Noriaki "eldritch horror fetishist" Kakyoin (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
hierophany) wrote2020-09-15 08:55 pm
hierophany) wrote2020-09-15 08:55 pm
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(I dreamed a fire pit and a funeral last I slept)
(I dreamed a fire pit and a funeral last I slept)
(I dreamed a fire pit and a funeral last I slept)
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He didn't loosen his grip once that became clear, even knowing that he doesn't need to hurt Jotaro, because something about that puts him on edge. It's wrong. It feels wrong. Someone is supposed to stop him, to fight him, because to use the weak for your own gain is evil. ]
Stop me.
[ He stops walking, just for a moment, but he doesn't let go of Jotaro's hair. He doesn't look at him, just ahead at the castle. ]
If this was wrong, someone would have stopped me. If this is wrong, the doors won't open. [ The only thing he really has to fear now are those doors. If they don't open, then he really is powerless. But if they do- ] If I get to the doors and they open for me, then I had the right to do this all along.
[ The victor is righteous. ]
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And yet, if he does that, then the world comes undone. The shackles that hold Dio forever in place weaken and rust. This world was supposed to be safe for Kakyoin, and it can't be if Dio is allowed to have his way — but they are one and the same, twin souls, foundational to this school and its existence, and if Dio's not allowed to have his way, then Jotaro can't, either.
The castle is hungry for him. It always is. Even as they draw closer, its windows gleam with golden light like that of a distant lantern, and overhead the sky starts to redden like a still pond with blood beginning to drip into it.]
That ring isn't yours.
[His neck is aching from being bent over and pulled along like this; the arch of his back hurts, too. It doesn't hurt more than all the times Steely Dan slapped him with his signet ring on. He's used to getting hurt, but not like this.]
You were never supposed to be a duelist. You're not supposed to be like them...!
[It never occurs to him that, in Kakyoin's volatile mood, this might be precisely the wrong thing to say.]
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It's the wrong thing to say for every possible reason. Because it hurts. Because it pisses him off. ]
You know.
[ His fingers loosen.
He resents Jotaro. Of course he resents Jotaro, most precious of the students here. Who appeared from nowhere the moment he found someone else like him, to steal Adrian away and make him a Duelist, make him real. But until now, it was at least easy to see Jotaro as a fellow victim of all of this. Someone else different, in the entirely opposite way. Someone else made broken by whoever put them here.
(He checked his old diaries, last week. Counted the pages of each one. Each day, listed in classes and homework due and activities for more clubs than there are hours in the day. Each time a book came to an end he just stored it and moved onto a new one with a different picture of a frog on the cover and kept counting the days. And somehow it had escaped his attention how many of those days there were. Exams should have come and gone. Years should have passed. People should have graduated and left.)
Jotaro knows. Jotaro knows what he's meant to be. Jotaro wants him to be worthless, broken, trapped in a world he's incapable of interacting with. Maybe Jotaro made him this way, but even if he didn't- Even if he didn't, Jotaro, incapable is voicing anything so controversial as 'hitting me is bad', is still able to demand one thing, and that one thing is that he, personally, suck it up and accept being nothing.
He looks at him. The contempt is gone from his face, replaced by hurt. And he doesn't know why it hurts. It shouldn't. Not like a betrayal. When the hurt fades, nothing really replaces it. He grabs and Jotaro's hair again, pulling him forward sharply enough to knock him off-balance. ]
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[He says, like that's supposed to explain everything, except that then he's grasped again and the yank is harder than before and he goes tumbling to the ground, skinning his knees and making his head spin from the knock it takes when his hair goes one way and the rest of his weight goes the other.
Stop, he wants to say. Stop, stop it, don't do this, don't go. Stop trying to force his way into the meat grinder that will only chew him up and leave him in pieces all over again. Stop craving a part in the dueling game, when only cruelty and horror await those who put on their rings and take ownership of him.
They were friends once. Jotaro remembers that much.
He remembers that it would've been better for Kakyoin if they hadn't been, too. It would've been better if he'd never even known Jotaro had existed.
