ximilialog | [Mostly Open] So we'll press, and press 'til you can't take it anymore!

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[Mostly Open] So we'll press, and press 'til you can't take it anymore!

CHARACTERS: Precursors and you. And Eventually Newton. Hopefully!
LOCATION: A holding room in Ximilia Station.
DATE: Est. two days post-mission, after the kaiju is defeated and the orb is retrieved.
CONTENT: The precursors are revealed — and are finally removed from Newt's mind.
WARNINGS: Possession and the bodily autonomy issues that come with that. More will be added if necessary!

Closed and opened starters will be added as I go, which will be announced on plurk! But if you don't use plurk or would rather keep an eye out by email/tracking, feel free to use the tracking option and mark to receive notifs any new top level comments posted to this log! The log will involve an open starter to visit the precursors where they're cuffed/contained in the room, so stay tuned.

Also no rush once the open starters are posted!

Feel free to focus on the player plot log first and come back to this later.

CLOSED STARTER | THE DOCTOR
DARKLING'S TOP LEVEL | WHILE NEWT WAS SLEEPING...
OPEN STARTER | THE PRECURSORS, REVEALED
CLOSED FINAL CONCLUSION | THE PRECURSORS, REMOVED
OPEN PROMPTS | NEWTON GEISZLER'S RETURN

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

I have seen New York.

（ in the simulation room, he means. he tilts his head curiously — trying to sift through the ash of what newt says to light on something worth discussing. ）

The kaijū. A 'strange beast'.

（ with uncanny timing, he turns to the grill just three seconds before its alarm chime goes off, silencing it with a finger, and then takes down several dishes. a bowl to fill with miso, a small plate for a variety of pickled vegetables, a plate for the rice and the fish. he does not know if newton eats with chopsticks or a fork, so he provides both as he brings the food to him, sets it down and holds out a hand for the ice cream. ）

The state of your world sounds as if it was very dire.

（ but the unity of it all... it is very much like what akatsuki was attempting to accomplish. use the bijū like a knife at the throat of all the shinobi nations, to force them into peace against a larger scale threat. ）

New York's awesome; the kind of place that crawls for the sun.

[He looks torn on whether to give up the ice cream, because what if he wants to eat even more of it after his breakfast? But ultimately, with a little huff, he relinquishes control of the delicious dairy product. You fiend.

To his credit, though, he collects the chop sticks and uses them as well as anyone native to them would; the joys of living in Hong Kong 'technically'... while also being a weeb.]

But — yeah! The kaiju. They were appearing more and more consistently, and were stronger every time. [As he takes a bite (and then looks very very pleased before taking a bigger bite), he eventually grows more somber.] We were pretty bad off toward the end of the war. Like... days away from complete destruction, and we were the only ones standing between it.

（ he puts the ice cream away, and then fixes up his own series of dishes, choosing to sit... not beside, but only one seat down from newt.

he has gotten good at contextual inferences, but 'crawls for the sun' eludes him. he pictures a mechanical city, moving apace of the day, but he is certain that gwen would have told him as much.

he's too literal for this, send help. still, rather than ask, he focuses instead on what it is newton says afterwards. he is silent for a time, lifting the bowl of miso up for a drink, and once he has set it back down again — ）

What you did, for your people. It was foolish. （ he shakes his head faintly. ） But it was also very brave. I understand why it felt like your only option, when the alternative was annihilation. And it is not your fault you did not know how it would turn out.

[It's easy to flinch at the beginning of Itachi's commentary, to look down at his food like it requires his full attention. Chopsticks fidget in his hands — and he almost expects something along the lines of that Kirigan had said. It's not that he things Itachi's an asshole or anything; no, he knows some harsh words are earned by the people he'd hurt, whether they came out of that injured or distrustful or worried for their fellow crewmate.

So the look of baffled surprise he gives Itachi when he doesn't say some sharp, wounding words is very genuine. If anything, he can at least be clear in his guilt, in his regret for what's happened, and it's no more obvious than the exhausted gratitude his face carries now.

