thing, necessarily. I can't truly know those people through them anyway. It's just something that I've noticed. The way we speak about others says a lot about how we value perception.
[ Why did he go out of his way to try to paint all of the brilliant, flawed facets of Rumi for Akechi? Exactly that reason. She wasn't only his fiancée. She was herself. ]
Anyway, all that to say, it makes sense why you haven't said anything.
Full of unyielding will, huh. What else was he like?
Perhaps they don't know either. Outside of what they can get or what they're given by those close to them, most tend to operate on conscious or unconscious exploitation. Of course, despite the connotation of the word, it's not a bad thing. Hobbes and the study around psychological egoism touched on it - overall, it's interesting.
[There's a elongated pause at the follow-up. Hilarious, that Akechi is even considering the validity of discussion when he spent the last few texts stating it's better to remember a corpse.
But he doesn't always remember a corpse and-
Maruki probably met him. Knew him. Has an entirely different world wrapped around him. Perception and loss. Perception and memory.
Akechi hates Joker - more than anything. Vile words spilling at his fingertips about how he deserved to die, at how the life of a such a special, wonderful, beloved person ended alone, lost, in the depths of the stone cold room after being sold out by a 'friend'.]
He was a Joker.
[Comes out against his will. Another person taking control of his body. He feels sick.]
Intelligent. Driven by the injustice of the world. Powerful.
Fun.
I considered him my rival in every way. Losing to him was unacceptable and he gave me a run for my money in every area - arcade games, philosophical thought, grades. He mastered almost everything with ease. It was quite a sight to behold.
[That fucking attic trash - there was no stopping it. He hates him. Loathes him. Wishes he kept his gaze a little longer before he pulled the trigger.
His stomach churns and twists in his gut - spinning and coiling throughout his body.]
Reckless, but not foolish. Nothing was out of reach, despite how the world looked down on him. It's unfortunate things ended up as they did.
It's not anything to Maruki, but it's not nothing in the grand scheme of things, either.
Facts, immutable, in black and white: Someone who was a rival in every way, in every area. Unyielding will. Preternaturally skilled at seemingly everything. Looked down on by the world.
Facts, immutable, from his own life: Three teenagers stumbling into an alleyway as if dropped there out of the clear blue sky. One who sat in his office and quietly guided his hand as he drew closer and closer to the truth. One who had time for everyone, for everything – enjoyed and even excelled at every hobby, every sector of his academics – persevered despite how the world spit on him – never complained, never faltered. One who heard Maruki call him a Phantom Thief and couldn't deny it.
Conjecture that has sat in the back of Maruki's mind since the very first moment they met in the chaotic marketplace: His ceaseless decrying of the Phantom Thieves and their actions to the media. If anyone were to be a rival, it would be their leader– their Leader, stepping into the light on every television screen in Tokyo, eyes as bright and honest as they'd been every day greeting Maruki in the halls of Shujin.
Pieces that don't quite fit: Akechi's obfuscated history in the cognitive world, and the Phantom Thieves' heavy involvement in it. Even if he's telling the truth about knowing very little about it, the extent of their meddling would surely be known to him.
Maruki is a researcher, a man for whom good enough is never actually good enough. The picture that he has in his head is as close to complete as it can be without direct confirmation, but not so complete that he could build a solid theory out of it.
He wants to say something. Can't. Maddening. The shape of it is right there before him, hazy and undefined. ]
There's incredible value in the people that we're close to, even if we can't necessarily call them friends. Those who push us to strive harder and be better, even if we fail. I wonder if he saw you in a similar fashion. Perhaps you two were each other's guiding lights, in a way.
Ah, that sounds too sentimental, doesn't it. Well, I won't take it back.
I won't say to you that remembering isn't always such a bad thing. I'll just thank you for sharing that with me even if it goes against your morals on the matter.
[ Akechi isn't going to remember him as a corpse at all. ]
[Guiding lights? Sentimental and a downright lie all in one. Akechi knows how Joker would see him now. None of it is positive. It shouldn't be. If he was smart-
If he wasn't the same degree of sentimental fool as Maruki, he wouldn't.
But he did, once, see him as a rival. They spoke about it. Fought over it. Akechi knows it was a shared sentiment. It's what it made it such a driving force between them.
Seeing it plainly - written out from another is jarring. Comforting. Makes him want to puke.]
Perhaps. I'll never know now and there's no sense in posturing on how he saw our relationship. Maybe he secretly hated me all along - wouldn't that be funny?
[Hilarious, honestly.]
To be frank, I don't know why I told you. It was a somewhat unnecessary deviation of our previous topic, so I thank you for letting me go off track.
Unrelated, I suppose this is good as time as any to inform you I won't be at dinner. I haven't felt well for a couple days, so I plan to rest for most of the evening.
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
text - un: akechi cw murder cw suicide cw graphic violence
It's inevitable this would happen. Maruki isn't one to stand idle on a topic forever, nor is he stupid enough to ignore the elephant in the room. The death of cognitive researchers, by Akechi's hand and not. A world beyond Maruki's comprehension that has nothing to do with the Metaverse and everything to do with the power hidden in it. Outside of it.