For a while, at least, he hadn't.]
Give me back to Adrian. You don't have to get involved. I told him the same thing — once you cross the arena gates you can't ever take it back —
[Thunder rumbles distantly, overhead. It's going to rain soon, maybe, and there are still a long set of stone stairs to climb before they reach the high platform in the sky where real duels are held and the castle looms like the Sword of Damocles overhead. He could stop this, except for the part that he's not allowed to stop this. If he tries to stop the game, if he tries to resist his fate, then it all comes down.
Kakyoin is the one who has to stop, or someone has to stop him. And there's no one to stop him, not now. No one who can, except Jotaro, who can't.]
Take it out on me, do whatever you want to me. Just don't go in there. Don't do it...
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He lets go again. ]
No.
[ Hurting Jotaro won't make him real. Won't make him happy. It won't even last that long. Adrian will wake up and find his way here, and this will be over.
What would he even do then, without victory or petty revenge or the only friend he has here? What would he have left? ]
Get up. Walk.
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Only it did happen.
A lot of the things in this world are like that, really.]
What "heaven" do you think it'll show you...?
[He keeps his head lowered as he gets to his feet, wobbling slightly before righting himself and starting to trudge along. It's apparent now that Kakyoin won't listen to him, won't listen to reason, but —
Well. There's a reason the Rose Bride is also a witch.
Even Adrian hasn't figured that much out yet, and maybe Kakyoin won't, either.]
Your heart's desire. What is it?
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I don’t know. I thought I would want to be a duelist. But what’s the sense in that, if I’ve already won?
[ It only takes a little pressure, the slightest touch, to break the delicate green rope. The two ends of it float downwards slowly. The threads of it unravel. ]
Maybe I want a world without all of this. Or a world without me.
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He wonders, despairingly, what Kakyoin would think if he knew whose hands he was playing into, by dreaming that one particular dream. Whose ends he'd be achieving, really. The world he would unleash — and how it almost assuredly would not have him in it after all.]
Then why don't you just get rid of me?
[He doesn't want to cross over. He doesn't. So he tries to stop, tries to hesitate and stall having to do it for as long as he can.]
There's no duels without me. Why not make it so I don't exist?
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I don't think I could.
[ The shimenawa stretch out like a web in front of him as if they could deter him, green and white and gleaming. He doesn't stop again, just walks forward. Lets them break against him as he pulls them too tight. Lets them float away in fragments of dying green light. ]
I havn't tested it yet, at far as I know. But it would be too easy, wouldn't it? To just die here and be gone. Maybe Adrian could. He's the only one who came here. The only one who hasn't always been here. Maybe he could leave. But I don't think that I can. And I don't think that you can.
[ His voice is still calm. It's hard to tell, by now, where icy, still anger ends and careful consideration of new information begins. ]
I could wish you away, perhaps. But it seems unwise. Perhaps it would count as giving up possession of you, to want you gone. Even if it didn't-
[ He twists the ring on his finger. It really doesn't fit. The further they move up the steps, the slower the fibres of the green ropes float downward. Until they just stop in place. Until they're moving upward. Gravity. Something about gravity. ]
-It seems too small, doesn't it? To want a world where everyone is meaningless. You don't cure a sickness by infecting everyone else.
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[Slowly, grudgingly, he takes one step forward — as little as he can get away with while still being obedient.]
Taking someone's ring doesn't make you a duelist. It doesn't give you the right to own me. Do you really want to take the chance that you'll find someone else's heaven, and not your own?
[He keeps his head low, hiding his eyes. Underfoot, his shadow starts to bend and writhe, like it's threatening to take on a different shape than its own.]
What if it shows you that you've always been meaningless, what then?
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When he turns, wild-eyed, and opens his mouth to speak it’s hard to hear him over the furious sound of rushing water. ]
Then nothing I do matters, and I’ll do what I want.
