['You don't deserve that' repeated over and over. Each time sounds more ridiculous than the last.
A finger on his pulse, hand around his wrist, gun pressed to flesh.
Maruki is insane.
The blatant touch incredulous on its own - the lack of self-preservation a different beast.
Akechi wants him to fight. Expects it. Craves it. Maruki promised to show resolve and instead he says shit like You don't deserve it.]
Who are you to say that? It means nothing to me, like every other death by my hand. Remember, if it comes to that, you aren't first. You won't be the last.
[Other targets. Shido. Maruki is a name on a list. A number. Nothing.
Maruki's worth nothing.
A ring of fire around his wrist. A racing heart that has nothing to do with the conversation happening, the man in front of him.
[ It's immediate. So immediate Akechi hardly even finishes the qualifying statement. He will not take the gun. He won't ever hold a gun, to his own head or anyone else's. Maruki has already bent plenty of his own morals, but that will always remain his hard line.
No, he won't take the gun.
He lets Akechi's wrist go. Can still feel his racing pulse beneath his thumb. Drops his hand back down to his lap. Doesn't move away otherwise. ]
A broken home in the rural countryside, a fiancé lost forever, life's work stolen, career halted and twisted by a shadowy hand from the depths.
He'll have one more, in a few minutes. Akechi's hand doesn't fall - gun pressed to skull with enough pressure that he can see the vaguest outline of the barrel's top indented into flesh. Barely visible. Maruki speaks and his skin moves. Little red outline.
A hypothetical. How fucking stupid. Azathoth should be ripping Akechi's arm off its host . Maruki isn't soft, but he is forgiving even as brutality happens to him. Ready to forgive before an attack even happens.
[ The cool metal of the barrel digging into his skin. Maruki can hardly feel it, nerves going numb with adrenaline and terror, both for what he's experiencing and what he's about to say. ]
Say that right before you arrived in Somnius, you were on the verge of doing something massive.
[ Bones as tall as skyscrapers jutting into a blood red sky. Had Akechi seen it too? ]
It seemed like the right thing to do at the time– the only thing to do. The fulfillment of your life's dream, even.
[ The time for your unjustly persecuted ideology is now at hand. ]
But you had no idea what you were getting into. None at all. And you've been afforded the opportunity here to learn what a tremendous mistake you were about to make. You've learned from the best.
[ His eyes are locked on Akechi's. He means it so, so sincerely. Without lessons imparted upon him by Akechi, Venat, Eren, Kurogiri, Maki... He never would have come to understand the value of pain. ]
You would do anything to change the path that you were on back in your true reality, knowing what you know now. Anything.
[ He swallows, a mass in his throat hard as rock. He's so disgusted with himself, it rises up hot and angry behind his eyes, vision shaking with the tension held in his jaw. ]
And it doesn't matter. You've been told that there's nothing you can do to change what's coming. That the future you wished for is inevitable.
[ Is he even breathing anymore? Maybe Akechi's already pulled the trigger. ]
[It's inevitable. Inevitable. No changing a future.
A man with an unrealized wish learning that regrets often come too late and-
Akechi who has never regretted a moment of his life.
It always ends this way. Fate is unjust. The world is unjust. People are unjust. People are rotten.
Maruki is rotten.
A meaningless nobody in a sea of them.
Another target on a list Akechi never knows the full capacity of.]
I would stop it at its source.
[And
he
shoots.
One pull of a trigger is all it takes. No silencer on it - the sound is piercing. Ears ring and ache and-
Maruki looks the same Joker, slumped over like this.
Skull fragment and viscera. Blood and clumps of hair. It decorates the bench, the trees behind them.
It was loud and it won't matter in this false reality. Fights are the norm and-
All Akechi did was attack a monster.
The stars are buried under a sea of wishes that will never be and Akechi leans back, turns his head up, and tries to catch the sight of a single, glimmering light among the false ones.
It's not there.
A weight presses against his side - sleeve and shirt wet from blooming liquid. He doesn't look. He's happy.
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
I CANT I CANT OHHH THANK GOD EREN SAID WORDS OH DIRE
A finger on his pulse, hand around his wrist, gun pressed to flesh.
