aididitmyway | sweet suite inbox

Taiki Himekawa. He was in Tokyo Blade with me as Blade. Do you remember him?

... I do.

But why are you telling me this now? How long have you known? Does he know?

I'm telling you because it gives context. I knew after we finished a few rehearsals together and he found out after the show wrapped up when I told him.

You knew that long ago?

[a secret half-brother this entire time??? and older?]

Everything really is just a huge mess, isn't it.

More than you know. —His parents are both dead. His father killed his mother and then himself.

[she pauses, thinking about it for a moment because this is so much to take in and she wasn't expecting to hear "oh yeah and also a murder-suicide happened".]

Does he know that our biological father is still around? Or... I mean, he has to if you told him we're all related, right? Or does he think there was some kind of affair but with the wrong person, or—

It's annoying how you can see through the issue at play, but you also have the benefit of hindsight. I haven't talked with him about it yet. I was waiting for casting to finish.

But I genuinely thought the man he thought was his biological father was also ours. With that man dead, it was done and over with . . . Until you followed a crow and came across my corpse.

[she lets out a deep sigh]

I'm only just hearing about all of this and I'm already exhausted. Himekawa deserves to know when you can tell him, though.

If he accepts the role, then he can read the script and found it all out for himself. It's not my job to explain our father to everyone.

Besides, you're missing the point, Ruby. I stopped pursuing him, and she got you to take up where I left off. Then, you connected me with Ichigo, and I was back at it again. This isn't coincidence or fate; it's planned and coordinated. Sarina and Gorou were picked to be Ruby and Aqua then fulfill specific roles.

. . . I've seen her over ten times. She's been at our home.

...

[She doesn't say anything for a couple of minutes, though given the nature of the topic, it probably feels like it stretches into forever.]

You've seen her that much and I didn't notice?

[And she doesn't like the implication that either of them are pawns, because she doesn't want that for them.]

You wouldn't unless she wanted you to. Besides, she has eyes all over. It's easy to be undetected when you're nearly omniscient.

If her focus on me keeps her away from you, then I can live with that. But she isn't going to get what she wants from either of us. This has gone far enough.

I don't like the idea that someone's been trying to control us this whole time, anyway. We're not part of some game or whatever's going on.

Mm, not anymore, at least. She had to show her hand to get her end, but that tells us how to use her in turn. Plus, she can't read minds, so this place is the best we can hope for to stage a counterattack.

Mm... do you have any plans yet, then? Or any idea on what you want to do?

Broadly, kill her or take her power. We could try to make her lose interest, but she could just keep playing us against each other.

It's been years, I doubt she's going to lose interest in us anytime soon.

... Killing her is probably the easiest option, isn't it? How do you even take someone's power? It sounds like something out of a manga... but I guess it's the same for killing her too if she's really that powerful.

She's trying to weave some kind of story. There are plenty where someone tricks the devil or a demon out of something through cunning. She'd probably be amused if we laid it out in a very particular way.

Probably... but I don't really care about keeping her amused. I don't even care about her story. It'd be better to handle the problem sooner rather than later, though.

If we amuse her, then she's more likely to go along with whatever we propose. Ruby, we can't just yell at her to quit and hope to gain anything from that.

We wouldn't have to yell at her to quit if she were dead.

[what if we just murdered god?]

We wouldn't, but she's still hiding something. I can't put my finger on what it is.

And you want to keep her alive until you know what.

[not even a question, just a statement.]

No, I just don't want to get surprised when I think I've got a noose around her neck.

. . . I've asked about Ai. If she came back like us, but she keeps denying it. That would be the kind of final piece I would hold onto if I were her.

[Another long pause.]

Do you think mama did?

I think a certain kind of stage has to be set for that. Even then, Ai wouldn't be Ai without the circumstance she came from, so I don't think we could or should hope for her to return as herself. But it would make a certain poetic justice if she did in some form.

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