[LOG] Mirror, Mirror
WHO: Masumi Hayashi, Shadow Masumi
WHERE: Yasogami High, Rooftop
WHEN: Monday, March 9th - After School
WHAT: The confrontation between Masumi and her Rumor Shadow. Nothing will ever be the same.
WATCH FOR: Revelations. Understandings. Long-standing issues being brought to the fore. And in the end...so close, but so far away.
/=========================( - Yasogami HS - Roof - )=========================\ | | | The school's rooftop, accessible through the main staircase that connects | | the main building's floors, is a quiet, peaceful place that students often | | retreat to in order to enjoy lunch, contemplate life's mysteries, or in some | | cases pretend to be professional meteorologists. | | A chain link fence installed around the perimeter is in place in order to | | prevent untimely falls from three stories high. It is flat from end to end, | | save for some large ducts that jut out the roof in the pattern of the letter | | X. It makes for a nice seat. It is the only seat. The chain link fences are | | more than sturdy enough to handle the weight of more than a few kids leaning | | against it, if one has to slouch somewhere around the roof. | | Given the popularity of the location for the above pursuits, no one ever | | seems to intrude on any touching moments between flustered friends, troubled | | lovers, or suspiciously large social circles whenever they decide to have a | | heart-to-heart talk amongst themselves. This is an ideal place as any on | | campus to have a (wo)man-to-(wo)man conversation over delicate subjects. | |===============================( - Players - )================================| | Philemon [A]
|
|===============================( - Objects - )================================|
| |
\============================================================================/
Yasogami High, shortly after classes end for the day.
Masumi Hayashi is not entirely sure what has driven her up to the rooftop, why she hasn't done as normal and made immediate egress for the train statation the very moment classes were over. Perhaps it's a little bit of bitter nostalgia, given her impending transfer over to Gekkoukan if everything progresses smoothly. If. That is of course a big if, and only one more weight ontop of the load she finds herself current carrying. She snorts a little bitterly to herself. Not as if one more really makes that much of a difference.
The silver-haired girl -- ironically, the activities of 'Masumi-chan' actually made it easier to start coming to school underneath the feminine guise, even if everyone that accepted her as actually being female also immediately attached the label 'slut' to her -- stands right at the chain link fence, delicate hands gripping the top rail tightly as she gazes out across the distance. She knows even before the results are posted that she did miserably on the exams. She was even /trying/ this time. But...it had been almost impossible to focus.
Masumi sighs heavily. Just...just a few more days, and then she get could get out of this hell. She had to believe that. She had to believe that nothing /else/ would come up and disrupt her plans. She couldn't imagine another year at this school. Not like this. Just getting to the end of the final half-weak seemed an impossibility. She thought she could carry the light and joy and high spirits of last night back into school. She couldn't, and it's only all the more frustrating that she can remember all those feelings, yet they stubbornly refuse to return.
Instead she feels...vulnerable. Exposed. Weak all over again. Masumi grips the chainlink fence a little tigther, a fresh wave of frustrated tears running down soft features.
Masumi soon finds out he... isn't alone. There is a low giggle from the stairway leading up to the roof, and muttered words back and forth. "Oh, come now, I said later~... Now now, I'll be all yours in time. Just make sure to bring a proper gift~"
Moments later, Masumi-chan steps out onto the roof, turning and waving to whoever it is below. "Bye-bye~..."
She then closes the door, sighing. "It can be so /busy/ being so popular... But then, you wouldn't know much about that, would you Masumi?" She laughs to herself, slidling up behind Masumi and lightly touching him on the shoulder. She comments in a slightly teasing, petulant tone, "You look like a wreck, Masumi. Perhaps I could help you to relax~?" Slowly, she draws her fingers, with her perfectly manicured nails across his back, towards the other shoulder. "But no, you think you're too good for that, don't you?"
It is immediately obvious that this meeting is going to be nothing like the last time Masumi-chan caught her alone, not even that long ago. Then, she had been able to draw up from that resevoir of deep strength, touching that center deep at the core of herself of pure, tranquil waters. Untroubled. Serene. Untouchable. But...had she realy been strong at all? Had she ever? Perhaps she had merely been riding the high after several victories in other parts of her life, merely fortified by an intensely temporary and external strength.
Masumi tenses visibly when that all-too familiar voice is heard drifting up from the stairwell, sickeningly sweet -- mocking her without even being directed at her. And then that...that Resonance. Her breathing becomes just a little strained as it washes over her spirit. It's /her/ Resonance. But with that very subtle twist which speaks of things she would rather not consider. Questions she has battled with over and over and over again. She wants to desperately to block it out, but her extreme sensitivity has always made it extraordinarily difficult to filter at the best of times.
Now, with her walls shattered and mental barriers so intensely compromised, she feels open to every little thought and emotion and vibe. It's rapidly becoming overwhelming.
Masumi's face pales visibly as Masumi-chan draws close, quivering in intense emotional discomfort as her nails play across his back -- feelings made only more poignant for the fact that /physically/ it's impossible not to feel a shiver of pleasure across her back. She struggles with the physical impulse to relax muscles, only now feeling just how incredibly and exhaustingly tense they are. She averts her gaze, clenching the top of the fence even tighter. "I suppose you're happy now," she spits, voice very convincingly feminine, but bitterness tainting her normally soft-tones. "If you meant to make my life hell, you've done a damn good job."
"Hell?" Masumi-chan replies. She does not pull back, remaining close to him. "But I'm just trying to help you, even if you won't admit it to yourself." She sighs, slowly pushing at points in Masumi's back, working her fingers across the tense muscles. "You've always wanted so many things, haven't you? Its natural to want them. But you deny yourself so much... Hide it all inside. You're afraid... But if you would just relax, you would learn so much."
Masumi-chan slowly brings her hands around, slowly rubbing his back and shoulders as she leans in close, whispering into his ear. "They call you names, but they don't understand either. They are simply jealous because we indulge ourselves in ways they refuse to. Our lives are more complete, more passionate. More /full/ than theirs, and they can't allow that. Am I so wrong?"
They are familiar points, if only on an acedemic level. Masumi has never actually had anyone work at them before, and already whatever resistance was there previously begins to melt away -- she tries to resist, but as Masumi-Chan continues to work at them, it becomes increasingly and blatantly obvious just how much exhausting stress and tension has built up over the course of the day. Over the course of much longer than that. Remaining tensed is physically painful. Masumi understands better than most the deep connections between mind and body, and intellectually knows full well that relaxing physically gives Masumi-chan a distinct advantage.
