[Eiki says when the room they've created is dark, minus a few glimmering shreds of light filtering through the thick weave. He turns and sits down on the ground, a flame bursts to life in front of him, like a campfire, but floating just off the ground, feeding on nothing.]
Like any other aspect of cantus, you need to understand what you're working with to accurately manipulate it. It's the same with memories. If you want to help me recover my memories of you then you're going to need to allow me access to yours.
[That was... not entirely true. But Eiki has no interest in being honest and he doubted this fiend knew the first thing about memory manipulation. He was surprised he could use his cantus halfway decently at all.]
[after he had sat down as well, about a quarter turn around the fire from him. Though his tone was simply questioning, his expression was more obviously dubious]
[Eiki doesn't appear to be looking at Haruna's expression, focusing instead on the flame, which is slowly moving to the left, then the right, just barely flicking in a breeze only it can feel.]
Watch the fire. Tell me what you remember from back then.
[As he speaks, Eiki's voice becomes... warmer. Not losing it's calm evenness but dulling the previously sharpened edges of words. He has a very pleasant voice when he wants to. The shift is gradual. It sounds like he's relaxing as well.]
[there was a long pause before he spoke as he turned the situation over. Worst case scenario, Eiki would erase those memories and flee. He'd be no worse off than before, maybe even better...
And it was—nice. Listening to Eiki's voice like this. Most of the queerats could not manage human language very well, more suited to the sharp, jerky noises of their own tongue; even Soremaru had the faint, growling undertone. He had not known he missed the sound of a human voice until now, and the warmth of it seeped into him]
There weren't many of us left. Uzuki had just graduated, so there was you, me, Takamichi, and two others.
[he stopped, watching the memories play out in his mind. he could recite the facts all day, but it didn't feel like it would be enough]
[Eiki supplied, his voice faintly encouraging. He could remember those details fine. And there was this faintest flicker, this sense that there were more, there had to have been more. He hadn't been among the last three, had he? His cantus had awakened not long after his sister's...
But his mind wasn't really focused on that, he would recover those memories later, for now he wanted Haruna to lower his guard. This wasn't the only way to hypnotize someone, but it was perhaps the best. A more blunt approach, particularly on an adult, particularly on such a strange adult, came with more risks, more difficulties.
He continued to make the flame sway evenly, it required almost no focus on his part.]
I remember going to the orchards. It seemed unbelievable, how much fruit could come from one tree. Were you there..?
The keeper pulled all the fruit off of one tree in a second flat—every last piece, enough to fill three barrels. We weren't allowed to climb the trees but Uzuki and Yamato argued about who could climb higher the entire time.
[It was still strangely jarring to hear someone say Uzumi's name so easily, which such casual certainty.
It takes him another moment of staring at the flame to regain his train of thought. Putting aside details he couldn't dwell on for now.]
We at there that day, any fruit you could want. I think we all got sick on it.
[Just keep Haruna calm, distracted. And Eiki began to nudge gently at his mind, not aiming for memories but will. Most people didn't understand that manipulating the mind was no different than manipulating anything else. And Eiki could easily envision people letting go around him, trusting his face, his voice. He wasn't a violent or intimidating person. He had been bullied in school. Overlooked in classes. He was quiet and nonthreatening. There was no reason not to trust him, to not answer his questions, to not listen to his suggestions.]
[He had been eating an orange at the time. His mouth watered suddenly and prolifically until he had to swallow at the memory. In the last ten years he hadn't even thought of oranges but now, all at once, he craved one so badly he nearly would have broken his self-imposed ban on crossing the holy barrier just to taste one again.
[He didn't remember that, or he wasn't sure if he did, but it didn't matter. Haruna could think that he did. Could trust that his old friend meant no harm. Not two children who ate oranges together.
Haruna might, if he wasn't TOO distracted, feel a faint shift in his mind, as Eiki supplemented Haruna's desires, decisions with his own. But most found it almost calming. It just meant they could rely on a dependable person like Eiki to take things from here.]