That's the hard thing about it, huh? It really was... one of his last options available.

If their last jaegers had been destroyed in the bottom of that ocean alongside a nuke that couldn't get through the breach, that would've been it. That would've been earth's final swan call, just before the kaiju descended on them and gutted the insides of the world until nothing remained.

It's a sobering thought.]

Thanks, Itachi.

... For the breakfast, too.

[He sniffs, taking another bite.]

... It's not over yet. How it turned out... I think I can still make things right.

（ gross, he should not be feeling feelings over this weird little man. but he is — truthfully, newton has only ever been nice (if overenthusiastic) to him. and the fact of the matter is, the things one does to save their people... the lengths to which one will go, he knows that all too well himself. ）

You speak of changing your regret?

[He nods, eyes glued to his chopsticks as he scoops rice.]

Yeeup. I spoke with Viv, and she says I can.

It comes with a price we've gotta pay... some kind of extra payment of sorts, y'know? You never know what it'll be, just that it's something they take as an exchange. But if things go well, and I agree to whatever they ask in return... there'll be a chance I can save everyone the precursors ever killed or hurt. The people who died on the train... the people who died on my planet... the other worlds they effected...

If they just... never existed.

My job'd be done.

Edited 2022-06-06 04:46 (UTC)

That is not your responsibility.

（ he doubts that newton will see it that way, but it needs to be said regardless. ）

All life, species' and planets comes to an end on a long enough scale. The lives lost... who is to say new life has not come to those desolate worlds in the aftermath? Something nascent, that would be destroyed by your actions. Also, you cannot know that by eradicating the Precursors, by bringing back all they have killed, that a worse evil will not rise in their place. It is a delicate balance. Looking to the past as a solution solves nothing.

（ he sounds firm on this point, dark eyes fixed on newt with intensity. ）

Consider — if you are able to save those in your world that died. What would you change? What would you destroy? People may have married, had children, that never would have met if not for what the kaijū wreaked upon your world. Humans are resilient. They can heal from anything if you give them space and freedom enough, and tragedies fade from the mind. Who are you to erase that pain? You do not have the right to take away the growth, the love, the lives that would come of the change you are proposing. You see it as saving the dead — but the dead do not care, and the living can endure.

（ the hypocrisy of such a thing is not lost on him. is he not doing the same? even if the massacre is not to be averted, he is still here to change sasuke's fate. he exhales, sharply, and then looks away. ）

You know how to beat them now. It is better to take that knowledge to your world as it is, and fight. Do not permit your guilt to convince you that this idea has merit. You have to be better than them, creatures who set themselves above others. This idea of yours is not dissimilar to their methods — you would be playing as a god with the lives of trillions. Even if your intentions differ, in how many places, in how many ways might the outcome be the same?

[He sits quietly for a moment, looking wearily at the bowl in front of him. It's easy to feel the curdling of his food in his stomach, easy to feel a quiet swelling of frustration, of — something else he can't quite place, but claws up his throat like daggered hands.]

... Are you going to give every person here this high and mighty speech, Itachi?

[Low and brittle.]

Yourself and everyone else? All of us here, working to undo things that'll have huge impacts on our world? On who lives and dies? Are you gonna stop us from collecting orbs and vastly changing the future all these planets we visit? Are you gonna make sure everyone else's changes aren't too big? Aren't too small? Just right for you?

Oh, that guy over there, he's trying to bring back his dead family; his dead family doesn't care, right? Or — oh no, that lady over there, her world gets blown into smithereens! But ah, life finds a way, and something else will totally come of it. Mmm, can't let so-and-so accomplish their regret, because if they save that one friend they super love, it'll change which babies are born in the next billion years. Someone regrets not making some life-changing cure...? That's no good! What about the people who would have married the poor bastards that didn't die from it? Oh, hers over there is fine, because hers prevents a world-ending psychopath from being born in a hundred years.