That knowledge doesn't seem to make it any easier to overcome the biological hard-wiring to avoid pain and move towards pleasure. During better times, her mental control and mastery over such impulses has reached extremely high levels. It is apparent by the way she slowly and inexorably relaxes back into Masumi-Chan's skillful hands that she is failing to draw that up strength of will from within herself. A few frustrated tears course down soft features as she intellectually recognizes that this is a level of surrender, and yet even still finds herself giving in.
Connections. Similarities. Masumi recognized a number of them almost immediately upon assembling a broad picture of Masumi-Chan's activities, incredibly deep intuition and empathy leading to such a natural understanding of other people. Sometimes too great of one. Hearing some of her internal thoughts spoken aloud only heighten this sense of similarity further. And yet... "What...what you seek, and...what I seek," Masumi begins, with obvious difficulty, bitternes gone, tones quiet. She has to cling to those differences. She /has/ to. The lines are already blurred enough. "They are completely different."
"But are they? We lie to ourselves. Make comfortable excuses." Masumi-chan reaches around him, hands crossing under the chest and embracing him. Slowly, she presses him against her, rocking slowly. "Those thoughts you feel in the darkness, when no one else is around. I know them. The things you feel when a pretty man walks by... Or when you dance with a handsom transfer student with gray hair. I know how you felt. I understand you like no one else."
A hand slowly reaches up; gently caressing the curve o Masumi's face as it lifts the tears. The hand holds it out, letting it glitter in the evening sun. "I know you are afraid. Everone is afraid to admit what they really want. It's why I am here, with you now..." The fingers come close once more, moving to wipe away the tears before gently beginning to pull him away from the fence, towards the nearby seating. "You want to stand out. You want to be yourself without shame or condemnation. I want that too."
Masumi's knowledge of rumor Shadows remains somewhat limited -- though she has been Awakened for nearly two years now, it's only been within the last few months that she's really found herself falling down the rabbit hole, as it were. Her path before that had been an intensely solitary one, pursuing the more 'traditional' paths of the Occult, the very paths that led her to the power of Persona in the first place. Her knowledge in some areas is extremely high, while in others, there are definite limits. She is beginning to learn how to connect the two.
Ultimately, she can only rely upon what she does know. What she /feels/. And she does not believe that Thora has the proper answer. She does not believe that treating this...this person as some kind of monster is the correct path. She recognizes that it would be much easier if she did. She recognizes that it would be much easier to surrender to the xenophobia she has seen demonstrated, and simply fall to blows. To pit raw force against raw force. But she cannot...no. She /will/ not believe that the intrinsic rights of a sentient being are immediately lost because they were brought into creation through belief and magic rather than organic biology.
To separate out any who are /different/, to create that those strong lines of solidarity through 'us-versus-them...' It is an imperative of evolution, leftover from days of raw survival. But it is far time for humanity to move past such things. And more than anything, Masumi understands what it means to be different. So, no. She will not take the suggested route, no matter how much more experience others may have in these particular realms. She was fairly sure of this even before. Interacting with Masumi-Chan now, she feels a renewed sense of certainty.
But...Masumi tenses back up a little as Masumi-Chan reaches around and embraces her, rocking slowly. Walls of paranoia and distrust immediately slam back into place as the other girl draws that close, mind immediately drawn back to the meeting with Reki only a couple of days ago. It was a keen reminder of the reason she was always so careful not to open herself up, not to reveal more than she specifically intended to. There were terribly few people that could actually understand her. The rest would only hurt her the moment they were in past the walls.
And just because Masumi-Chan understands, that doesn't mean her motives are pure. The silver-haired girl can see her own propensity for manipulation in the dopplega...other person. Person. Suspicion dances in azure eyes, though it's mixed with pain at once again finding herself unable to trust. She /wants/ to trust, but even after last night, even after making that absolute and conscious choice to trust Hinata -- that doesn't mean that her pattern recognition suddenly leaves. It was a single choice. But she already fell into the trap of making that choice one too many times.
She has to be careful.
"Why...why do you care?" she asks, even though on some level she already understands. It's the same reason she found herself, that day by the river, all but defending her to Thora. The reason she found her throughts drifting to the potential misery of such an existance, on the outside, through all appearances chained by will of Kotodama and living as merely another person's reflection. Because on some level, they understand each other, because they know what it's like to be in the other's position. And yet still...Masumi's gaze drifts away, tears cleared away, but expression troubled. Unsure of whether to trust or not.
It would be easy, wouldn't it. Easy to summon a Persona, strike down this... being that is so like oneself.
Or is it so easy?
Masumi-Chan makes no overt offensive motions. She feels Masumi tense under her touch. "You are everything to me. I exist because of you." She guides him to the seats on the roof, helping him to sit down. She sits beside him, reaching up to try to smooth out the tenseness that had returned in the interim. "I didn't ask for this, but I will be honest to myself. I want nothing but the best for you. I am trying to help you overcome your fears. Why do you keep lying to yourself? It's not healthy."
She smirks for a moemnt, but a moment later frowns. "You're under so much pain and stress... Why do you torment yourself like this? I care about you because I /am/ you."
You have not set a valid Email attribute. &Email me=Name@Mysite.Com. If you want it kept private, put a ! in front of the email address.
Maybe it is easy. Maybe it truly is not. Regardless, it is ultimately irrelevant. It does not matter how many other people give her the same advice as Thora, that she should simply destroy this person, she will not allow her resolve to be broken. She has always held to the belief that violence is ultimately counterproductive, that it only ever destroyed far more than it created. And to kill is unacceptable, no matter the reason. To kill is to deny the fundamental rights of another person, rights that serve as the underlying foundation upon which all of society is built. It did not even require external forms of morality. It was raw pragmaticism.
Masumi...relaxes once more underneath Masumi-Chan's touch. Her expression remains deeply troubled even as she brings her gaze back to the other girl, but joined quickly by strong currents of contemplation in response to those words. The intense emotional bombardment of the last while seems to fall away as she is given something else to focus upon. Little hints here and there. Feelings. Thoughts. Words. The pieces are all being laid out before her.
But how do they fit together?
Masumi inhales slowly. That connection of mind and body is at work -- the more the stress is worked from her physical form, the more it falls away from her mental-emotional-spiritual one. Relaxation. It is similiar to her normal path to that center she has lost touch with for what feels like so long, but with the key difference that someone external is manipulating the physical processes which are so closely tied to the metaphysical ones, rather than she herself. Hm.
Digression aside, the clouds are rapidly lifting. That focus and clarity is returning, and with it, she attempts to assemble the picture she cannot currently see. Drawing together all the disparate elements to discern the truth that she is always seeking.