[ He just keeps walking. Jotaro wants him to stop to snap at him. Wants him to lash out. Wants him to waste time, let Adrian catch up. ]
Why? [ It’s softer, mostly to himself. ] Why am I the one you hate this much? Did you just want there to always be someone lower than you are?
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[The distant thunder rolls and crashes, like a threat on the horizon that there's still yet tonight to evade. He can feel the castle pulling, beckoning to swallow him up and end the whole world; it makes sweat bead on his brow, from trying not to resonate with it.
Hate is active. Hate is a choice. Hate is a crack in his armor just wide enough to let the acid pour out, but a weak point nevertheless.]
You don't know where duelists get their rings from, do you? I know why you never got one.
[His lips flatten into a thin, rough line. Behind them, hidden, he can taste the beginnings of fangs.]
I know why you never got a letter from the World Over Heaven. I made sure of it.
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Who could never even hate him.
Turned him into a not-person. A thing. Not useful, not ornamental. ]
Why?
[ He asks it again, and this time it is addressed to Jotaro. He even stops. It’s a trick. He knows it’s a trick. Jotaro wants him to stop. But he can stop for a moment, and Adrian won’t catch up. He has twenty minutes. Less. Maybe fifteen now.
The schoolbells ring out five in the afternoon. ]
What did I do to you? To deserve this. What am I being punished for?
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[It's not a question, but there's a bitterness lurking in the underpinnings of his tone that suggests that, in a different life and a different Jotaro, it might well have been an incredulous one.
He's not counting on Adrian to catch up, not anymore. It's on him, now, to deal with Kakyoin, and he never wanted to before because he really believed he was better off never getting close to him, but if Kakyoin is determined to cut off his nose to spite his face, then he's not going to say away from the blood. Not anymore.
He can hurt Kakyoin because it's what's best for him. Jotaro knows all about getting hurt for the sake of making sure things stay the way they should.]
What do you think I am? Really. What do you think the Rose Bride is for? Would you rather be the Rose Bride, if it meant knowing for sure that you meant something to the world?
[Does he mean the world, or The World? He's speaking aloud, so it's impossible to say.]
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[ Of course he thinks this is a punishment. Of course he’d take anything else. Of course, even if he knew more, even if he knew everything, he’d switch places in a heartbeat.
Especially if he knew everything. ]
I think you’re the tip of an iceberg. That there’s something bigger and I can’t see it. That I don’t even know half of it. But people care about you. People want you. You matter, without even trying. More than I would if I did everything right.
[ He starts walking again. ]
If it meant I’d mean something. Anything, to anyone at all- yes. Of course I’d want that.
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[Kakyoin resumes walking, and so he has to, too. The magnetic pull of the castle is growing stronger, tempting him to give in, embrace it, leave the torture and misery behind.
Give Kakyoin what he wants. Just because he wants it. Without knowing anything at all.]
I can make you a duelist. If you take me back.
[He drags his feet as much as he can bear to, buying every second he can.]
Get you invited to be on the student council. You can own me and lose me and make Adrian cry. Dan used to make me tell him I loved him and only him. You can be everything to me, if you want to.
It wouldn't be hard, Kakyoin. Not if you take me back.
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He wants to give in. He could stop this. Go back. Play a part to perfection and come back here legitimately and know the doors would open. He could be loved, if he was strong enough to earn it. It could be a matter of improving. Getting better. Becoming perfect. And if he failed, he would know why. ]
I was never meant to be a duelist.
[ He still doesn’t know why. Jotaro still hasn’t answered. ]
No. [ It’s 5:04. ] You didn’t want me to be a duelist. You wouldn’t offer it to me if you didn’t think the doors would open. You know that I can do this
Walk.
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[He shakes all over, body trembling, but one foot moves in front of the other, and he follows.]
I said you were never supposed to be.
[Overhead, as the minutes tick away toward 5:15, the darkening sky begins to turn red.]
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[ He repeats it slowly, carefully, working his way around the implications. ]
You didn’t think I could do this. And I can. And I always could. I could have done this years ago. Before Adrian was even here.