[He felt something. There was a hiss, like a stray spark from the fire, don'ttrusthimhe'sahumanahumanhuman, but it was banked under the tide of everything else, under a traitorous desire to trust him]
[It sounds only just a question, the tiniest bit of uncertainty. It's just an act, Eiki is now far too focused on taking over Haruna's mind to think of that at all. Suffocating it but just enough to make it relax. But it seems for all the world as if he's mindlessly staring into the fire, which continues to sway, matching the even pace of his breath.]
Neither twin had been friendly and neither had Haruna; they were a group, which meant they played together, went to school together, did everything together, but they'd been functional, not friendly. And Eiki—What did he really remember about Eiki? The images sluiced through his mind. Eiki could always talk himself out of trouble.
He started, trying to shake his head to clear his vision swimming in fire.]
[Hm. Eiki showed no particular reaction to Haruna's confusion, not looking at him as he shook his head. Briefly, he relaxed the touch of his mind...
And then tightened it, sharp, cutting, slamming his control down with the consideration of someone slamming another's fingers in a door. When he speaks his voice is a bit louder, more confident.]
It's alright if you don't remember. It's been a rough few years for you, living out here.
[And he supplied those images, those feelings, fear, uncertainty, loss. Loneliness. Such loneliness. A fog of feelings, all associated with being cut off from humanity, left to fend for himself.]
[his voice is frustrated, edged. He makes a sound in his throat that's all queerat, a guttural whine as everything becomes muddled, then flooded, a pinprick leak in a dam being ripped opened.
Nonononononono none of this was right, if he had felt like this for one second seeing Eiki, that was all. He hated humans, never wanted to see one again, he didn't even want to be one. They were a plague, a swathe of black buzzing flies over the globs of flesh that used to be the bodies of his people. His chest ached so badly he pitched forward, crying out and fisting a hand mindlessly in the dirt.
His people—
That he hadn't seen in ten years he'd been along all that time. All of that time. Shaking, his stared at the disturbed ground, gulping down sobs]
[Eiki half blocks out the sounds Haruna makes, frowning only slightly at the resistence. This wasn't going to work. Not well. The story would be too complex. Too contradictory of what he knew.
Then it would better to just wipe it out completely. Start over.
Eiki closes his eyes, relaxing, no paying any attention to Haruna at all, now. Just focusing on creating a blank canvas of his mind. Of Haruna's mind.
It was easiest to start with the brightest, loudest parts. The emotions he was feeling now, the anger, the pain, the fear. Eiki just imagines blotting them out. Making them mirror his own calmness.]
You can't even remember how long you've been alone.
[It comes easier after the physicality of the emotions have had their way with him, after he's cried himself out. Eiki's words sink into him with a heavy sense of lassitude, a dull emptiness.
His tongue feels fumblingly amateur, but it makes sense, doesn't it? There had been no-one to talk to for so long.]
[Eiki lets out a rough exhale. He'd never done this kind of memory manipulation before. It was left deft but more effort. He keeps going. Smaller things. Pushing them away, snuffing them out, locking them up. Leaving a clear, clean space, nothing to latch onto.
It wouldn't last forever, he was sure. Perhaps someone was powerful enough to truly erase all of a person's memories. Eiki could just put them out of sight and lock them away.
In short, it wasn't a permanent solution -- yes Uzuki, he knows -- but it would buy them time to decide what to do next.
Though-- Would he really take him home? Eiki felt Uzuki scoff a bit -- alright so he hadn't planned perfectly. But he'd been more help than she had -- no, stop fighting, he isn't done in Haruna's mind yet.
Eiki reaches up and rubs the bridge of his nose, feeling a headache coming on, from his sister's interference as much as the effort of clearing out all of the vestiages of memory in Haruna's mind.]
[Would he have to go back to his home? He could find his way back, surly—but his mind skittered away from it before he could begin to plan the route, deftly brushed aside by Eiki's tinkering.