Maruki is insane.
The blatant touch incredulous on its own - the lack of self-preservation a different beast.
Akechi wants him to fight. Expects it. Craves it. Maruki promised to show resolve and instead he says shit like You don't deserve it.]
Who are you to say that? It means nothing to me, like every other death by my hand. Remember, if it comes to that, you aren't first. You won't be the last.
[Other targets. Shido. Maruki is a name on a list. A number. Nothing.
Maruki's worth nothing.
A ring of fire around his wrist. A racing heart that has nothing to do with the conversation happening, the man in front of him.
The safety's on. Akechi pulls it out and-]
Take the gun. I won't stop you.
stares deeply into the void
No.
[ It's immediate. So immediate Akechi hardly even finishes the qualifying statement. He will not take the gun. He won't ever hold a gun, to his own head or anyone else's. Maruki has already bent plenty of his own morals, but that will always remain his hard line.
No, he won't take the gun.
He lets Akechi's wrist go. Can still feel his racing pulse beneath his thumb. Drops his hand back down to his lap. Doesn't move away otherwise. ]
I have a hypothetical that I want to run by you.
[ With a gun to his head?
Sure, if Akechi doesn't drop it. ]
breathesDJSOAFJO
A broken home in the rural countryside, a fiancé lost forever, life's work stolen, career halted and twisted by a shadowy hand from the depths.
He'll have one more, in a few minutes. Akechi's hand doesn't fall - gun pressed to skull with enough pressure that he can see the vaguest outline of the barrel's top indented into flesh. Barely visible. Maruki speaks and his skin moves. Little red outline.
A hypothetical. How fucking stupid. Azathoth should be ripping Akechi's arm off its host . Maruki isn't soft, but he is forgiving even as brutality happens to him. Ready to forgive before an attack even happens.
He laughs - mirthless, cruel and short lived.]
By all means.
looks AWAY from you
Say that right before you arrived in Somnius, you were on the verge of doing something massive.
[ Bones as tall as skyscrapers jutting into a blood red sky. Had Akechi seen it too? ]
It seemed like the right thing to do at the time– the only thing to do. The fulfillment of your life's dream, even.
[ The time for your unjustly persecuted ideology is now at hand. ]
But you had no idea what you were getting into. None at all. And you've been afforded the opportunity here to learn what a tremendous mistake you were about to make. You've learned from the best.
[ His eyes are locked on Akechi's. He means it so, so sincerely. Without lessons imparted upon him by Akechi, Venat, Eren, Kurogiri, Maki... He never would have come to understand the value of pain. ]
You would do anything to change the path that you were on back in your true reality, knowing what you know now. Anything.
[ He swallows, a mass in his throat hard as rock. He's so disgusted with himself, it rises up hot and angry behind his eyes, vision shaking with the tension held in his jaw. ]
And it doesn't matter. You've been told that there's nothing you can do to change what's coming. That the future you wished for is inevitable.
[ Is he even breathing anymore? Maybe Akechi's already pulled the trigger. ]
What would you do?
ah <3
A man with an unrealized wish learning that regrets often come too late and-
Akechi who has never regretted a moment of his life.
It always ends this way. Fate is unjust. The world is unjust. People are unjust. People are rotten.A meaningless nobody in a sea of them.
Another target on a list Akechi never knows the full capacity of.]
I would stop it at its source.
[And
shoots.
One pull of a trigger is all it takes. No silencer on it - the sound is piercing. Ears ring and ache and-Maruki looks the same Joker, slumped over like this.
Skull fragment and viscera. Blood and clumps of hair. It decorates the bench, the trees behind them.
It was loud and it won't matter in this false reality. Fights are the norm and-
All Akechi did was attack a monster.
The stars are buried under a sea of wishes that will never be and Akechi leans back, turns his head up, and tries to catch the sight of a single, glimmering light among the false ones.
It's not there.
A weight presses against his side - sleeve and shirt wet from blooming liquid. He doesn't look. He's happy.
This is where your wish ends, Maruki-san.