blue skies

3: words, silence

A century of noise.

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3: words, silence

Void emits an unearthly howl as it is wrenched from its last suitable vessel. It writhes on the ground, weak and desperate.

i need a body

It sees Aichi on his knees, hands splayed open on the cold floor, legs no longer able to support his weight. His breathing is labored and hard. His cards are scattered all around him.

i need to find a body

Aichi can barely keep his consciousness. The sheer will that kept him standing all this time has morphed into relief and with it the reality that he has almost zero energy left. The Reversal Kai dealt him with during their first fight is rearing its shaggy head, no longer held back by determination or panacean paladins. Red hot hatred rapidly whips up from the pits of his stomach, to his back, his shoulders, his neck, and up into his face. It’s calling out to the swirling mass of Void around him—pulsing, curling, and swelling.

the child the child

Aichi pulses, curls, and swells with them, helplessly pulled along their current. His breath gasps and hitches as if drowning. Void closes around him, dancing with anticipation.

There is one more Reverse fighter to defeat, the one within himself. Only then will it all be over. Aichi’s vision swims, darkening and reddening around the edges. He sees Kai, lying unconscious a few feet away, face calm—smiling even, the tiniest to smiles. Indeed, despite all, they had a fulfilling fight. Aichi’s heart throbs painfully, sweetly, and in that moment, he knows it is his own.

this stupid child!

Void booms triumphant, thundering red, and flies straight for the boy’s crouched form. Aichi looks up at it, brilliant blue eyes shining with life and defiance. Void doesn’t have time to hesitate before it is consumed.

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Shrieking, screeching, kicking, yelling, crying—tantrums, Aichi realizes wide-eyed in a funny moment of clarity before his mind is once more consumed by Void’s anger. He cannot distinguish which thoughts are his own and whether or not the screams he is hearing are of his own voice until he kicks himself in the face and with a jolt, realizes it’s been a week since he and Void have been trapped within himself.

He only has his clothes on. Without his deck, Aichi feels ridiculously naked. Void snickers at him and Aichi aims a punch at it, but he’s never been particularly remarkable at physical things, so he misses. Void wraps itself around his arms and slams him into the watery white surroundings with a sickening splash.

Aichi almost drowns again.

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Two months in and Void seems to have calmed down. It comes to understand that Aichi has a natural resistance built into him, a sort of benevolent glowing energy that Void despises, but nothing it can’t overcome.  It dresses as a gentleman for him, cool as you please, charismatic, tempting.

It searches Aichi’s heart, his memories, what his deepest desire could be so it can drag them out and make them bloom—beautiful, big, and fantastical. It puts on the smiling faces of his friends, Naoki, Shingo, Kourin, Misaki, Kamui…

You wish for their happiness dont you You want to keep playing with them forever

Void whispers and Aichi closes his eyes, ignoring the shudder that spreads across his back. Void doesn’t miss it.