triggerhappytraitor | Prisma Inbox/index

"Maybe you wanted a second one." Isaka shrugs and tries to make it seem as though he doesn't actually care. He does still feel somewhat foolish, though. And no less sour and irritable than before.

"I'm the sort of asshole that won't leave you alone. He's the sort of asshole that won't shut up and listen."

"Shutting up isn't the problem," Tachibana countered, almost amused. Hajime? Talkative? That would be the day...

"You're both stubborn idiots who think you know the best way to handle everything and can't deal with it when you're wrong. The only difference is that he thinks every answer is to punch something and you have more varied tactics."

"If he's not shouting threats, he's trying to pick a fight." Tell him he's wrong, Tachibana. Go right ahead.

"Hmph." The man has a point, though. One that's wrapped up in enough almost-flattery that Isaka is willing to accept it. "I have tactics, at least."

"Hajime's version of tactics is just punch if until it stops being a threat," Tachibana agreed with an almost fond hint of amusement. And yet, he was the one with the reputation for shooting without provocation, go figure.

"I would have thought it would take a bit more than just something like that to get under your skin, however."

If he were feeling generous, he might argue that a surprise attack was a valid sort of tactic... but mostly, he's feeling grumpy. "I'm also more prone to being on the receiving end of those tactics." They are driven to fight each other, after all. It makes things a little awkward.

"...I'd have thought so, too." And now he's feeling grumpy about feeling grumpy. Great.

Tachibana was quiet a moment, looking over at Isaka.

"... has he been targeting you?"

Hajime was supposed to be used to ignoring that fighting impulse... but he also might just be using Isaka for stress relief.

He shakes his head immediately. "Targeting would imply he's bothering to make plans. If get within his field of vision, it's a half and half chance that he'll try and pick a fight."

Not that he's working on a very large sample size for this sort of thing. Or samples that were reliable. Them both being drunk, or both being under weird moon influence tips the scales towards violence.

"Surprised it's not every time. He's improved a bit, in that respect at least," Tachibana reflected.

Still, something like that wouldn't be enough for Hajime to get under Isaka's normally unflappable skin...

"Encourage him to improve some more, then, if you have such a good relationship with him." He looks away, feeling restless to go with all of that irritability, and his eyes fall on that cloth-covered bike of Tachibana's. He'd had that since before he had even got here, hadn't he...?

"Is it so important for the both of you to still be 'Riders', that you need those things?"

Tachibana's eyebrow rose again. "Like he listens to me any more than he listens to anyone else?" he returned, a touch incredulous before pushing off the wall to follow over to his bike.

"I like riding," he pointed out. "Especially now that we're in a world with actual roads that go places." The most frustrating part of Limal... "It has nothing to do with being a Rider."

.... if you ignored the fact that he had basically replicated Red Rhombus with the new bike's aesthetic.

Isaka shrugs. They live together, so don't they have some sort of peace agreement? He's willing to let the matter go, at this point, though. Instead, he watches as Tachibana moves to his own bike.

"...there weren't any roads?" He will call Tachibana on just how damn similar this bike looks to his old one later, probably. There are strange Liminal things to ask about.

Tachibana nodded, one hand resting on the handlebars of the bike. "The entire fabric of Liminal would change on a whim basically every week. It almost never had roads, or even spaces open enough to ride. Hell, sometimes it didn't even have proper gravity," he scowled before shaking his head. "You could make almost anything you could think of out of energy, but it didn't mean a damned thing."

His mouth flattens out into a line at the idea of there being no gravity. Here he is, just trying to get used to the idea of his whole existence being useless here, and there are places where even something as simple as that doesn't work anymore? "How... long were you in that place, again? It sounds miserable."

"About two years," Tachibana half shrugged. "Most the time we were in other worlds, so it wasn't as bad as all that," he pointed out, expression growing a touch distant. "That part, I liked. Getting to live out different lives, even if briefly."

"It's funny, really. Even without the fight in those other worlds, the same group of us still came together, just for different reasons."

"The possibility of other worlds sounds like it might get even worse." He's not feeling very optimistic and adventurous right now, hence all the negativity. All the frowning he's doing, too. He doesn't want to live a different life. This is different enough. He'd like his normal one back.