Why would he want to go back there anyway? He never wanted to go back. There was nothing but that raw, gaping feeling of lonliness. His mind shrank away from that, too, and his heart thumped with anxiety.]
[Four humans were dead, the retaliation would be untold. There was no way to hide that. He had no where near the power to make his village forget about his fallen teammates, even if he was willing to do that. He couldn't show up with a strange man who had no memories at the same time his teammates had all died without a thorough explanation. If anything was felt to be too suspicious, the tactics he'd just used would be turned on him by someone which much more skill at it.
No.
It seemed that Miyagi Eiki had also died today.
Uzuki didn't find that as amusing as he did.
Their options were to look into this Haruna person, and their past, and what he accused humans of, or to leave him here, without his mind, and return to their village and get the help needed to flatten every Queerat colony in the area that might have even imagined hiding a fiend.
The latter option really appealed to both of them more but... They couldn't deny there had always been something unsettling about the way their village operated. The way everyone had just forgotten Uzuki. The indescribable but absolutely petrifying fear that had made them so careful in their youth to hide Uzuki's presence.
They were... interested, in finding answers.
They could always return to help his village take revenge later.
For now they had to go elsewhere, and be other people.
After a long silence Eiki responds.]
No. I don't have a home anymore either. But we should be able to find some place.
[Didn't have a home—what had happened to it? Had he been driven into the woods like Haruna after—
Why had Haruna—
Don't think about it. He didn't want to brush up against the behemoth crush of those emotions again. It seemed that at least he would be traveling with Eiki, and that would suffice for not being alone.]
[There was still something there... Something subtle but powerful, Eiki extinguishes Haruna's name.
In many ways this was made easier but how little Eiki truly knew of the fiend. For more delicate work, knowledge was needed, but crushing out memories like this was better done when you had no idea of what they were. It was easy to imagine the other man's life as a blank slate.
Uzuki wasn't happy, but when asked that else she wanted to do with a murderer she had no answer, so Eiki would continue to handle this.]
We should.
[He gets to his feet, cutting a door into the dome they've made. He still has a loose hold on the fiend's mind and will continue to blot out things as they arise, the time it takes for them to head to a new village would be good for enforcing the amnesia.]
[his mind started to catalog together what he know about the woods in that direction, the food, the animals... He could recall it all, but not where his home was in relation to it. Had been—it didn't matter anymore. He pushes himself to his feet, dusting the dirt from his clothes]
[he nods, his mind skimming over geographic features without context. The didn't have any supplies, so—why didn't they have any—he could have at least taken something from his home...?
[eiki agrees, deliberately starting to focus more on his presentation, lightening, warming his voice. He's at ease and comfortable. Not anxious at all.]
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
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[Eiki says when the room they've created is dark, minus a few glimmering shreds of light filtering through the thick weave. He turns and sits down on the ground, a flame bursts to life in front of him, like a campfire, but floating just off the ground, feeding on nothing.]
Like any other aspect of cantus, you need to understand what you're working with to accurately manipulate it. It's the same with memories. If you want to help me recover my memories of you then you're going to need to allow me access to yours.
[That was... not entirely true. But Eiki has no interest in being honest and he doubted this fiend knew the first thing about memory manipulation. He was surprised he could use his cantus halfway decently at all.]
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[after he had sat down as well, about a quarter turn around the fire from him. Though his tone was simply questioning, his expression was more obviously dubious]
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Watch the fire. Tell me what you remember from back then.
[As he speaks, Eiki's voice becomes... warmer. Not losing it's calm evenness but dulling the previously sharpened edges of words. He has a very pleasant voice when he wants to. The shift is gradual. It sounds like he's relaxing as well.]
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And it was—nice. Listening to Eiki's voice like this. Most of the queerats could not manage human language very well, more suited to the sharp, jerky noises of their own tongue; even Soremaru had the faint, growling undertone. He had not known he missed the sound of a human voice until now, and the warmth of it seeped into him]
There weren't many of us left. Uzuki had just graduated, so there was you, me, Takamichi, and two others.