Akechi will kill Maruki if necessary. If Shido doesn't relent. If he's at the top of the list with no way to be removed. Without hesitation, he will grasp his throat, press a cold muzzle to his skull, twist a knife deep into his heart and rip it apart.
There is no question where his priority lies. No doubt. Maruki will die if he must. Akechi will make every attempt to stop it before it happens - like his warning to the Phantom Thieves on television programs and in person. His playful offer to Joker that he knew would be declined.
Akechi is heartless, evil and cruel, much like the man that never raised him and not like the woman who tried to. Brutal facts he's aware of. Accepts. It's all necessary for his greater goal. He doesn't care about anything else.]
No, I won't.
I refuse. If you die, then you die. I will not keep a false memory of you alive, in my consciousness or otherwise. When I remember you, it will be as a cold, lifeless corpse.
[Motivation. Loss. A dangling foot brushing against an overturned chair, not a woman resting carefree and content on a couch.]
It would be a gross disservice to you to keep around a wish. If you want me to remember you, and keep you in my thoughts, you should persevere and stay alive at all costs. No matter who comes after you or what happens -
You should fight. If it comes down to it, your life is more valuable than whatever sycophant appears before you.
[He doesn't stand a goddamn chance against Akechi outside of the Metaverse. He hopes Maruki tries anyway. Knows he will.]
For the record, though I don't intend for this to happen for awhile, I want the same. If I die, then I'm dead. Ignore it or remember a corpse. There's no need to stay alive in someone's mind as a bastardization of who I was.
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Trust me, I have no intention of laying down and accepting death with no alternative. It's been brought up enough times, even obliquely, that the possibility is on my mind. But of course I'll fight. You don't have to worry about that, Akechi.
As for the rest of it...
Do you really believe that? That the memories we hold of others are a disservice to who they were. Of course our memory is colored by our perceptions and biases, but does that make it any less real?
These are genuine questions. I've never thought of it this way before.
[ Ignore it or remember a corpse.
Impossible to do either. Maruki knows what he'll remember. Laughter through a stone wall. Steady hands wiping blood off his back, as gently as an inherently painful act could be. Shoulders aligned next to one another with steam rising off the water, empathy extended. Nights of training, the thrill and exhaustion of battle shared. Mirrored petulance in a cafe. Shared looks of understanding, of recognition. I'm glad you're here, repeated between them again and again.
To forget the person Akechi's shown himself to be would be a greater disservice than anything else. ]
I'll honor your wish, of course. You're very adamant about it and I respect that.
SIGH CW: VIOLENT THOUGHTS, MURDER, SUICIDE. I GUESS.
Before I arrived here, there was someone who lost his life. It would be stretch to call us friends, but we spent a fair bit of together in the short time I knew him.
And in that time, I learned who he was - strong, capable and full of an unyielding will. Who I am to try and recreate that in my thoughts, when he is no longer allowed the opportunity to show the world?
[Hot cups pressed into palms, laughter around flickering vending machines that took coins without dispensing, silence in a sweltering bathhouse a few feet from his home and-
Joker wouldn't have waited a traitor to keep his memory alive. So Akechi won't.]
What good does it do to think about whether my mother would have liked the garden out back, when I never knew if she liked flowers to begin with? I could sit and fantasize that she might, but she has no power to fight it.
If she hated flowers, I'm destroying the little bit of autonomy she had while she was living. I remember her as she left me because she deserves to keep what was hers. I remember him as he left me because he deserves to keep what was his.
And I will remember you if you leave me, because you deserve to keep what is yours.
[And those who have chosen to stake their lives in festering rot - whose worlds are so marred in death, exploitation and destruction-
Shido and all his cronies, all his followers, all his sycophants-
Akechi included in those cronies, followers, and sycophants-
He will make sure every last one of them has their memory desecrated with every misdeed, every disgusting, vile act, every bit of harm they ever committed. All in the public eye, their autonomy lost, never to be returned - the cruelest life imaginable.
Akechi can only hope when his memory, actions, and disgusting cruelty is brought to light that-
Maruki will choose to acknowledge his wish - remember a corpse. Knows he doesn't deserve it and-
It doesn't matter. He doesn't care anyway.]
Of course in saying that, I understand most don't show their true selves even while they're alive. [Maruki.] But that doesn't matter to me - with those I respect, I will continue to acknowledge how they want to be perceived. Most are able to make that choice.
no subject
It must take a phenomenal amount of self-control to avoid thinking about them in that way.
[ Which is to say, he doesn't buy that Akechi can keep that up one hundred percent of the time. No one could.
But it's likely that he has trained himself to keep it up more often than he doesn't. A young life moulded by loss will harden a mind in ways few other things would. ]
We're coming at it from opposite sides, but what I find interesting is that perception drives both. How others want to be perceived versus how you perceive them. It's an important thing to consider - after all, as I've made clear enough in that paper you read, I believe very little in this world is more powerful than perception.
You really do give me new things to think about all the time. Thank you.