But you're here, and you want to use the orbs to fix something you apparently have no right to fix, but yours is just the right amount of okay. Tell yourself, "Oh, I can wield me some what-ifs like big fucking swords at people who have nothing but what-ifs pushing them them forward!"

Oh, but Newt's not allowed to erase the pain that won't happen if he fixes things.

That'd be too wrong. The people on that train died for a reason! The cycle of fucking life, right?

[He still can't look at Itachi, but he's not really looking at anything in the room with him right now. His eyes are staring straight through his food, and as he sits there, sweat prickles his neck, and the air becomes stagnant and thin and hard to take in.]

... Do you know what happens to the planets they consume? You haven't seen it. You don't know what happens. There's no — there's no desolate worlds left. There's nothing. [His tingling fingers tremble around the chopsticks.] They eat the bones, too. There's nothing. Not a sound. Do you know what that looks like? When there's nothing?

Edited 2022-06-06 14:38 (UTC)

（ the censure is deserved, he does not flinch from it. instead, he waits patiently until newton is done, and then — ）

My point — that it is not your responsibility — remains. You are one man. You have already suffered enough for this.

（ it surprises him, in a sense, that he has come to care for this strange man enough that he — perhaps selfishly — does not wish to see him continue to do so by means of a new deal with the orbs. but then, those who suffer rarely see the truth of it in themselves. it is easier to take on the pain of others than to acknowledge what lives in your own heart.

trying to bring back his dead family. newt has no way of knowing how closely that cleaves to his own regret, and that the grasping hands of the dead do not let him rest.

he rises smoothly, and carries his empty dishes to the sink. ）

I apologize if I have overstepped. I will speak no more on the matter. What you do, after all, is your choice.

[He'll find it a little mortifying later, just how much of that first comment he doesn't actually hear in the moment. But after a second, words register, and the buzzing in his ears suddenly stops, leaving him thrumming with defensive energy and unpleasant thoughts, most of which are... admittedly not about Itachi whatsoever. His head snaps up and he looks confused by the apology — as if he hadn't expected it, because he hadn't — until his expression slides into contrition.

The strange little man clears his throat, steadying his breaths and taking a moment to count backwards from ten — in German, always in German, because Illia's voice has always been the anchor to the routine.

Should he apologize? He feels like they'll all start gagging on how much he's shoving it down their throats. Sorry this, sorry that. Sorry sorry sorry. He's gonna have to change his nationality to Canadian if he doesn't watch it. His lips thin, and he looks disappointedly at his plate, knowing he's not gonna be able to eat anymore of this right now. It's cool. Everything's cool; he'll eat it, he swears.]

It's fine. It's — I'm just...

[Something. He's something, right now.]

Don't apologize to the guy who was crying like a baby under the counter.

[His point is — he's not really fit to be conversing with in the first place. Not that he was particularly any good at controlling his temper before this, and yeah, he would've probably ended up in a one-sided shouting match before, but he also feels like the room doesn't have any air in it right now, and that's just not right. He logics this out: you're not well, go back to your room, Mr. Geiszler.

Picking up his own plate with hands that still feel kind of funny, he stacks some of the smaller bowls on one side of it, clears his throat.]

I shouldn't really be out here right now, so — I'm gonna take this to my room, but, uh. Thank you for making it. Again. That was — cool of you. And it tastes great. [He gives a short bow, because he's lived beside and among cultures who practically thrive on bowing, and it comes easy.] Seriously, it's really good, so-

[Is this a precursor to him fleeing a scene he feels thoroughly discomfited by?

Maybe. Nobody else has to know.]

Edited (me not wanting to use the same word too close together 2022) 2022-06-06 16:18 (UTC)

（ he finishes with his dishes, setting them on the rack to dry and turns as he dries his hands on a towel. his expression has not changed, is no less serious — but as he looks at newt, one corner of his mouth quirks up very slightly. ）

You were crying? （ there's just a faint note of surprise there, and he makes a soft, airy hm that is altogether very unlike him. ） It must have escaped my notice.