'I am you...'
Herein lies the first critical piece. Masumi inhales slowly once again, features growing even more deeply contemplative. A Shadow. Not the true article, but merely a reflection. Would it not wish to actually /be/ the truth which it only casts a passing sillhouete of? Certainly she can see herself in the other girl. But... "If you.../are/ me," Masumi finally begins. Struggling to put it all together. She does not miss that smirk, but for the moment sets it aside until she can figure out what it means. "Then..." Then what? Start with the basic. Principle of equality. "Then...I would be you." She cannot rule out the possibility that the other girl is telling the truth. Not when she doesn't really understand how Kotodama works.
And ultimately, it would explain why she sees so much of herself in Masumi-Chan. "And..." Dig past the external actions, to the connections you already determined. "You are...manipulative. You...fear rejection, you fear being on the outside, and so you manipulate people into accepting you." She can see this, because it is so similiar to the way she can manipulate people. And in a moment, azure eyes darken with fear, breathing growing suddenly heavy in distress, once more looking away. All of the struggles. All of the questions she's come back to over and over and over again suddenly become so poignant.
"Is that...all I've done?" Hinata. Aigis. Minagi. Souji. Casey. Shirou. Is it...nothing more than a lie?
"There's nothing to be ashamed of." Masumi-chan replies as Masumi asks her own question, comes to her own realizations. "We all do this. But we are different. I can't let you lie to yourself. I can't let you manipulate me into thinking otherwise." She works her hands down Masumi's hack once again, massaging the small of her back as she leans in close once more. Her perfume curls around in the gentle spring wind, wafting past Masumi. "We fear what we could be. I want to banish your fears. I want you to understand the truth... Of what you are and what you really want..."
She pauses. "I understand that the comfortable lies they tell you is all they can accept. They are afraid of rejection just like you are. But you can achieve what they can't, because I am here to help you."
Once more, she whispers in Masami's ear. "Because you are me."
Masumi has always struggled with these questions. She sees what people are thinking, what they are feeling. Sometimes she can /feel/ these things so strongly she wonders if she even has her own identity, whether anything she believes is because /she/ believes it, or merely because she has assimilated the viewpoints of others. It is one of the reasons for distancing herself from other people, for creating the walls and mental barriers that even now -- *especially* now -- remain compromised.
Which itself creates a pause in her line of thinking, as she struggles to put all the pieces together. Something which Masumi-Chan herself raises. Faint hints of a wry smile tug at the edges of her lips for the faintest of moments. "You could be manipulating me right now." That fear continues to lurk in her eyes, and she struggles forward only with difficulty. Trying to seperate interconnected issues out from one another so that she could consider each piece without...without considering that damning question any further.
"I...I can..." She swallows hard, gaze moving back to Masumi-Chan once more, breathing still slightly accelerated from the hints of adrenaline running through her veins, fueled by her own fear. "I could do it. If you...are me -- " Once again, not ruling out the possibility. Not immediately accepting it. Working with assumptions so that she can extrapolate further. "-- then you..." The fear grows stronger, one delicate fist clenching so tightly she draws the thinnest hints of blood with her own nails. She can /see/ it.
She can /see/ all the things she's ever struggled with played out in Masumi-Chan. Externalized. Given a seperate form. And perhaps in this way undeniable. Focus. /Focus/, damnit. The truth is here. It may very well be not what Masumi-Chan claims. It's even likely. Work from the assumptions given, and in this way determine whether they are even possible. Masumi pauses, attempts to collect herself. Forces herself to press forward, to create that slight disconnect so that she can prove everything Masumi-Chan is saying is a lie.
"If you are me," she begins anew. It is still very difficult. She perserveres. "Then you could be faking every emotion right now. Every word, every bit of body language. Because...if you are me, and I am you, then...then under this assumption, I have my answer." She picks up a little energy here, seeing the light at the end of the tunnel. "I can see the way you manipulate people in order to gain acceptance. If I am you, then the answer is that I have no true emotions. They are only the manipulation of myself in order to bring about a specific desired result, using them to convey 'honesty' to in turn manipulate the people around me."
Beat. "So here is the lie to your words. Under these assumptions, you are capable of the same thing. In which case you are doing nothing more than manipulating yourself in order to manipulate me, in order to bring about a desired result. Under this assumption, everything you do and say is fake, a lie. So ultimately...we see the break in progression. If you are telling the truth, then it follows that you are lying. This is an impossibility."
She draws in a deep breath. She has yet to /quite/ speak in definitive terms, leaving that little sliver of possibility alive, but hovering dangerously close to the precipice of absolutes. "So then...the other possibility is that you /are/ merely a reflection. A creation of will and magick that desires to be me because you...are bound by Kotodama to do so." Masumi frowns, that logical focus taking a back seat as her expression becomes concerned. "In which case...I should be the one helping you. Helping you to find your own way forward." Still not absolute. Still extrapolating from underlying assumptions, but there's no denying that she /wants/ this to be true.
Masumi-Chan pauses, listening to the words. She draws away, sitting next to Masumi, a frown creasing her features. "But that's not an answer at all... You're frightened of me. Of who I am. Of who you are. You..." She looks away. "You hurt so much. I know it. But even now you're pushing me away..."
Tears roll down her face, smearing her makeup as she quietly replies, "You... You can't accept me, can you. I... I just want to help..."
Masumi's qualities have always been very strong, many of them at once blessings and cursings. Working for her, and working against her. Sometimes -- such as now -- she doesn't even know which is which. Because even as she attempts to work through it all, even as she thinks that surely she must be either at or very close to the right answer, she can /feel/ the intensity of Masumi-Chan's emotions. Even as she wants to deny her, even as she /intellectually recognizes/ that Masumi-Chan could very well be manipulating her, that every single emotion could be false...
She *feels* them. She can *feel* that overwhelming pain, and she's forced to tear her gaze away once more as empathic tears drift down her features. There is an intense desire to /help/, because the other girl's pain is her own pain. All but indistinguisable, as the lines blur. Like they always do. Raising that goddamn question again. Does she want to help because she can /truly/ wants to help...or is the desire merely rooted in the desire to alleviate her own pain?
Over and over and over and over again. She's asked it so many times, and she has no idea what the answers are. Does she even possess her own identity? Or is she a separate entity with her own dreams, goals, ambitions, feelings, who happens to be able to identify so incredibly with others? Or is she so open to every thought and emotion that she has become merely a collection of everything she has assimilated from others? Does she really want to help people at all? Or is her 'help' merely manipulating them like she might manipulate herself, coolly identifying the source of the pain and driving to the root causes -- so that she can rid herself of her own pain.
