towerofanimus | Yotsuba!&...

Entry tags:

Yotsuba!&...

Characters: Yotsuba Koiwai and you!
Setting: The meadow, the mailroom, and most of anywhere else.
Format: I'm starting in prose, but I'll match you.
Summary: A catch-all post for the Individuation event.
Warnings: Other than a crying Yotsuba, I can't think of anything right now.

At first, the shadows following her had been a little scary, mostly because Yotsuba didn't know where they came from or why they were following her. But it was kind of fun to have them follow her around, like they were all playing one huge game of follow the leader! So, she didn't mind them following her into the mailroom and laughed a little as she looked inside her mailbox..and pulled out a photo of her Daddy hugging her, Jumbo next to them, and the family next door-Ena, Fuka, Asagi, and their Mommy-surrounding them in the background. Surprised and happy, Yotsuba's eyes shined as she looked at the photograph before showing it to the shadows.

"Look! They're all here! Daddy and Jumbo and Fuka and-"

"Those aren't them. That's a lie, Yotsuba." That voiced surprised her, not because it came from one of the shadows, but because it sounded like Jumbo! "It's not! And why do you sound like Jumbo?! It's a good photo-oh.." As she spoke, Yotsuba kept looking at the photograph, just to make sure that it wasn't a lie..but slowly, it changed so that it showed her in a dying wasteland with her family and friends dead all around her.

"No..everything's gonna be fixed..and I'm not alone.."

Here, Yotsuba could be found sitting here with her sketchbook, crayons and Little Yoba, trying to draw what she thought was going to be the actual future. However, she didn't look very happy, and while she did make an honest attempt at it, it was very hard to draw when the souls of the people you loved kept belittling you. Eventually, while they were still there, Yotsuba mostly just hugged Little Yoba and weakly spoke to Daddy and Jumbo, who kept telling her that they didn't love her, that if Daddy hadn't adopted her, he might have been saved, and that Enoch, Diarmuid, and everyone else was going to break their promise and leave her too, all alone in the horrible place she saw.

This..was way too much for her to handle. Eventually, despite a few optimistic comments to the shadows and asking them why they hated her now, Yotsuba just started crying on Little Yoba and talking to her dolly. "Yotsuba doesn't even know what adopted is..do you know, Little Yoba?"

Yotsuba had a tendency to run around and explore, and this wouldn't change that..but she would be looking for Enoch, answers..and silence. She's pretty much free to bump into your characters, even though she'll be more tired than usual, and even though her collar will slowly become lighter, though Yotsuba herself won't notice until someone else points it out.

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"No they just sound like them, if you want to remember your family and friends properly you got to remember all the nice things about them." He waved the brush again as the shadows crept closer.

"Tell me what your daddy was like, what he was really like and not the bad things the shadow is saying!"

While her shadows would retreat a few steps back, they wouldn't leave. While Yotsuba liked Romeo, her connection to her Daddy and Jumbo was much stronger than her connection to him. To Yotsuba, the things that the Shadows were saying were true, but she tried to calm down and spoke as she remembered all the fun times she had had with her Daddy and Jumbo.

"Daddy made the best curry and he played Boxer Man with me a lot, and taught me things and helped me swim and hugged me a lot and Jumbo always played with me and caught cicadas with me! He was my friend! They loved me!"

"Not anymore. I should have left you alone. It would be much better to be childless and survive than with you and like this." "I probably should have stayed outta your way too, kiddo. You were cute, but being cute doesn't help an existence like this."

"..and the things they're saying now are part of him.."

"They still do Yotsuba, because the shadows are just pretending. It's like a puppet show, except it's all wrong and bad like a nightmare."

"But..why would they pretend?! And what's a puppet show? Yotsuba doesn't know.."

Thankfully, the shadows had gone quiet for the moment, but it was going to be very hard to convince her that the shadows were nothing but illusions that the Administrators used.

"Yostuba doesn't know what a puppet show is?" Romeo glared at the shadows again, shooing them, just for being there. "I'll show you! Come on!"

The shadows did not vanish or run away, but they did take one more step back and Yotsuba nodded, trying to get up and collect her things.

"Okay. I would like to know! Please show me."

Romeo helped her collect her things and then reached out to take her hand and lead her up to his room. "My puppet theater got wrecked a few times, but it still works and I made lots of puppets for it."

Yotsuba took Romeo's hand and followed him to his room, but the shadows trailed behind them, like puppies that didn't want to be abandoned.

"Maybe we should have made puppet children instead of actual children, Koiwai." "That would have been a good idea. Should have thought of it sooner."

Since Yotsuba didn't know what puppets were, the words stung less than they would have normally, so she managed to reply to Romeo. "Oh..what are puppets?"

"You'll see!" He finally reached his room and went to grab his puppet theatre that was propped between his bed and the wall. It had originally been pink but there were parts that were patched up in different shades, or different colours altogether.

The curtains were roughly made, not the origionals either but it still stood up. Romeo opened his trunk, as well as a mish mash of clothes that were too small for him, a hat and a scarf the rest of the things were puppets. All made by Romeo and friends, simple hand puppets, or one's on sticks, there was a whale, one of Romeo, a superhero, a pirate.

There was even a wooden ship though it was a bit warped and the paint was flaking from it. There was also a teddy bear right at the bottom which Romeo pushed firmly out the way before grabbing the puppets. "These are puppets, you put them on your hand and then use the theatre and make stories up!"

Yotsuba quietly watched as Romeo pulled out his puppet theatre and smiled at it a little as Romeo retrieved all his puppets and explained what they were. While she still wasn't a hundred percent, her smile did manage to grow a little when Romeo showed her the puppets and explained what you did with them.