（ it's a way of saying he won't tell a soul — framed as gentle teasing.

after his hands are dried, he steps forward and — with some difficulty that is altogether more mental than physical — puts a hand on newt's shoulder. elegant fingers flex faintly — as reassurance goes, it is a poor, meagre thing. but it is nevertheless an attempt. ）

Many people care a great deal about you. I understand that it is easier to be alone, but — know that you do not need to be. （ gentler, ） I have faith that whatever you decide will be the correct thing.

（ about isolating himself? about making a second deal for his regrets? both, perhaps. he knows that newt cares very deeply about a great many things — would he have tested the pulsefire on himself if he hadn't? he does wonder, after his talk with what must have been the precursors, if it has healed as well as they implied. ）

[... Oh. Oh.

That little 'hm' cuts through him like a big axe, and he squints critically at Itachi before he can even stop himself... because no amount of gentle teasing won't go unaddressed by Newton.]

You little shithead.

[There's no malice or outrage to it.

If anything, it almost sounds relieved. Like it's done just as much for him as any number of bold speeches about his lack of culpability or inherent goodness or any of the other things that he doesn't quite accept yet.

The hand on his shoulder doesn't go unnoticed, either, nor does the man's clear attempt to bridge something; he's a rough guy, his edges are all kinds of jagged, and he sucks at talking to people in any genuine normal capacity. Newt knows those people intimately. Worked elbow-deep in kaiju guts with one. So he can see a haphazard attempt for what it is.

And this time, what Itachi says sticks a little. He swallows, glancing around the kitchen. It's an open, lit space, one not burdened by stacked plastic cups and angrily destroyed pages that had been left scattered around an overfilled wastebasket. It's not a lonely little space where one person lives at a time, hiding behind some earphones.

It isn't actually easier to be alone, really. It's just a different breed of difficult that he pretends would be easier.

So, hesitantly, he sits back down. Nothing suddenly stops him from doing this, so maybe it's not a contested thing, to relent to the concept of being out in the open for all to see.]

I guess it'd be good. To, uh. Eat closer to the sink. Right? [His stomach's sour, but he picks up the little cup of miso. Sips a very un-American amount from the edge before glancing at Itachi.] ... If I added any extra dishes to the tower in my room, it'll definitely fall over.

[The Newtonian theory of gravity is well and alive on my desk.]

（ he hadn't expected that he would stay, so there is a faint lift to his eyebrows before he too ... sits back down. politeness' sake. because for all those rough edges, he is his mother's son, and she raised him with all the cultural mores of his home. ）

Don't tell the others. I have something of a reputation to uphold.

（ his displays of ... kindness, such as they are, are few and far between. rare, because they have a cost to him, and it is not one so easily borne as all that. it is something long excised, and tearing at the sutures where it once lived in him is unpleasant. ）

I was wondering about our dwindling number of plates. I'm surprised the, ah, 'roomba'? has not accosted you yet.

Edited (just dumps a million edits in your inbox nbd nbd) 2022-06-06 17:07 (UTC)

[You should never expect or not expect when it comes to Newton.

That's rule one of a thousand.

He's about to tell Itachi, exasperatedly, that he doesn't have to stick around just because he does. Really, he's just, like. A mess right now. His hands aren't even steady again, and his thoughts are really wanting to circle down the drain into bad brain territory, but.

Itachi talks, and it distracts him from a mental breakdown that is trying to start all over again.

And Newt replies back with easy, impeccable timing, looking dead serious.]

Oh, it visits. The robot visits all the time.

It slaps itself into my door, and when I don't answer, it makes angry beeping sounds. So then I hunker down by the door and make angry beeping sounds back until it gives up and peels off into the night.

（ a faint sigh escapes him. man, this is more emoting than he's done in newt's presence in the nearly eight months they've been acquainted now. ）

How uncouth.

（ smh, the thought of what mess lurks beyond yonder door gives him the heebie-jeebies. he is a fastidious man by nature, and does not tolerate the least speck of dust in his own space. ）

I am still acclimatizing to them. We do not have anything similar in my world. Robots or AI of any sort.