[ They’ll be there soon, even with Jotaro’s slow pace. The castle hangs above them. He checks his watch. ]
Tell me why you made me like this.
[ He won’t, he knows. The moment has passed. He’s already asked three times. The third time would have been the one. But he didn’t take Jotaro‘a third offer, and Jotaro didn’t answer his third question. There can be no compromises now. ]
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[Magnus, with his honeyed words and his overpowering, irresistible influence. Magnus, who toys with his own council as much as he toys with the Rose Bride. He keeps them in line, always, but he cuts their knees out from under them, sometimes. Gives them reason to keep coming back to a dream of heaven. Takes the Rose Bride from them not to keep his powers for himself, but to deprive someone else of it in their turn.
Kakyoin could've been Magnus. He's ruthless enough. He's clever enough.
Magnus serves at the beck and call of the World Over Heaven and reaps the benefits of that obedience. Kakyoin could do that too. He could relish the friendship.]
You'd just rather be part of the machine. It doesn't matter what the machine does, just so long as you're a part of it. You could be the rope on a guillotine and it would still be better than not part of the guillotine at all.
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[ They’re nearing the last of the steps, now. The sky is red and it’s in the wrong place. It’s not above them because above them is the castle, blocking it out. The red circles them instead, an audience of heavy clouds to witness whatever is going to happen here.
He doesn’t hesitate. ]
I didn’t choose to be here. You put me here, in this thing that you made. You decided that I should be the only thing to serve no purpose. The machine is all there is, Kujo, and there’s only one thing in a guillotine that isn’t one of the parts.
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[Hearing himself referred to as Kujo in Kakyoin's voice feels like a slap to the face. He's had many of those over the years, mostly from Steely Dan, usually with his rose signet at the center of the blow. This hurts more.
But they're too close now to turn back. Too far gone for anyone to find them and intervene. And Kakyoin is an illegitimate duelist and he is his illusory bride, and he can only hope that what he's done up until now will be enough to have turned Kakyoin's heart away from the hunger for a new world, and onto a desire instead to comprehend this one.]
It was so you could be happy. So you and you alone could live in a world without the guillotine.
[The castle windows flash with unnatural light, like a lightning burst going off within them.]
Because I was the one you meant something to. Because you meant everything to me.
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[ Jotaro lies about these things. He knows. Jotaro admitted he lies only a moment ago. Offered to lie. Offered to say that exact thing, the way he’s said it to so many other people before. The same way he’s bent himself to fit into the missing parts of everyone to wear this ring before him.
And the pieces still don’t fit. He can’t make them fit, no matter where he puts them. The logical answer is that it isn’t the truth, because in order for them to be true the only possible answer is that he’s working on the wrong puzzle altogether.
But his voice is still tight when he speaks. When he reaches the end of the staircase and turns to look at Jotaro, his eyes are too bright. ]
-how was I ever meant to be happy alone?
[ He challenges it. He challenges it, but in order to do that he has to accept the premise as true in the first place. He doesn’t say that Jotaro is lying. He says that he was wrong. It can’t be the correct conclusion, because the Rose Bride has been so many things to so many people for so many days measured in little books with frogs on the cover and so, so often have those things been ‘liar’ and never once have they been ‘wrong’.
It’s the conclusion he wants to reach.
There is so, so much more he needs to know before he can reach it.
He has to know what the machine does. Who is the neck in the guillotine, if not him.
As Jotaro ascends the final step, he reaches out. Shaking hands. The ring slides around on his spiderleg finger. His fingers come to rest delicately against his shoulders, resting against the pretty, intricate, slightly-torn cloth of his bridal regalia with all the weight of fruitflies summoned by the sugar smell of rot.
He steps forward and bows his head, letting it rest against Jotaro’s chest, and somewhere far away the school bells cry out for the quarter-hour and the castle makes its choice. ]
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He's not afraid anymore, as the castle doors open and swallow them both up inside. He knows full well that he did his terrible work competently. Kakyoin had started this long walk to destiny with a determination in his heart, hungry for nothing so much as to unmake the world and see it re-shaped into something different than the wanting corpse he'd found it to be. But now —
Now, he can't reject this world so easily, no more than a curious mind can reject a question with no answer. The function of the world is an enigma and it has never given him answers; if he tears it down now, then it never will.