Because there is no difference between herself and the people around her?
"You..." Masumi's hand clenches tighter, tears beginning to roll down her face. Finding herself all but pleading with Masumi-Chan. "You have to...to understand /my/ perspective." She entire body shudders from strong emotion as she inhales. "If I...if I accept that you are me, then...everything is a lie. A, a goddamn lie." There is a long pause, the veneer of logic falling away as intense terror reveals itself. "I...I /have/ to believe that there is...that there is truth. I /have/ to."
Her azure gaze drifts back to Masumi-Chan. Pleading. Pleading with her not to ask this of her. Her eyes are of a person seeing someone attempting to undo their very last anchor to reality, someone attempting to cast them off to fall forever in an infinity they can see with terrifying clarity. "Please..." Voice broken. More afraid than she's ever been in her life. "I...have...I /have/ to have.../something/ to hold onto to. If...if there is no truth...then...then what?"
Masumi-Chan watches the pain, the agony flash across Masumi's features, and she stands, staggering over to the fence as she grips onto it much like Masumi himself did a few minutes ago. She hangs there, sobbing for a moment before looking up over her shoulder. "I told you... We all lie to ourselves. Others have lied to you. You have lied to them. There's nothing wrong with that. But you need more. I see it in you." She looks away for a moment. quiet as she looks out over the grounds below.
"There is truth out there. Look past your fears, and you'll know I am right. I am in your heart, trying to help you..." She looks up, finally, and says, "I am the true self. If you have nothing else..." Masumi-Chan says, her voice thick with emotion. She lets go of the fence, spreading her arms as she turns towards Masumi with tears rolling down her face. "Hold onto me. Please..."
Masumi trembles visibly, tears of fear and terror running down her face. The questions coming over and over and over and over again in her mind, ringing with a relentless fury that is rapidly become overwhelming. "How..." she begins, voice intensely broken. It's so much like double-vision, but only if both views of the world were diametrically opposed. Like her mind is simultaneously seeing two drastically different views of the world, impossible to resolve with one another, yet both so undeniably real. She has never experienced it this intensely before, and it's terrifying.
"How do I know...?" she pleads with Masumi-Chan, desperate for some kind of answer. Some kind of /truth/. The pain Masumi-Chan is feeling...she can feel it so clearly. And in turn, the pain she is feeling, Masumi-Chan also seems to feel it. That overwhelming empathy that can't be turned off, only hidden back behind the walls. An eternal feedback loop, as if they were two parts to the same whole, experiencing each other's pain, and then the pain of experiencing that pain, which in turn is also experienced by the other...it has to stop sometime, before it tears them both apart.
This is reality one.
Reality two says that they are merely manipulating one another. That they only want to help to ease their own pain. That Masumi-Chan is manipulating her, that Masumi-Chan has been manipulating her the entire time. That she /wants/ something. That for some reason she /wants/ Masumi to give in, to surrender and tell her that they are one in the same.
For a long moment, Masumi hovers in this impossible state of contradictory duality. Primal terror flashes in her eyes as she finds herself once more falling through infinity, through a world without any absolutes. Where she /cannot/ find the truth, because her vision attempts to see so many different perspectives at one. She assimilates all of them, so thoroughly, and the truth is beyond her grasp, because she is falling through impossibility. A and B cannot both be true if by their very existance they assume that the other is false.
One or the other must be true -- but which? How does she know? She doesn't. She can't. Not with the way both play so clearly within the realm of her consciousness. But she can...choose...can't she? Masumi finds herself taking a single step forward as Masumi-Chan spreads her arms. It is an invitation. One that she can...choose...whether to accept or deny. She does not know which path is true. She does not know which option is correct. But...is...is objective reality her only guide? Her only master? Is.../that/...the true loss of her self?
A choice. Make a choice. The silent voice rings in her mind. Will you /really/ allow some impersonal force to determine every action? Or will you...choose? Masumi's mind is drawn back to...to last night. She did not /know/...she /does/ not /know/, absolutely, that Hinata will not betray her. That she will not harm her the moment that she allows her in past the walls. But she.../choose/ to trust. And that...that is the difference between last night and today. The reason for the emotions she experience last night, versus the emotions she has experienced today. The reason she couldn't draw them up.
The reason /those/ emotions could not be manipulated, no matter how hard she tried. Because they were...true. They.../are/ true. Truth. Is it...here? In the...the decision to let go? To not cut herself off from the entire world because she is...is afraid of being hurt? Truth. Trust. To make the /decision/ to believe. Is it here that she has...found truth? There are no questions in her mind that she made the right choice last night. It is...undeniable. Unshakeable. It is...true.
It is the Truth.
And so Masumi...steps forward. And then steps forward again. And again. And again. She saw it. She saw what feels like a lifetime ago. Her star. Guiding her to the Truth. And...here, /here/ it lies. It has been revealed to her. The yawning darkness of infinity...she can /feel/ it loosing its hold upon her with each step forward. The disquiet in her mind that has never truly gone away...stills. Because here, she understands what her anchor is.
It is trust.
It is Truth.
"M-M..." the silver-haired girl struggles to force the words from quivering lips, still moving forward. Her body is racked with the force of seemingly impossible deep emotions, trembling heavily with every step. But they are...they are /not/ impossible. They are real. She...she /believes/ that. She.../chooses/ to believe that. Every step is a battle. Fear continues to rage inside of her. The fear that she is wrong. The possibility that she is going to lose everything.
"M...Ma..." A name. Her name. Her identity. "M-m-mas..." Struggling to /choose/. To follow up her decision. To believe that the entire world does not wish to tear her apart. To take hold of...To take hold of the Truth she has sought her entire life.
"Ma-su-mi..." The girl takes that final step, delicate arms wrapping around...her? Around...herself. Trusting. Trusting that she is not being lied to. "You...are...me..."
Truth, as Masumi will find out, is in the eye of the beholder at times.
As Masumi hugs Masumi-Chan, she sighs, closing her eyes...
And then opens them, contacts falling from her eyes to reveal the gold of the Shadow. "I am a Shadow, the True Self. I am you."
And then Masumi's arms sink into her, Masumi-Chan's form... dissolving as a thick black, tarry substance begins to coat his body. It only takes seconds for the substance to run up his arms and over his body, covering him, overtaking him.
All Masumi can see as blackness roils over his body are those golden eyes staring back at him as he is engulfed by the darkness, taken into a warm, comforting blackness.