[he stopped, watching the memories play out in his mind. he could recite the facts all day, but it didn't feel like it would be enough]
I'm... not very good at stories.
no subject
[Eiki supplied, his voice faintly encouraging. He could remember those details fine. And there was this faintest flicker, this sense that there were more, there had to have been more. He hadn't been among the last three, had he? His cantus had awakened not long after his sister's...
But his mind wasn't really focused on that, he would recover those memories later, for now he wanted Haruna to lower his guard. This wasn't the only way to hypnotize someone, but it was perhaps the best. A more blunt approach, particularly on an adult, particularly on such a strange adult, came with more risks, more difficulties.
He continued to make the flame sway evenly, it required almost no focus on his part.]
I remember going to the orchards. It seemed unbelievable, how much fruit could come from one tree. Were you there..?
no subject
The keeper pulled all the fruit off of one tree in a second flat—every last piece, enough to fill three barrels. We weren't allowed to climb the trees but Uzuki and Yamato argued about who could climb higher the entire time.
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It takes him another moment of staring at the flame to regain his train of thought. Putting aside details he couldn't dwell on for now.]
We at there that day, any fruit you could want. I think we all got sick on it.
[Just keep Haruna calm, distracted. And Eiki began to nudge gently at his mind, not aiming for memories but will. Most people didn't understand that manipulating the mind was no different than manipulating anything else. And Eiki could easily envision people letting go around him, trusting his face, his voice. He wasn't a violent or intimidating person. He had been bullied in school. Overlooked in classes. He was quiet and nonthreatening. There was no reason not to trust him, to not answer his questions, to not listen to his suggestions.]
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[He had been eating an orange at the time. His mouth watered suddenly and prolifically until he had to swallow at the memory. In the last ten years he hadn't even thought of oranges but now, all at once, he craved one so badly he nearly would have broken his self-imposed ban on crossing the holy barrier just to taste one again.
It was distracting as Eiki could wish for.]
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[He didn't remember that, or he wasn't sure if he did, but it didn't matter. Haruna could think that he did. Could trust that his old friend meant no harm. Not two children who ate oranges together.
Haruna might, if he wasn't TOO distracted, feel a faint shift in his mind, as Eiki supplemented Haruna's desires, decisions with his own. But most found it almost calming. It just meant they could rely on a dependable person like Eiki to take things from here.]
You said your name was Haruna?
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Yes... Suzuhiro Haruna. Eiki?
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[It sounds only just a question, the tiniest bit of uncertainty. It's just an act, Eiki is now far too focused on taking over Haruna's mind to think of that at all. Suffocating it but just enough to make it relax. But it seems for all the world as if he's mindlessly staring into the fire, which continues to sway, matching the even pace of his breath.]
We were, weren't we? Focus on that.
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No.
Neither twin had been friendly and neither had Haruna; they were a group, which meant they played together, went to school together, did everything together, but they'd been functional, not friendly. And Eiki—What did he really remember about Eiki? The images sluiced through his mind. Eiki could always talk himself out of trouble.
He started, trying to shake his head to clear his vision swimming in fire.]
no subject
[Hm. Eiki showed no particular reaction to Haruna's confusion, not looking at him as he shook his head. Briefly, he relaxed the touch of his mind...
And then tightened it, sharp, cutting, slamming his control down with the consideration of someone slamming another's fingers in a door. When he speaks his voice is a bit louder, more confident.]
It's alright if you don't remember. It's been a rough few years for you, living out here.
[And he supplied those images, those feelings, fear, uncertainty, loss. Loneliness. Such loneliness. A fog of feelings, all associated with being cut off from humanity, left to fend for himself.]
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[his voice is frustrated, edged. He makes a sound in his throat that's all queerat, a guttural whine as everything becomes muddled, then flooded, a pinprick leak in a dam being ripped opened.