[ ... ]
You've never mentioned anyone else from our reality until now.
no subject
No matter how our paths diverge in other areas, I will always agree with you that perception is a powerful force, no matter what form it takes or in what reality it occurs in.
As for that person - there wasn't a reason to mention anyone else until now, so I didn't.
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I've found in my practice that when people are quick and eager to share about those from their realities who aren't here, they mostly talk about who those people were in relation to them. I could tell you all about how our fellow dreamers feel about their family members or closest friends or lost loves, but I could tell you very little about who those people actually were.
It isn't a bad thing, necessarily. I can't truly know those people through them anyway. It's just something that I've noticed. The way we speak about others says a lot about how we value perception.
[ Why did he go out of his way to try to paint all of the brilliant, flawed facets of Rumi for Akechi? Exactly that reason. She wasn't only his fiancée. She was herself. ]
Anyway, all that to say, it makes sense why you haven't said anything.
Full of unyielding will, huh. What else was he like?
cw: murder, violent thoughts
[There's a elongated pause at the follow-up. Hilarious, that Akechi is even considering the validity of discussion when he spent the last few texts stating it's better to remember a corpse.
But he doesn't always remember a corpse and-
Maruki probably met him. Knew him. Has an entirely different world wrapped around him. Perception and loss. Perception and memory.
Akechi hates Joker - more than anything. Vile words spilling at his fingertips about how he deserved to die, at how the life of a such a special, wonderful, beloved person ended alone, lost, in the depths of the stone cold room after being sold out by a 'friend'.]
He was a Joker.
[Comes out against his will. Another person taking control of his body. He feels sick.]
Intelligent. Driven by the injustice of the world. Powerful.
Fun.
I considered him my rival in every way. Losing to him was unacceptable and he gave me a run for my money in every area - arcade games, philosophical thought, grades. He mastered almost everything with ease. It was quite a sight to behold.
[That fucking attic trash - there was no stopping it. He hates him. Loathes him. Wishes he kept his gaze a little longer before he pulled the trigger.
His stomach churns and twists in his gut - spinning and coiling throughout his body.]
Reckless, but not foolish. Nothing was out of reach, despite how the world looked down on him. It's unfortunate things ended up as they did.
no subject
It's not anything to Maruki, but it's not nothing in the grand scheme of things, either.
Facts, immutable, in black and white: Someone who was a rival in every way, in every area. Unyielding will. Preternaturally skilled at seemingly everything. Looked down on by the world.
Facts, immutable, from his own life: Three teenagers stumbling into an alleyway as if dropped there out of the clear blue sky. One who sat in his office and quietly guided his hand as he drew closer and closer to the truth. One who had time for everyone, for everything – enjoyed and even excelled at every hobby, every sector of his academics – persevered despite how the world spit on him – never complained, never faltered. One who heard Maruki call him a Phantom Thief and couldn't deny it.
Conjecture that has sat in the back of Maruki's mind since the very first moment they met in the chaotic marketplace: His ceaseless decrying of the Phantom Thieves and their actions to the media. If anyone were to be a rival, it would be their leader– their Leader, stepping into the light on every television screen in Tokyo, eyes as bright and honest as they'd been every day greeting Maruki in the halls of Shujin.
Pieces that don't quite fit: Akechi's obfuscated history in the cognitive world, and the Phantom Thieves' heavy involvement in it. Even if he's telling the truth about knowing very little about it, the extent of their meddling would surely be known to him.
Maruki is a researcher, a man for whom good enough is never actually good enough. The picture that he has in his head is as close to complete as it can be without direct confirmation, but not so complete that he could build a solid theory out of it.
He wants to say something. Can't. Maddening. The shape of it is right there before him, hazy and undefined. ]
There's incredible value in the people that we're close to, even if we can't necessarily call them friends. Those who push us to strive harder and be better, even if we fail. I wonder if he saw you in a similar fashion. Perhaps you two were each other's guiding lights, in a way.
Ah, that sounds too sentimental, doesn't it. Well, I won't take it back.
I won't say to you that remembering isn't always such a bad thing. I'll just thank you for sharing that with me even if it goes against your morals on the matter.
[ Akechi isn't going to remember him as a corpse at all. ]
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If he wasn't the same degree of sentimental fool as Maruki, he wouldn't.
But he did, once, see him as a rival. They spoke about it. Fought over it. Akechi knows it was a shared sentiment. It's what it made it such a driving force between them.
Seeing it plainly - written out from another is jarring. Comforting. Makes him want to puke.]
Perhaps. I'll never know now and there's no sense in posturing on how he saw our relationship. Maybe he secretly hated me all along - wouldn't that be funny?
[Hilarious, honestly.]
To be frank, I don't know why I told you. It was a somewhat unnecessary deviation of our previous topic, so I thank you for letting me go off track.
Unrelated, I suppose this is good as time as any to inform you I won't be at dinner. I haven't felt well for a couple days, so I plan to rest for most of the evening.
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[ Guess who's gonna get soup anyway! ]
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He's going back to stalk the network.]