[EFFECT ROOM] The Red Thread of Not-Quite-Fate

[hyperhero]

[This room is definitely one that you wouldn't expect to find in a school, considering that it appears to be a gigantic cafe. Plush carpets, cushioned chairs, a whole bunch of fancy drinks and snacks...

Someone put a dating cafe in the school!]

((OOC: Here's how it works! The room is based off the idea of the red string of fate from Japanese/Chinese legend. On stepping into the room, your character will find a thin but completely unbreakable red string tied to their pinkie, with the other end tied to someone else who's come into the room. The red string persists even if you try to leave, and won't disappear until a full day later. The thread itself will lengthen or shorten depending on the proximity of the two characters, but it won't let you get more than a room's length away from each other.

Here's the complication: the Gods are kind of sort of drunk off their asses, which means that the red string could tie you to literally anyone. Your worst enemy, your brother, your father, Old Man Jenkins... it's one of those things where you're lucky if you get your soulmate! Furthermore, the strings can (by player choice) actually swap around repeatedly, so your character could end up tied to one person all day or have to deal with being tied to five different ones through it!

For characters who don't know about the legend, there's a paper pinned to the wall by the door that explains it (at least, the actual legend, not the drunk-gods part). While the paper can be ripped up, it'll just regenerate a minute or two later.

And yes I purposefully picked the most inappropriate journal for this))

Comments

[fluffydeathdealer]

It's impossible for me to die. The most I could do would be to lose my mind... and I'm not willing to slip into complete madness.

[Maybe he is a little mad. But as long as he didn't grow weak, that was all fine. He frowned a little at that explanation of Henry, practically pouting.]

Is that how it is? He's certainly stubborn enough that I'd believe it. He's the only person I know who'll lecture me like I'm a damned child, still capable of changing.

[whiterosefoes]

[Harriet is doubtful of that. Impossible? If he wanted to die, he'd find a way. Unless the ring is indestructible as well. She doesn't think he's ever contemplated suicide, but she's not going to ask for any clarification on that grim topic. It's hardly appropriate for a first date, even with your "soulmate."]

It's the reason we met at all. He wasn't content losing the war, so he had Eleanor and I summoned back through time to turn the tides. And here at the Campus... I've noticed it even more. Has he told you about the situation with Jack?

[fluffydeathdealer]

Apart from a few jokes, he's hardly mentioned the man. He's astoundingly tight lipped. I guess that's how he's survived to this age.

[Summoned back through time... That clarified a few things about the girls, at least. He'd known they were out of place in comparison to their comrades, but for that man to have just yanked them back through time? It was unheard of. It just became more fascinating the more he heard about it.]

[whiterosefoes]

I see. Well... I doubt that me telling you would change anything, so I might as well explain what I mean.

[Harriet pauses. Why is she suddenly willing to talk, now that the topic is Henry? Maybe it's because he's outside of the situation, or because Henry has made a connection to Bakura. She's not sure, but anyway, she continues on.]

You see, Jack didn't arrive at the same time as the rest of us. He couldn't have... Henry and Rosenkreuz were attempting to send us back home to the future, you see. But by then, Jack was already dead.

[Which may explain part of her reaction to seeing Ryou's face that first time long ago... all except for Harriet's impulsive reach for her sword.]

When he showed up in the Campus, it was a shock to us all. But now, Henry has decided he won't go back without him. He's taken that upon himself as well.

[fluffydeathdealer]

...hoh? So that's why you were talking about someone with Ryou's face, back then.

[But she'd been acting suspicious about it. They were probably on opposite sides, or at least had to deal with Jack being controlled by an enemy... he wouldn't put it past them to have had something like that in their past. But now she's gotten him curious. Sitting back, he sips his drink and continues on.]

From what I saw of him, he was a tough nut. [He's still sore over being mishandled back during that fiasco.] It doesn't seem like it'd be easy for anyone to kill him. How did he die?

[whiterosefoes]

Ah. [Harriet isn't keen on covering up what happened, as she feels that would be abdicating responsibility for what she had done. But it is with some hesitance that she continues speaking, and her eyes are looking somewhere far away.]

He was ... crafty, more than tough. His monsters were all low-levels with effects, and he relied on sneaking around and dealing direct attacks. That heavy armor he wears is surely a buffer more than anything... because his monster's defenses were too weak to absorb damage....

[All of the past tense, though, indicates that she's not talking about the current Jack, not really. By this point it's probably obvious that she was on the opposite side from him. And so she decides to stop beating around the bush, and looks Bakura back in the eye.]

