towerofanimus | ☠ 005 | you said we were born with nothing

Entry tags:

☠ 005 | you said we were born with nothing

Characters: Avenger, 'Shirou' and OPEN to all.
Setting: The graveyard on the forty-eighth floor and the hundredth floor.
Format: The exact opposite of Kotomine Kirei's lovingly composed monologues.
Summary: 'Shirou,' on his way down to the cafeteria to do his regular job, comes across the evidence of Rin's departure, and also Archer's disappearance as well. He's not happy.
Warnings: Typical fare for the Tower of Animus such as mentions of death, the destruction of worlds, and sadness.

[ SCENARIO A || FLOOR 48: OUTSIDE ]
[ This was a floor of pointless mausoleums, open graves, and fields of unattended gravestones. Some of the names littered on the headstones he recognized and knew—llya, Sakura, himself. He came by here every morning on his way down to the cafeteria to see them, and that routine never varied. 'Shirou' didn't leave flowers at their graves; it seemed a paltry gesture for failure to keep them safe and well. So, normally he would stand there and talk a little about random things. Saber, the food being a lie, what information they had found out, a video game he'd played in the media room.

But when he came down this morning, there was an unexpected new name among the graves.

Matou Rin, carved into the stone like it meant nothing at all. Like it didn't mean the magus was now in terrible danger, from Ruana's power-sapping to supply the Tower now that the power cores were running out. Like it didn't mean there was now another girl roaming the desolate, destroyed land of the world she came from like so many others. Like it didn't mean another failure.

His knees suddenly seemed too weak to hold him up, and he sat down hard on his rear in front of the gravemarker, one small slab of stone with a polished surface and scratched edges in the lines of gravemarkers stretching out like small, gray pittances. Shirou sat there and rebuked himself, feeling hollow as he thought about Rin, wandering alone in the ruined landscape of her world. And also thought more angry thoughts about how he was going to make the administrators pay for this injustice.

And that's how any nearby passerby's will find the teenager. ]

[ SCENARIO B || FLOOR 100: THE HOLOGRAM ]
[ For those of you who don't give a shit about 'Shirou's little episode of upset—a Servant is slowly pacing about this floor, late within the depths of night. He seems to be vaguely confused.

His back is turned towards the staircase, his face turned away from it. It looks like he's trying to figure something out; ]

—Mm?

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Do you want me to do something to get even?

[Honestly, the question Avenger asks is the wrong one. Does Diarmuid want to do something to Avenger to make him pay for what he did to Waver? That answer is an unhesitating yes.

Will he, though? That answer he is far less sure of since he had promised Waver not to do anything stupid if he happened to run into Avenger.]

Tell me this. If you meet my Master again, do you plan on attacking him again?

Not really, nope.

[ Avenger shrugs and shakes his head, dropping his hands back to his sides. ]

I have no specific desire to stage a repeat of that little episode unless your Master is, for some reason, intent on making himself particularly annoying to me. [ Hopefully, that is not the case. He inhales, then exhales. ] Didn't I say this before? If you and yours leave me alone, I'll do the same.

[Diarmuid sighs, shutting his eyes for a moment.]

Unfortunately, some people tend to find my master extremely annoying whether he is trying to be or not. If he has annoyed you once, it is likely he will do it again through no intent of his own.

[Diarmuid pauses here, wondering if he should really add what he is thinking and deciding that, yes, maybe it might be for the best.]

This is especially true when he is curious about something. Did...he ask you anything when you met the first time? Or did you not give him the chance?

I ain't surprised.

[ Avenger huffs faintly. ]

Hey, do you seriously think I went right for his throat immediately? [ The Servant curled the fingers of one hand together. The ragged, red mantle tied around his waist swished a little as he shifted his weight. ] Yeah, he asked a few questions... Your Master was irritating but I answered two of 'em. Then I went for his throat.

[Diarmuid's eyes drift to the motion of Avenger's hand and narrow as he imagines those fingers wrapped around Waver's throat. Unconsciously, one of his own hands curls into a fist.

Avenger's causal way of talking about the attack doesn't help the anger that is slowly starting to rise in him again.]

The only thing I expect from you is the unexpected. You can do anything at any time or nothing at all. Am I wrong to expect that?

[ Why shouldn't he discuss it casually? It wasn't an important event to him. To see everything as an object to kill, is to not feel any shame you physically damaged it. He hadn't even launched the attack all that seriously, aiming only to hurt Waver instead of murder him.

Avenger chuckles at Diarmuid's next question, lifting a hand up and rubbing the back of his head. ]

I guess not! Your faith in my abilities is touching, but unfortunately I'm awfully limited here. There's only so much I can do.