"Oh..could you tell Yotsuba a story?"

"That looks like it would be a pain to put together." "It's not that hard, Koiwai. It is useless to put together if you don't have kids or don't like them. Then they're just in the way."

At that, Yotsuba sighed, and her smile fell, but she didn't speak again.

"Of course I can!" He grabbed the puppets and found the superhero. Technically it was Molly, but he thought that today Yotsuba should get to be a superhero.

"I'll tell you the story of a hero called Yotsuba and how she was really really brave and saved all her friends!"

"That story's a lie, Yotsuba. You didn't save Daddy or me. You're not a hero. You're just a useless kid."

Shadow Jumbo's comment got to Yotsuba and she sighed before speaking again. "Even Daddy and everyone else?"

"Everyone! Especially your daddy, that's what heroes do and Yotsuba is a great hero." He ducks behind the theatre and brings up his hand with Yotsuba, she is wielding a sword.

"Yotsuba was the greatest hero of all time, even though she was really small and didn't know what lots of words meant she was really brave and always tried her best. She was a really good friend and helped everyone, especially her daddy who loved her very much."

He only had one adult puppet and that was Eridan, so Yotsuba's daddy was a troll, but hopefully she would understand. He popped on stage and waved.

"That's Yotsuba's daddy, and one day where Yotsuba lived a huge whale came to attack!" He dropped the troll puppet and held up a whale on a stick. "Whales are really big, as big as steam trains and it wanted to eat all of Yotsuba's friends!"

He made the whale roar, though he wasn't really sure what sound whales actually made.

"But Yotsuba wasn't afraid was she?"

"No..she really isn't. She was just a waste of time and energy, especially considering that we could have been saved instead of her." "Well, the kid is a liar, Koiwai. What do you expect?"

Yotsuba bit her lip at the conversation the Shadows were having and forced herself to not cry and focus on the story Romeo was telling her. While the words would have made her really happy normally, they just felt like a hollow lie now, thanks to her sorrow and the words that Shadow Koiwai and Jumbo were flinging at her. Especially since it seemed that Daddy and Jumbo didn't love her anymore.

However, she couldn't help but smile a little at the whale. She didn't know much about them, but she liked how they looked, and she knew they lived in the water.

"No..Yotsuba wasn't afraid."

"Of course she wasn't becaue Yostuba was a hero! So she marched over to that whale." He did so, moving the puppet closer to the whale. "And help up her sword. 'Bad whale' she said, 'Yotsuba won't let you hurt Yotsuba's friends!' And the whale roared again.

'Raaaaaww I will eat all your friends, because I have no friends and so I don't want anyone to have friends. I will eat them all. Raaaaaaw.'

And hearing that Yotsuba was sad because everyone should have friends! So she put down her sword and went to give the whale a hug.

'Yotsuba will be your friend, because no one should be sad or alone!" And the whale was so happy! He agreed to leave the town alone and never eat anyone ever again, then he let Yostuba climb on his back and took her swimming into the ocean." Puppet Yotsuba climbed on the whale and Romeo moved them both.

Yotsuba couldn't help but smile at that story. Even though she was still smarting emotionally from what her father and Jumbo had told her, that was a sweet story. While she loved cows, it would be awesome to have a whale as a friend and swim with him!

"It would have been better if the whale had eaten her. Then we might have all been friends and have actual bodies."

Once again, Jumbo's comment made her smile fade a little, but..only a little.

"That was a good story! Whale and dolphins are awesome, but Yotsuba's only swum with dolphins..have you swum with whales, Romeo?"

"No I haven't I never swam with dolphins either, so Yostuba is really lucky!" Romeo had never seen a dolphin before, or a whale. "What was it like swimming with dolphins?"

"It was super fun! Yotsuba would toss the seaweed up and then we would try to catch it and toss it up again! It was a lot of fun!"

"It sounds really fun!" He grinned, "Does Yotsuba want to tell a story now?"

"It was!"

"It would have been even better if the dolphins drowned you."

At that, Yotsuba bit her lip, but she nodded. Maybe if she told a story, Daddy and Jumbo would feel a little better.

"Um..Deep, deeep down in the sea, where there's lots of flowers and rocks, there lives a merman with his Mommy and his six daughters. The merman loved his family a whoole lot, and when his daughters grew up, they were allowed to go up and see the surface! Most of them thought it was boring, but the littlest one was really curious about it, so she always asked her sisters and Grandma about it."

Romeo sat and grinned as he listened, he had never heard a story before mermen before so he listened really carefully. "What did the Grandma say?"

Thankfully, the story telling was proving a good distraction from the shadows for the moment.

"They told her about children and ships and how nice it looked on the land! So, when the littlest one grew up, she swam up the surface and saw a huuuge ship, and on that ships was a prince! The ship sank though, and the mermaid saved him by pulling him to shore!"

"The mermaid was a hero!" Romeo grinned and waited for Yotsuba to tell him what happened next.

"She was!"

"Much more than you or this brat."

Yotsuba did her best to calm down before continuing on.

"But she hid herself behind a rock so that she wouldn't scare him when he woke up, and another girl with some villagers found him and help him when he woke up! But he didn't even look at the mermaid!

She loved the prince, so this hurt her a lot, and she didn't feel better when she got home! A few days later, she found out where the Prince lived, and watched him a lot..and then her Grandma told her about how she could get a soul!"

"That was mean of him!" Romeo said with a frown and continued to listen.

"Didn't she already have a soul?" He asked confused, he didn't want to ruin the story but he didn't understand how she couldn't have one.

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