After all, he has nothing to fear anymore. She is the truth now...
WHERE: Yasogami High, Rooftop
WHEN: Monday, March 9th - After School
WHAT: The confrontation between Masumi and her Rumor Shadow. Nothing will ever be the same.
WATCH FOR: Revelations. Understandings. Long-standing issues being brought to the fore. And in the end...so close, but so far away.
/=========================( - Yasogami HS - Roof - )=========================\ | | | The school's rooftop, accessible through the main staircase that connects | | the main building's floors, is a quiet, peaceful place that students often | | retreat to in order to enjoy lunch, contemplate life's mysteries, or in some | | cases pretend to be professional meteorologists. | | A chain link fence installed around the perimeter is in place in order to | | prevent untimely falls from three stories high. It is flat from end to end, | | save for some large ducts that jut out the roof in the pattern of the letter | | X. It makes for a nice seat. It is the only seat. The chain link fences are | | more than sturdy enough to handle the weight of more than a few kids leaning | | against it, if one has to slouch somewhere around the roof. | | Given the popularity of the location for the above pursuits, no one ever | | seems to intrude on any touching moments between flustered friends, troubled | | lovers, or suspiciously large social circles whenever they decide to have a | | heart-to-heart talk amongst themselves. This is an ideal place as any on | | campus to have a (wo)man-to-(wo)man conversation over delicate subjects. | |===============================( - Players - )================================| | Philemon [A]
|
|===============================( - Objects - )================================|
| |
\============================================================================/
Yasogami High, shortly after classes end for the day.
Masumi Hayashi is not entirely sure what has driven her up to the rooftop, why she hasn't done as normal and made immediate egress for the train statation the very moment classes were over. Perhaps it's a little bit of bitter nostalgia, given her impending transfer over to Gekkoukan if everything progresses smoothly. If. That is of course a big if, and only one more weight ontop of the load she finds herself current carrying. She snorts a little bitterly to herself. Not as if one more really makes that much of a difference.
The silver-haired girl -- ironically, the activities of 'Masumi-chan' actually made it easier to start coming to school underneath the feminine guise, even if everyone that accepted her as actually being female also immediately attached the label 'slut' to her -- stands right at the chain link fence, delicate hands gripping the top rail tightly as she gazes out across the distance. She knows even before the results are posted that she did miserably on the exams. She was even /trying/ this time. But...it had been almost impossible to focus.
Masumi sighs heavily. Just...just a few more days, and then she get could get out of this hell. She had to believe that. She had to believe that nothing /else/ would come up and disrupt her plans. She couldn't imagine another year at this school. Not like this. Just getting to the end of the final half-weak seemed an impossibility. She thought she could carry the light and joy and high spirits of last night back into school. She couldn't, and it's only all the more frustrating that she can remember all those feelings, yet they stubbornly refuse to return.
Instead she feels...vulnerable. Exposed. Weak all over again. Masumi grips the chainlink fence a little tigther, a fresh wave of frustrated tears running down soft features.
Masumi soon finds out he... isn't alone. There is a low giggle from the stairway leading up to the roof, and muttered words back and forth. "Oh, come now, I said later~... Now now, I'll be all yours in time. Just make sure to bring a proper gift~"
Moments later, Masumi-chan steps out onto the roof, turning and waving to whoever it is below. "Bye-bye~..."
She then closes the door, sighing. "It can be so /busy/ being so popular... But then, you wouldn't know much about that, would you Masumi?" She laughs to herself, slidling up behind Masumi and lightly touching him on the shoulder. She comments in a slightly teasing, petulant tone, "You look like a wreck, Masumi. Perhaps I could help you to relax~?" Slowly, she draws her fingers, with her perfectly manicured nails across his back, towards the other shoulder. "But no, you think you're too good for that, don't you?"
It is immediately obvious that this meeting is going to be nothing like the last time Masumi-chan caught her alone, not even that long ago. Then, she had been able to draw up from that resevoir of deep strength, touching that center deep at the core of herself of pure, tranquil waters. Untroubled. Serene. Untouchable. But...had she realy been strong at all? Had she ever? Perhaps she had merely been riding the high after several victories in other parts of her life, merely fortified by an intensely temporary and external strength.
Masumi tenses visibly when that all-too familiar voice is heard drifting up from the stairwell, sickeningly sweet -- mocking her without even being directed at her. And then that...that Resonance. Her breathing becomes just a little strained as it washes over her spirit. It's /her/ Resonance. But with that very subtle twist which speaks of things she would rather not consider. Questions she has battled with over and over and over again. She wants to desperately to block it out, but her extreme sensitivity has always made it extraordinarily difficult to filter at the best of times.
Now, with her walls shattered and mental barriers so intensely compromised, she feels open to every little thought and emotion and vibe. It's rapidly becoming overwhelming.
Masumi's face pales visibly as Masumi-chan draws close, quivering in intense emotional discomfort as her nails play across his back -- feelings made only more poignant for the fact that /physically/ it's impossible not to feel a shiver of pleasure across her back. She struggles with the physical impulse to relax muscles, only now feeling just how incredibly and exhaustingly tense they are. She averts her gaze, clenching the top of the fence even tighter. "I suppose you're happy now," she spits, voice very convincingly feminine, but bitterness tainting her normally soft-tones. "If you meant to make my life hell, you've done a damn good job."
"Hell?" Masumi-chan replies. She does not pull back, remaining close to him. "But I'm just trying to help you, even if you won't admit it to yourself." She sighs, slowly pushing at points in Masumi's back, working her fingers across the tense muscles. "You've always wanted so many things, haven't you? Its natural to want them. But you deny yourself so much... Hide it all inside. You're afraid... But if you would just relax, you would learn so much."
Masumi-chan slowly brings her hands around, slowly rubbing his back and shoulders as she leans in close, whispering into his ear. "They call you names, but they don't understand either. They are simply jealous because we indulge ourselves in ways they refuse to. Our lives are more complete, more passionate. More /full/ than theirs, and they can't allow that. Am I so wrong?"
They are familiar points, if only on an acedemic level. Masumi has never actually had anyone work at them before, and already whatever resistance was there previously begins to melt away -- she tries to resist, but as Masumi-Chan continues to work at them, it becomes increasingly and blatantly obvious just how much exhausting stress and tension has built up over the course of the day. Over the course of much longer than that. Remaining tensed is physically painful. Masumi understands better than most the deep connections between mind and body, and intellectually knows full well that relaxing physically gives Masumi-chan a distinct advantage.