[Perhaps Avenger would better understand Diarmuid's anger if it had been his master or someone close to him who had been attacked instead. But perhaps not. Diarmuid really isn't ready to assume anything about the other servant besides how unpredictable he can be.]

I expect even limited you could easily be fatal to most of the beings in this Tower if you set your mind to it. And maybe even if you didn't since you did quite a bit of damage to my Master and you have made it quite clear you weren't even trying.

Would it be dangerous to my well-being to inquire about the questions my Master asked you?

Ah? [ Angra is honestly puzzled, not by Diarmuid's anger (he's used to anger, very used to it) but his view of him. Avenger knows his own weakness, knows he is pathetically weak and useless (to an extent) and careless. He's not like a regular person, there are so many pieces of him that are warped, replaced or plain gone altogether. For example; the parts of him that can process emotions or ideas in certain ways that aren't destructive.

Then an unconcerned shrug. ]

No, it wouldn't. Your Master asked what I was doing with the Grail, and if I was responsible for the fire that set a good portion of Fuyuki City alight, that's it.

Edited 2013-07-19 05:04 (UTC)

You seem surprised by my answer. Why is that? How is it you see yourself if my views of you seem so confusing?

[Diarmuid is also puzzled though for a different reason. To him, Avenger seems to try hard to project a certain image of himself, but obviously somewhere that image isn't quite translating if Diarmuid's views of him throw the other servant so much.]

What are you doing with the Grail? That is an answer I would like to know as well. Do you strive to have a wish granted or do you look for more?

Do I want to know what questions you decided not to answer and why?

None of your beeswax, Lancer.

[ Avenger, if his puzzlement showed through for a moment, immediately recovers and returns to his normal self, replies with a smirk. Perhaps it had something to do with the fact he'd always taken a sort of bizarre pride in the fact he was the weakest of Servants, after all; to be taken seriously in terms of combat and the damage he alone can inflict as a mere Servant is damn strange.

(To be fair: he'd only ever fought other Servants. Humans were within his playing range and much easier, in comparison.) ]

The Grail? Nothing, really. What became of it was a result, not a... [ Pre-mediatated action? Purposefully done sabotage? He rolls his eyes. ]

I don't want anything from the Grail. I have no wish that I could give it to be granted and even if I did, the Grail would not recognize it. In that way, it's totally and absolutely useless to me.

[ The last question earns a flat look. ]

[While it might have been nice to get an answer, Diarmuid isn't really surprised that Avenger doesn't give him one. He had been trying to exploit what seemed to be a moment of true emotion in the other servant, but no part of him had really expected Avenger to fall into the trap.

Not with how unpredictable he is.

The flat look at his last question does catch Diarmuid's attention, though.]

What? Why does that question bother you when the others did not? Did he ask you something you really didn't want to answer or think about?

[ No, the flat look is because that was literally a question that basically answered itself because Waver was an annoying person, and that was all the reason Avenger could have needed to... not give him any answers.

So asking it seemed silly to him. ]

No, I found him a bothersome guy, remember? You don't have short-term memory loss or anything, do ya'? Why should I answer his questions unless I felt like it.

You will have to forgive me since I don't find him a 'bothersome' guy myself, I sometimes forget that others feel that strongly about it. Call it what you will.

And the answer to why you should have answered is because it would have been polite, but I am sure that is not a word you are all that familiar with.

[Diarmuid shrugs and falls quiet for a moment before nodding out at the room they are standing in.]

So what do you see here? I have to admit, I am pretty surprised to find someone like you on a floor like this, though I suppose even you must have some place you miss from your home.

[ Finding someone annoying is not that strong of an emotion to feel.

Hahah, politeness. Manners? Nah. ]

Here? [ Angra glanced over the floor again. Really, it's a good thing Naoya informed him of the trick to this floor or he'd have no idea what Diarmuid was talking about. No, there isn't any projections he sees; it's just a bare, metal room like the rest of the Tower.

He laughs, quietly. Like it's funny to him. ] I don't see anything. There's nothing here.

Nothing at all?

[Both the look Diarmuid gives Avenger and the tone of his voice are startled and confused.]

I have never heard of someone who didn't see something. Maybe not much and maybe not what they expect, but they all see something.

What are you that you miss nothing even a little? Or...

[Diarmuid pales slightly as a thought crosses his mind.]

...is it actually nothingness that you miss?

[ It's hard to miss places where you remember being tortured and/or dying horribly, honestly.

Sucks that most of his memories involve both of that anyway.

He didn't care for his homeland, and Fuyuki City was only appealing because Bazett and Caren had been there. What was worth missing about a place itself? ]

Nothingness?

[ He blinks. ]

No, actually I don't really miss nothingness. Not much happens there, ya' know? Awfully dull...