I like being uncouth, it's freeing.

[Said like it's his go-to answer. It's easy to imagine he says that line like its mad-libs, all the time. 'I like being ____, it's freeing.' Well, he's spiraling, but now it's into something he's comfortable with. He gives Itachi a glance, his knee bobbing at break-neck speeds where it's perched on the stool he's claimed once again. Anxiety be gone, the stool squeaks.

He takes a more slurpy drink of miso.

Robots. AI. Focal points. He's Coping (TM).]

I could show you how to build a robot.

Just a little guy who flips pancakes or says 'gesundheit' when you sneeze.

Or whatever.

I would not be averse.

（ he won't deny he is curious. he has always had a voracious thirst for knowledge. it is not that the desire to learn ever faded away, it is that he did not have the time to pursue such things after akatsuki. ）

Though perhaps my request would be for something more immediately functional. I do not make pancakes, or... sneeze... often.

（ hm. actually, that does give him an idea. it is not something he would consider necessary of himself, given that his chakra control is what it is, but it would be interesting to keep tabs on one's innate levels, and how much of a drain certain techniques are in exacting terms and not just an uncanny instinct for such things. ）

Oh, don't pretend like the mighty Itachi doesn't sneeze.

[He actually looks a little pleased, though. A good distraction.

Step in the right direction.]

Immediately functional, though. Mmm...

Name a few things you'd find immediately functional, actually.

I said often. It would be a poor shinobi that reveals their position by sneezing.

（ but his exasperation is at least halfway fond, this time. ）

Would you be able to build something to measure one's energy levels? Chakra, in this instance.

[The fond exasperation is met with an earnest chuckle, like Itachi prodded him right in his little funnybone.

Unintentionally, of course. ]

Shinobis don't get the sniffles, huh? Or they just explode later from holding it in.

[Oh, but as he starts to drink up the miso soup again—]

Chakra. That's, like... Energy points in your body or whatever, right? I've heard about that kind of thing, but mostly from this girl I dated for a little while; something she used in yoga and meditation and all that fancy stuff.

One would refrain from going on a mission were one ill. You are too much a liability to your fellows.

（ none of that nonsense.

at newt's question, he nods. ）

I suspect there are some similarities to what you know, but most I have spoken with from your world consider chakra to be theoretical. What I speak of is the energy that allows us to manipulate elements and perform jutsu. （ he holds up a hand, and there's a spark of a reddish gold energy that coalesces against his skin. ） This.

I wish I could say I wouldn't go on a mission while sick, but... y'know. Gotta finish our personal goals. [With a sigh, he leans back in his chair.] The apocalypse made time off real tricky, even for the flu.

[But anyway!!!! He leans very close to the hand in question; you'd think he'd know basic safety about these things, but nah. Instead he adjusts his glasses, eyes full of distracted, burning curiosity.]

Neato.

... Do it again!

You think we could try to register it with some stuff in the lab? I've never tried to measure chakra before; I don't even know if my world really has it...

I doubt they do. Chakra was bestowed upon my people by a goddess from another world nearly a thousand years ago now — I am descended from one of her sons. There are others here with similar powers, but none with an analogous origin story.

（ he nods to the food. eat your veggies, newt. ）

Perhaps after you finish, we can try.

[Oh, right...! His appetites been kind of in flux... Just one of those things, so he'd been practically prepared to abandon food for the concept of something new to focus all his thoughts on. Itachi's lucky he's a good cook and Newt'd feel too guilty not to eat this — which he starts scarfing down a bit more earnestly.]

Seriously? A for-real magical alien?

[you fucking bet he sees it for what it is]

You can't just tell me that and leave it so short...!

What more would you have me say?

（ he raises an eyebrow at newt's... strange enthusiasm. the impact of the ōtsutsuki on his world cannot be understated, but he knows precious little — their influence seems largely to have passed from public consciousness, and only relics like the stone tablet in the nakano shrine remain. ）

[Mostly Open] So we'll press, and press 'til you can't take it anymore!

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