That knowledge doesn't seem to make it any easier to overcome the biological hard-wiring to avoid pain and move towards pleasure. During better times, her mental control and mastery over such impulses has reached extremely high levels. It is apparent by the way she slowly and inexorably relaxes back into Masumi-Chan's skillful hands that she is failing to draw that up strength of will from within herself. A few frustrated tears course down soft features as she intellectually recognizes that this is a level of surrender, and yet even still finds herself giving in.
Connections. Similarities. Masumi recognized a number of them almost immediately upon assembling a broad picture of Masumi-Chan's activities, incredibly deep intuition and empathy leading to such a natural understanding of other people. Sometimes too great of one. Hearing some of her internal thoughts spoken aloud only heighten this sense of similarity further. And yet... "What...what you seek, and...what I seek," Masumi begins, with obvious difficulty, bitternes gone, tones quiet. She has to cling to those differences. She /has/ to. The lines are already blurred enough. "They are completely different."
"But are they? We lie to ourselves. Make comfortable excuses." Masumi-chan reaches around him, hands crossing under the chest and embracing him. Slowly, she presses him against her, rocking slowly. "Those thoughts you feel in the darkness, when no one else is around. I know them. The things you feel when a pretty man walks by... Or when you dance with a handsom transfer student with gray hair. I know how you felt. I understand you like no one else."
A hand slowly reaches up; gently caressing the curve o Masumi's face as it lifts the tears. The hand holds it out, letting it glitter in the evening sun. "I know you are afraid. Everone is afraid to admit what they really want. It's why I am here, with you now..." The fingers come close once more, moving to wipe away the tears before gently beginning to pull him away from the fence, towards the nearby seating. "You want to stand out. You want to be yourself without shame or condemnation. I want that too."
Masumi's knowledge of rumor Shadows remains somewhat limited -- though she has been Awakened for nearly two years now, it's only been within the last few months that she's really found herself falling down the rabbit hole, as it were. Her path before that had been an intensely solitary one, pursuing the more 'traditional' paths of the Occult, the very paths that led her to the power of Persona in the first place. Her knowledge in some areas is extremely high, while in others, there are definite limits. She is beginning to learn how to connect the two.
Ultimately, she can only rely upon what she does know. What she /feels/. And she does not believe that Thora has the proper answer. She does not believe that treating this...this person as some kind of monster is the correct path. She recognizes that it would be much easier if she did. She recognizes that it would be much easier to surrender to the xenophobia she has seen demonstrated, and simply fall to blows. To pit raw force against raw force. But she cannot...no. She /will/ not believe that the intrinsic rights of a sentient being are immediately lost because they were brought into creation through belief and magic rather than organic biology.
To separate out any who are /different/, to create that those strong lines of solidarity through 'us-versus-them...' It is an imperative of evolution, leftover from days of raw survival. But it is far time for humanity to move past such things. And more than anything, Masumi understands what it means to be different. So, no. She will not take the suggested route, no matter how much more experience others may have in these particular realms. She was fairly sure of this even before. Interacting with Masumi-Chan now, she feels a renewed sense of certainty.
But...Masumi tenses back up a little as Masumi-Chan reaches around and embraces her, rocking slowly. Walls of paranoia and distrust immediately slam back into place as the other girl draws that close, mind immediately drawn back to the meeting with Reki only a couple of days ago. It was a keen reminder of the reason she was always so careful not to open herself up, not to reveal more than she specifically intended to. There were terribly few people that could actually understand her. The rest would only hurt her the moment they were in past the walls.
And just because Masumi-Chan understands, that doesn't mean her motives are pure. The silver-haired girl can see her own propensity for manipulation in the dopplega...other person. Person. Suspicion dances in azure eyes, though it's mixed with pain at once again finding herself unable to trust. She /wants/ to trust, but even after last night, even after making that absolute and conscious choice to trust Hinata -- that doesn't mean that her pattern recognition suddenly leaves. It was a single choice. But she already fell into the trap of making that choice one too many times.
She has to be careful.
"Why...why do you care?" she asks, even though on some level she already understands. It's the same reason she found herself, that day by the river, all but defending her to Thora. The reason she found her throughts drifting to the potential misery of such an existance, on the outside, through all appearances chained by will of Kotodama and living as merely another person's reflection. Because on some level, they understand each other, because they know what it's like to be in the other's position. And yet still...Masumi's gaze drifts away, tears cleared away, but expression troubled. Unsure of whether to trust or not.
It would be easy, wouldn't it. Easy to summon a Persona, strike down this... being that is so like oneself.
Or is it so easy?
Masumi-Chan makes no overt offensive motions. She feels Masumi tense under her touch. "You are everything to me. I exist because of you." She guides him to the seats on the roof, helping him to sit down. She sits beside him, reaching up to try to smooth out the tenseness that had returned in the interim. "I didn't ask for this, but I will be honest to myself. I want nothing but the best for you. I am trying to help you overcome your fears. Why do you keep lying to yourself? It's not healthy."
She smirks for a moemnt, but a moment later frowns. "You're under so much pain and stress... Why do you torment yourself like this? I care about you because I /am/ you."
You have not set a valid Email attribute. &Email me=Name@Mysite.Com. If you want it kept private, put a ! in front of the email address.
Maybe it is easy. Maybe it truly is not. Regardless, it is ultimately irrelevant. It does not matter how many other people give her the same advice as Thora, that she should simply destroy this person, she will not allow her resolve to be broken. She has always held to the belief that violence is ultimately counterproductive, that it only ever destroyed far more than it created. And to kill is unacceptable, no matter the reason. To kill is to deny the fundamental rights of another person, rights that serve as the underlying foundation upon which all of society is built. It did not even require external forms of morality. It was raw pragmaticism.
Masumi...relaxes once more underneath Masumi-Chan's touch. Her expression remains deeply troubled even as she brings her gaze back to the other girl, but joined quickly by strong currents of contemplation in response to those words. The intense emotional bombardment of the last while seems to fall away as she is given something else to focus upon. Little hints here and there. Feelings. Thoughts. Words. The pieces are all being laid out before her.
But how do they fit together?
Masumi inhales slowly. That connection of mind and body is at work -- the more the stress is worked from her physical form, the more it falls away from her mental-emotional-spiritual one. Relaxation. It is similiar to her normal path to that center she has lost touch with for what feels like so long, but with the key difference that someone external is manipulating the physical processes which are so closely tied to the metaphysical ones, rather than she herself. Hm.
Digression aside, the clouds are rapidly lifting. That focus and clarity is returning, and with it, she attempts to assemble the picture she cannot currently see. Drawing together all the disparate elements to discern the truth that she is always seeking.