[Diarmuid doesn't answer right away. He's not really sure what to think of all of that. There is one thing he feels immediately, but he has a feeling that letting Avenger know he feels that way might not be the best idea. Yet as time passes and he thinks more about what he has heard, he realizes that reaction is really the only one he has.]

I...am sorry for you. If you have so little attachment to anything that you see nothing here, they you really haven't lived life and no one should have to suffer that.

[ Avenger looks at him like Diarmuid had just pissed his pants in front of him and decided to take the time out of his day to inform of said mishap.

It's surprising how calmly he replies. It's not anger. But there is definitively an emotion in there. ]

Don't give me anything as useless as your pity, asshole. If you don't understand something, then don't let your misconceptions motivate you into feeling sorry for it. That's wrong, and it's even worse than condemning it to boot.

[Diarmuid raises a curious eyebrow at Avenger. He doesn't miss that flash of emotion, though he's not sure what to think of it since, as usual, Avenger is good at masking what exactly the emotion is.

Still, that he's showing something more genuine than his usual mask is something. Whether that something is good or bad remains to be seen.]

It's true. I don't understand you. That is something that is reinforced every time we talk, and still I feel a need to try and understand even if that attempt is doomed to fail.

Doesn't seeing nothing here make you wonder about yourself? Most people care about something--even if it is just themselves--enough that it would be reflected in this room and yet you don't even have that. Are you just that disconnected from your past? That disconnected from even yourself that there really is nothing?

[Diarmuid falls silent then, as if realizing he is asking very personal questions to someone who is emotionally unpredictable at best and is already showing signs of being upset. Still, the questions have been asked and he can't take them back.

If his own cursed curiosity gets him hurt or killed here, though, he's never going to hear the end of it from Waver...]

Well then, that's how it goes with you right and proper Heroic Spirits, huh? Anyway, why should I wonder? There's no reason for me to do something like that. [ Avenger regards him, cheeky and expressionless. Did you listen to nothing of what he said in his last tag? ]

... It's not terribly surprising, after all.

[ What Avenger honestly dislikes about Diarmuid, is that he insists on serious discussions. Which he doesn't enjoy at all. They're annoying and bothersome on top of that.

It makes him itch to rip the Servant's face open, gouge out his eyes and slash his mouth from end to end for it, tear his flesh and cut him up, slice him apart. His fingers don't twitch, just barely, he is held back.

He harbors no delusions about himself. It's fun to pretend to be something else, yet none of it is real. It's a convincing semblance, only that. Angra knows that.

The image of the body the Glamour system imposed upon him, could be born because a certain idiot served as an external shell, but he is still "nobody" using the mask of "somebody," and no matter what, he is originally nothing. The void, that nothingness which flows because everything exists. All else had been rubbed away, erased and eliminated. It would ages to mentally list all the ways he does (the deity the Grail had nursed, the hated and worshiped icon, all the evils in the world, etc etc) and doesn't exist, so Avenger doesn't bother.

So he then settles for silence, a twitch of the corner of his lips upward and a clear message; "I also don't see any reason to respond to your questions so I'm not going to" ]

Edited 2013-07-22 04:25 (UTC)

You honestly don't care about or worry about anything? Duly noted.

[It's not so much that he's not listening, it's that he honestly can't comprehend being as disconnected from things as Avenger seems to be. One could say he has lived his whole life--lives--too close to others. Even when he had been alone, he had been a part and to be honest, despite the pain that had caused him he wouldn't change it. The last thing he wants is to be alone and separated from everything. Something Avenger seems perfectly content to be.

Suddenly, Diarmuid knows all too well the frustration Waver had felt when they were talking after he found out about the magus' encounter with Avenger. He doesn't like the unknown. He's a warrior who depends a great deal on understanding so that he can better plan how to fight and win. Sure, there are always unknowns in battle, but there are usually also ways to decrease those unknowns.

With Avenger is seems that--at least here--no matter how hard he tries to discuss and understand there is no way to decrease the unknowns. He really doesn't like that. It is what makes him so on edge and serious whenever he talks to Avenger. Why would one joke with something so dangerous and unpredictable? It makes no sense. At least, not to him.

His eyes flick from Avenger out over the floor. While Diarmuid still wishes to understand, he hasn't missed those subtle and not so subtle hints that Avenger is done talking and pressing further will only get him the same treatment as Waver had gotten.

To be honest, he's kind of surprised he hasn't gotten that treatment already.]

I doubt you actually care, but since I have asked you so much about what you see it is only fair I tell you what I see. What I see is my homestead from back when I first lived. It's quite remarkable how detailed the representation of the house and the forest are. It's just a shame it's lacking the people who should be there and nothing can be touched. It's comforting to me, though others hate to see someplace so close to them recreated in such realistic detail, yet be so false all at the same time.