Nonononononono none of this was right, if he had felt like this for one second seeing Eiki, that was all. He hated humans, never wanted to see one again, he didn't even want to be one. They were a plague, a swathe of black buzzing flies over the globs of flesh that used to be the bodies of his people. His chest ached so badly he pitched forward, crying out and fisting a hand mindlessly in the dirt.
His people—
That he hadn't seen in ten years he'd been along all that time. All of that time. Shaking, his stared at the disturbed ground, gulping down sobs]
no subject
Then it would better to just wipe it out completely. Start over.
Eiki closes his eyes, relaxing, no paying any attention to Haruna at all, now. Just focusing on creating a blank canvas of his mind. Of Haruna's mind.
It was easiest to start with the brightest, loudest parts. The emotions he was feeling now, the anger, the pain, the fear. Eiki just imagines blotting them out. Making them mirror his own calmness.]
You can't even remember how long you've been alone.
[He speaks almost as an afterthought.]
No wonder you don't remember me.
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His tongue feels fumblingly amateur, but it makes sense, doesn't it? There had been no-one to talk to for so long.]
I... I'm sorry. —Can you take me home?
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[Eiki lets out a rough exhale. He'd never done this kind of memory manipulation before. It was left deft but more effort. He keeps going. Smaller things. Pushing them away, snuffing them out, locking them up. Leaving a clear, clean space, nothing to latch onto.
It wouldn't last forever, he was sure. Perhaps someone was powerful enough to truly erase all of a person's memories. Eiki could just put them out of sight and lock them away.
In short, it wasn't a permanent solution -- yes Uzuki, he knows -- but it would buy them time to decide what to do next.
Though-- Would he really take him home? Eiki felt Uzuki scoff a bit -- alright so he hadn't planned perfectly. But he'd been more help than she had -- no, stop fighting, he isn't done in Haruna's mind yet.
Eiki reaches up and rubs the bridge of his nose, feeling a headache coming on, from his sister's interference as much as the effort of clearing out all of the vestiages of memory in Haruna's mind.]
...No. No. I can't take you there.
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Why would he want to go back there anyway? He never wanted to go back. There was nothing but that raw, gaping feeling of lonliness. His mind shrank away from that, too, and his heart thumped with anxiety.]
You can't—?
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No.
It seemed that Miyagi Eiki had also died today.
Uzuki didn't find that as amusing as he did.
Their options were to look into this Haruna person, and their past, and what he accused humans of, or to leave him here, without his mind, and return to their village and get the help needed to flatten every Queerat colony in the area that might have even imagined hiding a fiend.
The latter option really appealed to both of them more but... They couldn't deny there had always been something unsettling about the way their village operated. The way everyone had just forgotten Uzuki. The indescribable but absolutely petrifying fear that had made them so careful in their youth to hide Uzuki's presence.
They were... interested, in finding answers.
They could always return to help his village take revenge later.
For now they had to go elsewhere, and be other people.
After a long silence Eiki responds.]
No. I don't have a home anymore either. But we should be able to find some place.
no subject
Why had Haruna—
Don't think about it. He didn't want to brush up against the behemoth crush of those emotions again. It seemed that at least he would be traveling with Eiki, and that would suffice for not being alone.]
Should we move? It'll be dark soon.
no subject
In many ways this was made easier but how little Eiki truly knew of the fiend. For more delicate work, knowledge was needed, but crushing out memories like this was better done when you had no idea of what they were. It was easy to imagine the other man's life as a blank slate.
Uzuki wasn't happy, but when asked that else she wanted to do with a murderer she had no answer, so Eiki would continue to handle this.]
We should.
[He gets to his feet, cutting a door into the dome they've made. He still has a loose hold on the fiend's mind and will continue to blot out things as they arise, the time it takes for them to head to a new village would be good for enforcing the amnesia.]
Let's get as far as we can. We'll head south.
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Don't forget the fire.
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I know a village, but it will take us several days to reach it.
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No. ]
There's a tributary we can follow for water.
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[eiki agrees, deliberately starting to focus more on his presentation, lightening, warming his voice. He's at ease and comfortable. Not anxious at all.]