"...when you say 'the same group', you mean... BOARD's Riders?" So he'll focus on that, instead. Just who kept getting brought back together?

"Yeah," Tachibana nodded. "One world, the four of us were a music group, if you can believe it," he added with a small snort of amusement, shaking his head. "One that became government agents tracking interdimensional ninja. Not sure if that's more or less ridiculous than the idea of becoming transforming fighters in a war of immortals...."

"...that's more ridiculous." He has made that decision here and now. He can't possibly say that Tachibana is lying, after all. He's pretty sure that he'd know if the man was lying. "A scientist using science to fight immortal monsters is less far-fetched than musicians doing... that."

It occurs to him, though, that there's still something he's curious about. "...did I ever show up?"

"... a few times," Tachibana acknowledged. "You were Hajime's cousin, in at least one world." He hesitated a moment. "... killed Sayoko in at least two others," he added, voice softening as he didn't make eye contact.

He's about to say something else sour about Hajime, but.... then comes the rest. He's awkwardly silent for a moment, before giving a soft "Ah," of discomfort. He seeks eye contact for a moment, but then averts his own gaze.

"...how many were there where she was fine?"

"There were a few where she was fine. And at least one other where she lived... but where her version of me didn't. And she was even more destroyed than I was, since there was nothing else there to force her to keep moving forward."

He reached up, fiddling with the diamond pendant he was wearing, thinking of the one Pink Fluorite had given him in return. "Talking with her... I think was the first time I realized that it wouldn't have solved anything, if it had been me who died then."

That last thing, he hadn't expected. It's surprising enough to make him look to Tachibana again, and to catch him toying with his pendant. There are so many things that he wasn't party to, that he missed, and he finds himself wanting to know more about them because... is it entirely because they have to do with Tachibana? It can't be all that...

"I'm beginning to come to the conclusion that most beings don't do well in the long term, when they've suffered a significant loss." Obvious a thing as it may seem to anyone else, it feels like an actual, honest realization to Isaka. He's not sure how well he's doing, and Tachibana.... well.

Tachibana nodded. "Unless you find something else to fill that void with..." he trailed off, pressing his lips together. "I was lucky, in a way. After I sealed you... I tried giving up being a Rider. Gave Karasuma back the Belt and thought I could just... walk away. But instead, there was more I needed to do. Someone I needed to save from falling into the same fate."

A small, soft smile finally touched his lips. "The one thing I succeeded at, really."

Filling the void somehow is important, Isaka cannot dispute that. And so he nods, and tries not to reflect too hard on his own void that he is still struggling with. He finds himself a seat on a nearby crate, and listens.

"...who was that? Tell me more." There is something more to Tachibana than anxiety and anger, isn't there? He wants to hear this. He wants to know.

"Mutsuki," Tachibana explained, shifting to lean against the edge of the workbench nearest to him. "He was the one who found the Leangle Belt-- or rather, the Belt found him. He thought it could give him what he needed to face his fears and be more the person he wanted to be. Instead, the Undead powering it took him over. Turned him into someone he wasn't."

He pressed his lips together a moment, looking to the side. The similarities in his and Mutsuki's situations...

"In the end, it took three of us to reach him, to help him break the Spider Undead's control over him. I think because of Shima-san and Tiger Undead's sacrifice... it was why he wanted to trust in the Undead. He believed that they could be reasoned with, that we didn't all need to fight each other. Even when that trust was betrayed by Giraffa Undead... he still stubbornly insisted that Hajime wouldn't end the world."

Even going as far as to fight him over it... Neither of them could have known that the Sealing Stone wouldn't give Hajime that choice.

"Found him?" Isaka frowns deeply, taking in the news of what happened with the Leangle buckle. "Spider still had influence, even when sealed?" That's news to him. That's different. He hadn't had the chance to put the card to the test before he'd gone and gotten himself flaming jump-kicked into an oblivion of his own. All the more interested now, he leans in slightly.

"...Shima-san. Tarantula Undead?" His frown grows less concerned, more thoughtful, eyebrows knitting. "So he and Tiger.... found something worthwhile to do, is that it? What was their sacrifice? They were sealed, and...?" There's some connecting ideas here that he hasn't fully reasoned out for himself. "If you want to get an incorrect impression of how Undead are, talking with Tarantula will do that...."

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