Whatever.

[ It wasn't Avenger's job to ensure Diarmuid was making the correct conclusions, regardless of whether they were right or wrong. It would actually be to his benefit in the long term, if the view held of him and that lack of understanding persisted right up until the end: it would that much more difficult for Diarmuid and whose he cooperated with to combat or attack him. In hostile territory with few allies, he supposed that would be useful.

He didn't care for Diarmuid's understanding or obvious frustration, anymore than he had cared for his meaningless, foolish pity. Centuries of solitude, pain and hatred, left behind in the end by everything he loved or loathed, in a desolate corner of the world that everybody else had long since creased to remember or concern themselves with, had taught him well in that regard. Angra Mainyu was a convenient dumping ground for the negative emotions of humans. Hatred was the only means he had ever had to participate in the world, so he had hated and hated and hated. It was endless. To be scorned and reviled was simply how people treated him. To be alone with his hatred was merely part of an ordinary day to him.

It wasn't anything he was capable of grieving for.

Perhaps that in itself was a type of warped acceptance.

He watched Diarmuid averted his eyes away from him out over the floor itself, and sure, Diarmuid was pushing the limits of receiving the same treatment as Waver had. But he hadn't quite moved outside of his tolerance, so he didn't lash out. ]

Mm. [ Yeah, he doesn't really care?? But Angra listens without comment to his description and manages to avoid making a face at him. Recreating scenery with an abundance of details isn't too difficult, especially if you have memories to work from. People are way harder to replicate perfectly. ] People do find comfort in favorable illusions. That's fine, though ones ya' can't touch are pretty hollow. And lazy. [ A wicked grin. ] They also hate having what they want being dangled juust out of their reach, too. An illusion like this would count.

[ But...

That's right, that had been one thing the lady had surprised him in. He'd expected—no, he'd been certain she would reject the dream he'd created for her in favor of reality the moment she had figured it out and quit with her silly denial. Clever lady. Yet she hadn't done the sensible thing and refused. Hah, that was amusing to think about. ]

After this floor first appeared, there were two theories about why it was here. The first, and probably least popular, was the idea that one of the administrators actually felt bad and was trying to say they were sorry by giving us something that we could draw comfort from even if it was an imperfect recreation.

[Diarmuid laughs a little bitterly and shakes his head.]

You can probably guess why that is the least popular of the two theories. It assumes something that is pretty stupid to assume--that the administrators care about us. The second theory is more widely accepted because it assumes something most people accept as truth already--that the administrators are heartless monsters and they show us this floor for the exact reason you pointed out. They know how much it will upset people to have something so dear, so familiar and so fake dangled in front of them like that.

[He looks back at Avenger for a moment out of the corners of his eyes.]

We really have no way of knowing which theory is actually true, but if it is the second? They might control a lot about us, but I refuse to let them control my memories of this place. It will never upset me no matter what they do to it. Sometimes, there are benefits to letting yourself walk in a dream. Even when you know it is only a dream. Especially when you know it is only a dream...

The second theory holds a lot more water.

[ Avenger is blunt, though he voices none of his actual thoughts on the theories and the administrators themselves. There is nothing on this floor to form an opinion on personally so he doesn't.

He pays no attention to Diarmuid glancing at him out of the corners of his eyes. The Servant strolls a little ways from him with a unbothered gait, through the noise of his quiet, soft footsteps and reply carries easily in the silence of the bare room: ]

Hey, that's your choice, asshole. It's not like whether or not you look at that place is going to change much of anything. Think of it however you want. [ As far as he can understand it, it's like a photograph, what is perceived on this floor. And yes, it was true there were benefits to allowing one to dream; to keep the mind busy, to vent, and to kill time or boredom and to allow time to heal, to draw comfort from it. Then he pauses for a moment, before adding an admission without much thought behind it: ]

But to run away from reality in favor of a dream would be inapt and a foolish thing to do, no matter how ya' slice it. Especially if you know it's nothing but that. [ He's musing about something entirely different than the topic he's mentioning to Diarmuid. A satisfying lie would make a human happy even on their deathbed, but it wouldn't save them. ]

[Diarmuid smiles slightly at Avenger's turned back.]

Way to miss my point, but that's okay. If I can't understand you, I don't expect you to understand--or even care to understand--me.

It's interesting, though, that you assume if someone chooses to walk in a dream for a while, they are running away. Did you know someone who did that? Because, surely you realize that there are many things one can do while walking in a dream that will make them stronger when they return from that dream. They can learn things, they can refocus, they can heal...

It's not always a negative thing. Not by a long shot. Used the right way, I expect this floor can do a lot to make people stronger and that's a good thing considering this fight we are facing with the administrators. We need strength wherever we can find it.