... It was a "dark duel", after all. I killed him before he could kill me.

[fluffydeathdealer]

You?!

[Three things of importance that he's noted:

1. This 'Jack' somehow had the ability to start a dark game. But he didn't have access to the Items... where did he get the power? That also explained why Henry had reacted so strangely to his admittance of having the powers of a dark duelist.
2. As a duelist, he had pretty sly tactics. He approved.
3. She not only survived a shadow game, but made it out by killing her opponent.

The third point is that's sticking in his mind the most. This little girl took down a shadow duelist? He's not sure if that means Jack's weak or this girl is strong, but he's not going to call Jack anything right now, as much as he wants to. No sense in antagonizing her.]

I didn't think you'd have it in you.

[whiterosefoes]

... No, I suppose you wouldn't. In a place like this, it's quite easy to pretend I'm an ordinary woman. When I've been forgiven, and my one casualty has come back to get a second chance. If Henry succeeds in all of his plans, perhaps in time even the other Lancastrians would come to forgive me for my betrayal.

But back then, all the hate was on me, and that was just how I wanted it. I was glad to return that anger to the ones who had me trapped in time! I never held back, so really, it's a miracle more of them didn't die.

[In hindsight she's glad they didn't, because Cade's death was traumatic for her. But she has no regrets about her actions, so she's a bit cavalier about the way she talks about them. Her reasons were sound, she feels.]

My villainy... it kept their eyes off of Elly, and our plans together. We couldn't trust either side, so we played them both.

[fluffydeathdealer]

...

You two are more frightening than I thought.

[And impressive. Playing both sides, and fighting without holding back... Betraying others to get the best result... It was kind of fascinating. And this was a girl who had supposedly come from modern times into a war zone and adapted so thoroughly as that. He was impressed.]

Remind me not to piss you off.

[Any more than he already had.]

[whiterosefoes]

[she chuckles]

Well, I'm honoring our treaty.

[By which she means to say: you already have. Big time. And she hasn't forgotten. SO DON'T FUCK UP.

But this has been an interesting conversation, nevertheless. She's begrudgingly starting to understand why Henry tolerates his presence.]

[fluffydeathdealer]

Heh... it's a good thing I have no intention of breaking it, then.

[Oh, he knows. Though considering her admittance, he doesn't doubt that she'd be capable of breaking it in a heartbeat if she needed to. Still, she's more interesting than he expected from the girly day. Eleanor's level of crazy he already knew; his nose had taken forever to re-set after that gauntlet-clad punch, and he remembered how crazy she'd gotten by the end. But this one was showing an intriguing level of capability.]

Though Malik's quite paranoid about the lot of you turning on us eventually, when we're not looking.

[whiterosefoes]

[Harriet looks a bit more serious when he brings Malik into the conversation. That boy... he's a troubled one, isn't he? She's been paranoid about him as well, though it would be more accurate to say about his dark half. He'd mentioned that he came out again and never explained why. Nevertheless, he was still trying to make a deal with her. She was sure that day could never come, but she'd given him a hint out of some weird sense of acknowledgement. What a complicated situation. Still, she wonders if Bakura knows anything.]

... I should say we feel much the same. That other half of his is still at large, last I heard.

[fluffydeathdealer]

[Bakura's voice turns serious in response. The other half of Malik worries him more than anything else here. For someone who can't be truly hurt, he's still worried. It doesn't help that he can still remember the suffocating darkness inside Malik's mind and the way the other Malik had nearly killed his soul there.]

Yes... I've been inside of his mind. That other half of his feeds on his suffering and hatred, and grows stronger from it. With Malik being aware of it, he can resist it, but... the longer he stays here, the more frustrated he'll grow, and the more easily that side will be able to fight him.

[whiterosefoes]

[Harriet hmms at that - that's what Malik had said too. She takes the corroboration with a grain of salt, though, since Bakura is apparently his boyfriend and as persistent as the boy has been, he could have told him of his machinations there. He does look like he's actually worried, which she won't disregard either.]

And should that happen, he'll specifically target you again, won't he. How do you intend to deal with that?

[fluffydeathdealer]

Beats the hell out of me.

[Blunt? Maybe. Sitting up straight, he meets her eyes unhesitatingly. What does one do about something like that?]

If I have to, I'll kill him myself, but I'd rather not have it go that far. But if it does, I won't hesitate. It's my host that's most in danger, after all. I'll survive even if everything in this campus burns, but without a host, I'm useless.

[And bored.]