And Jotaro knows Kakyoin. Knows that his favorite color is green and that he thinks his mouth is too wide for his face, that he likes to eat cherries and excels in school not because he cares about the studies but because he cares about being perfect and correct. Knows that he aches for a friend. Knows that he burns to be understood.
And once the Rose Bride crosses over the threshold of his precious castle that hangs in the sky, Jotaro remembers visions of a world that once was, and a bloody hole that spread out and around the Stand user Noriaki Kakyoin's chest.
He remembers when he crosses the threshold into Dio's mausoleum. He remembers when he crosses over into his own castle. There, and only there, is he brought close enough to what he once was to perceive it all with clarity through the veil.
He lets Kakyoin rest against him until he's sure that the visions have taken him, and then he carefully pushes him away, letting him fall back like a rag doll into the maw of a massive blossoming rose that opens up behind him like a circular bed, wrapping him up in its petals to comfortably sleep his illusion to its conclusion.
Vines climb the crumbling stone walls of the castle's interior, and far off in the distance, a tableau lights up like a stage illuminated by spotlights.
Two figures, pinned to the wall and dangling from it like butterfly specimens.
The World moves and twitches, ever testing its bonds.
Star Platinum dangles in stoic passivity, chin lowered almost to the edge of the gaping hole torn into his chest.
Slowly, without taking his eyes off of the figures, Jotaro's lips spread into a smile that grows and grows until it's too wide for his face, baring his triumph and his glistening fangs.]
Not this time.
[The hourglass creaks and groans, beginning to turn over one hundred and eighty degrees.
Tomorrow, this world will go on, just as it always has. Forever.]
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When he opens his eyes, he’s not staring at ruined fabric anymore. He’s looking at something else. Something too organic and too inorganic at once. Cooler against his head than Jotaro was. Something hard and smooth rests against the top of his head, and when he feels himself fall backward he can see that it’s a white mask covering a green face. The things staring back at him are only eyes in the same way that the daubs of paint on a portrait are eyes. Yellow things, glowing, that would be made of glass or plastic if they were made of anything at all. Put there so that the thing at the top of the thing that looks like a body looks like a face. The last useless detail to make a collection of fluid poured into a bone-white shell look like a human made wrong instead of something else made as it ought to be. Something soft catches him, closes around him.
The thing - he thinks he knew its name, once - coils around him. Cocoons him like something precious. Something worth caring for. And maybe Jotaro was lying. But this horrible, ugly, pathetic thing thinks he’s worth keeping. And he can live with that. For now, he can live with that. It whispers things to him in his own voice.
(He has a mother and father, and they never dropped him on his head. He lived in a place called Morioh. He watched baseball because he saw the mascot when he was six and her name was Bell and she was the most beautiful person in the world and decided he would marry her. He would read books he didn’t like just to have read more books. If a TV series had a sad ending he would write his own script for the last episode to make it correct. He knew how to get free phone calls with a whistle that imitated the dial tones and how to steal a car and set a broken bone and mix cleaning products to make something terrible. He loved Jotaro Kujo for fifty days, give or take a few hours, because Jotaro Kujo never wanted him to serve a purpose.)
He can feel himself forgetting, inside the green cocoon. Some part of him panics, because what he knows is all he is.
The thing that is his friend and his shell and his voice drops something into his hand. A green shard of glass, gleaming and wicked sharp.
It hurts.
He has too many things to remember and not enough space to write. Not enough time to make his writing small and careful.
He has to choose something. One thing to keep.
It’s 5:15 am. His room is spotless. It smells like detergent and artificial cherry and blood. His arm hurts. The sheet is uncomfortably heavy and tacky against it.
The ring on his finger is the wrong size. ]