'I am you...'
Herein lies the first critical piece. Masumi inhales slowly once again, features growing even more deeply contemplative. A Shadow. Not the true article, but merely a reflection. Would it not wish to actually /be/ the truth which it only casts a passing sillhouete of? Certainly she can see herself in the other girl. But... "If you.../are/ me," Masumi finally begins. Struggling to put it all together. She does not miss that smirk, but for the moment sets it aside until she can figure out what it means. "Then..." Then what? Start with the basic. Principle of equality. "Then...I would be you." She cannot rule out the possibility that the other girl is telling the truth. Not when she doesn't really understand how Kotodama works.
And ultimately, it would explain why she sees so much of herself in Masumi-Chan. "And..." Dig past the external actions, to the connections you already determined. "You are...manipulative. You...fear rejection, you fear being on the outside, and so you manipulate people into accepting you." She can see this, because it is so similiar to the way she can manipulate people. And in a moment, azure eyes darken with fear, breathing growing suddenly heavy in distress, once more looking away. All of the struggles. All of the questions she's come back to over and over and over again suddenly become so poignant.
"Is that...all I've done?" Hinata. Aigis. Minagi. Souji. Casey. Shirou. Is it...nothing more than a lie?
"There's nothing to be ashamed of." Masumi-chan replies as Masumi asks her own question, comes to her own realizations. "We all do this. But we are different. I can't let you lie to yourself. I can't let you manipulate me into thinking otherwise." She works her hands down Masumi's hack once again, massaging the small of her back as she leans in close once more. Her perfume curls around in the gentle spring wind, wafting past Masumi. "We fear what we could be. I want to banish your fears. I want you to understand the truth... Of what you are and what you really want..."
She pauses. "I understand that the comfortable lies they tell you is all they can accept. They are afraid of rejection just like you are. But you can achieve what they can't, because I am here to help you."
Once more, she whispers in Masami's ear. "Because you are me."
Masumi has always struggled with these questions. She sees what people are thinking, what they are feeling. Sometimes she can /feel/ these things so strongly she wonders if she even has her own identity, whether anything she believes is because /she/ believes it, or merely because she has assimilated the viewpoints of others. It is one of the reasons for distancing herself from other people, for creating the walls and mental barriers that even now -- *especially* now -- remain compromised.
Which itself creates a pause in her line of thinking, as she struggles to put all the pieces together. Something which Masumi-Chan herself raises. Faint hints of a wry smile tug at the edges of her lips for the faintest of moments. "You could be manipulating me right now." That fear continues to lurk in her eyes, and she struggles forward only with difficulty. Trying to seperate interconnected issues out from one another so that she could consider each piece without...without considering that damning question any further.
"I...I can..." She swallows hard, gaze moving back to Masumi-Chan once more, breathing still slightly accelerated from the hints of adrenaline running through her veins, fueled by her own fear. "I could do it. If you...are me -- " Once again, not ruling out the possibility. Not immediately accepting it. Working with assumptions so that she can extrapolate further. "-- then you..." The fear grows stronger, one delicate fist clenching so tightly she draws the thinnest hints of blood with her own nails. She can /see/ it.
She can /see/ all the things she's ever struggled with played out in Masumi-Chan. Externalized. Given a seperate form. And perhaps in this way undeniable. Focus. /Focus/, damnit. The truth is here. It may very well be not what Masumi-Chan claims. It's even likely. Work from the assumptions given, and in this way determine whether they are even possible. Masumi pauses, attempts to collect herself. Forces herself to press forward, to create that slight disconnect so that she can prove everything Masumi-Chan is saying is a lie.
"If you are me," she begins anew. It is still very difficult. She perserveres. "Then you could be faking every emotion right now. Every word, every bit of body language. Because...if you are me, and I am you, then...then under this assumption, I have my answer." She picks up a little energy here, seeing the light at the end of the tunnel. "I can see the way you manipulate people in order to gain acceptance. If I am you, then the answer is that I have no true emotions. They are only the manipulation of myself in order to bring about a specific desired result, using them to convey 'honesty' to in turn manipulate the people around me."
Beat. "So here is the lie to your words. Under these assumptions, you are capable of the same thing. In which case you are doing nothing more than manipulating yourself in order to manipulate me, in order to bring about a desired result. Under this assumption, everything you do and say is fake, a lie. So ultimately...we see the break in progression. If you are telling the truth, then it follows that you are lying. This is an impossibility."
She draws in a deep breath. She has yet to /quite/ speak in definitive terms, leaving that little sliver of possibility alive, but hovering dangerously close to the precipice of absolutes. "So then...the other possibility is that you /are/ merely a reflection. A creation of will and magick that desires to be me because you...are bound by Kotodama to do so." Masumi frowns, that logical focus taking a back seat as her expression becomes concerned. "In which case...I should be the one helping you. Helping you to find your own way forward." Still not absolute. Still extrapolating from underlying assumptions, but there's no denying that she /wants/ this to be true.
Masumi-Chan pauses, listening to the words. She draws away, sitting next to Masumi, a frown creasing her features. "But that's not an answer at all... You're frightened of me. Of who I am. Of who you are. You..." She looks away. "You hurt so much. I know it. But even now you're pushing me away..."
Tears roll down her face, smearing her makeup as she quietly replies, "You... You can't accept me, can you. I... I just want to help..."
Masumi's qualities have always been very strong, many of them at once blessings and cursings. Working for her, and working against her. Sometimes -- such as now -- she doesn't even know which is which. Because even as she attempts to work through it all, even as she thinks that surely she must be either at or very close to the right answer, she can /feel/ the intensity of Masumi-Chan's emotions. Even as she wants to deny her, even as she /intellectually recognizes/ that Masumi-Chan could very well be manipulating her, that every single emotion could be false...
She *feels* them. She can *feel* that overwhelming pain, and she's forced to tear her gaze away once more as empathic tears drift down her features. There is an intense desire to /help/, because the other girl's pain is her own pain. All but indistinguisable, as the lines blur. Like they always do. Raising that goddamn question again. Does she want to help because she can /truly/ wants to help...or is the desire merely rooted in the desire to alleviate her own pain?
Over and over and over and over again. She's asked it so many times, and she has no idea what the answers are. Does she even possess her own identity? Or is she a separate entity with her own dreams, goals, ambitions, feelings, who happens to be able to identify so incredibly with others? Or is she so open to every thought and emotion that she has become merely a collection of everything she has assimilated from others? Does she really want to help people at all? Or is her 'help' merely manipulating them like she might manipulate herself, coolly identifying the source of the pain and driving to the root causes -- so that she can rid herself of her own pain.
Because there is no difference between herself and the people around her?
"You..." Masumi's hand clenches tighter, tears beginning to roll down her face. Finding herself all but pleading with Masumi-Chan. "You have to...to understand /my/ perspective." She entire body shudders from strong emotion as she inhales. "If I...if I accept that you are me, then...everything is a lie. A, a goddamn lie." There is a long pause, the veneer of logic falling away as intense terror reveals itself. "I...I /have/ to believe that there is...that there is truth. I /have/ to."
Her azure gaze drifts back to Masumi-Chan. Pleading. Pleading with her not to ask this of her. Her eyes are of a person seeing someone attempting to undo their very last anchor to reality, someone attempting to cast them off to fall forever in an infinity they can see with terrifying clarity. "Please..." Voice broken. More afraid than she's ever been in her life. "I...have...I /have/ to have.../something/ to hold onto to. If...if there is no truth...then...then what?"
Masumi-Chan watches the pain, the agony flash across Masumi's features, and she stands, staggering over to the fence as she grips onto it much like Masumi himself did a few minutes ago. She hangs there, sobbing for a moment before looking up over her shoulder. "I told you... We all lie to ourselves. Others have lied to you. You have lied to them. There's nothing wrong with that. But you need more. I see it in you." She looks away for a moment. quiet as she looks out over the grounds below.
"There is truth out there. Look past your fears, and you'll know I am right. I am in your heart, trying to help you..." She looks up, finally, and says, "I am the true self. If you have nothing else..." Masumi-Chan says, her voice thick with emotion. She lets go of the fence, spreading her arms as she turns towards Masumi with tears rolling down her face. "Hold onto me. Please..."
Masumi trembles visibly, tears of fear and terror running down her face. The questions coming over and over and over and over again in her mind, ringing with a relentless fury that is rapidly become overwhelming. "How..." she begins, voice intensely broken. It's so much like double-vision, but only if both views of the world were diametrically opposed. Like her mind is simultaneously seeing two drastically different views of the world, impossible to resolve with one another, yet both so undeniably real. She has never experienced it this intensely before, and it's terrifying.
"How do I know...?" she pleads with Masumi-Chan, desperate for some kind of answer. Some kind of /truth/. The pain Masumi-Chan is feeling...she can feel it so clearly. And in turn, the pain she is feeling, Masumi-Chan also seems to feel it. That overwhelming empathy that can't be turned off, only hidden back behind the walls. An eternal feedback loop, as if they were two parts to the same whole, experiencing each other's pain, and then the pain of experiencing that pain, which in turn is also experienced by the other...it has to stop sometime, before it tears them both apart.
This is reality one.
Reality two says that they are merely manipulating one another. That they only want to help to ease their own pain. That Masumi-Chan is manipulating her, that Masumi-Chan has been manipulating her the entire time. That she /wants/ something. That for some reason she /wants/ Masumi to give in, to surrender and tell her that they are one in the same.
For a long moment, Masumi hovers in this impossible state of contradictory duality. Primal terror flashes in her eyes as she finds herself once more falling through infinity, through a world without any absolutes. Where she /cannot/ find the truth, because her vision attempts to see so many different perspectives at one. She assimilates all of them, so thoroughly, and the truth is beyond her grasp, because she is falling through impossibility. A and B cannot both be true if by their very existance they assume that the other is false.
One or the other must be true -- but which? How does she know? She doesn't. She can't. Not with the way both play so clearly within the realm of her consciousness. But she can...choose...can't she? Masumi finds herself taking a single step forward as Masumi-Chan spreads her arms. It is an invitation. One that she can...choose...whether to accept or deny. She does not know which path is true. She does not know which option is correct. But...is...is objective reality her only guide? Her only master? Is.../that/...the true loss of her self?
A choice. Make a choice. The silent voice rings in her mind. Will you /really/ allow some impersonal force to determine every action? Or will you...choose? Masumi's mind is drawn back to...to last night. She did not /know/...she /does/ not /know/, absolutely, that Hinata will not betray her. That she will not harm her the moment that she allows her in past the walls. But she.../choose/ to trust. And that...that is the difference between last night and today. The reason for the emotions she experience last night, versus the emotions she has experienced today. The reason she couldn't draw them up.
The reason /those/ emotions could not be manipulated, no matter how hard she tried. Because they were...true. They.../are/ true. Truth. Is it...here? In the...the decision to let go? To not cut herself off from the entire world because she is...is afraid of being hurt? Truth. Trust. To make the /decision/ to believe. Is it here that she has...found truth? There are no questions in her mind that she made the right choice last night. It is...undeniable. Unshakeable. It is...true.
It is the Truth.
And so Masumi...steps forward. And then steps forward again. And again. And again. She saw it. She saw what feels like a lifetime ago. Her star. Guiding her to the Truth. And...here, /here/ it lies. It has been revealed to her. The yawning darkness of infinity...she can /feel/ it loosing its hold upon her with each step forward. The disquiet in her mind that has never truly gone away...stills. Because here, she understands what her anchor is.
It is trust.
It is Truth.
"M-M..." the silver-haired girl struggles to force the words from quivering lips, still moving forward. Her body is racked with the force of seemingly impossible deep emotions, trembling heavily with every step. But they are...they are /not/ impossible. They are real. She...she /believes/ that. She.../chooses/ to believe that. Every step is a battle. Fear continues to rage inside of her. The fear that she is wrong. The possibility that she is going to lose everything.
"M...Ma..." A name. Her name. Her identity. "M-m-mas..." Struggling to /choose/. To follow up her decision. To believe that the entire world does not wish to tear her apart. To take hold of...To take hold of the Truth she has sought her entire life.
"Ma-su-mi..." The girl takes that final step, delicate arms wrapping around...her? Around...herself. Trusting. Trusting that she is not being lied to. "You...are...me..."
Truth, as Masumi will find out, is in the eye of the beholder at times.
As Masumi hugs Masumi-Chan, she sighs, closing her eyes...
And then opens them, contacts falling from her eyes to reveal the gold of the Shadow. "I am a Shadow, the True Self. I am you."
And then Masumi's arms sink into her, Masumi-Chan's form... dissolving as a thick black, tarry substance begins to coat his body. It only takes seconds for the substance to run up his arms and over his body, covering him, overtaking him.
All Masumi can see as blackness roils over his body are those golden eyes staring back at him as he is engulfed by the darkness, taken into a warm, comforting blackness.
After all, he has nothing to fear anymore. She is the truth now...