(OPEN) Because I danced...

[megatechbody]

WHO: Mariko and YOU
WHERE: Her various dreamscapes
WHEN: Backdated to August 21 because I'm bad at this.
WHAT: Mariko has to work through some STUFF, y'all
WARNINGS: Either mentioned or will possibly come up: parent death, car accidents and grisly/bloody joint injury.

[HOO BOY this is late, but I hope you enjoy. Mariko is going to half-fail in her recovery, so if you want to chat about that or if you have any questions either inbox me here or wingedbeastie .]

The room you wake up in is dark, save for the eerily glowing path leading through the room. If you strain your eyes, you can see desks and chairs, the far wall covered in monitors - lit with with matrix green writing as code flickers through the screens. Underfoot, a mass of bubbles races by as if drawn to another destination by gravity.

Before you the closest monitor on the closest desk flickers with a textbox.

Loading...

10 percent loaded - The night bird calls out in sadness [CW: Eventual mention, description and effects of a car accident, parent death]

It’s summer, humid and uncomfortable.

Fortunately, the japanese countryside is beautiful and despite the heat, it’s easy to get lost in the view of the hillside. Sunset is kind to the hills and fields, washing everything in a haze of fiery red-orange light and leaves a golden cast on the nearby river.

As the incline evens out, there is something of a pronounced riverbank and there a girl walks - her brown hair is up in a ponytail, hair short enough that it poofs an inch or two past the elastic. She’s still young, the beginnings of a growth spurt showing in not quite gawky limbs. She’s dressed simply - a tank top riddled with music notes, shorts and carries sneakers as she walks barefoot. Everything about her manner says the heat has has gotten to her - the way the heels of the sneakers dangle on her first two fingers, the lazy way turns stones over with her feet as she assesses them.

When she finds a suitable stone, she reaches down and grabs it. There’s no excited or joyful noise, her eyes move straight to the water and she uses her fingers to assess the rock further. Sometimes, she drops the rock with a bitter sounding huff and goes back to her lackadaisical search. Most of the time, she turns the stone in her hand to make sure the curve settles just right in her grip just like Ma-

Just like she was taught. She throws hard, far too hard for it to be a game and when it’s right - she watches the stone skip clear to the other side of the river. When the rock doesn’t make it past a skip or two, or even worse when it lands in the water with an abortive ‘plunk’, the scowl returns even darker; that’s the face you recognize.

Mariko, age twelve.

60 percent loaded - The Moon fails to shine down on either day or night. [CW: Description of gore]

It’s a wedding. An actual wedding.

Mariko walks down the aisle, gentle looking and not a hair out of place in the white kimono and headress. Each side of the aisle is full, each seat occupied with family, friends and strangers. It’s where you find yourself as she continues the procession, expression carefully neutral. In the front rows, Derek and Togusa’’s distinctive hair can be seen, but the men next to Togusa - the six of them seem out of focus, some more than others. There are two women similarly unclear, but suddenly focus is drawn to the officiant and the man before him.

The man is non-descript, Japanese by appearance and the traditional black kimono, so blank it feels easy to put another face to his body. Still he seems pleased to be here. Not happy - just pleased. Then Mariko takes a slow shuddering breath that feels like it echoes in the skull of anyone who can hear it. The guests don’t seem phased and there is a compulsion to look back at Mariko.

She’s in a splendid white gown, veil ending tastefully at where her bob would usually sit. At the altar stands Matthew Murdock, red and white cane in hand, red-tinted sunglasses ever present. He smiles, turning the cane restlessly in hands as he waits for her, faithfully. Mariko chuckles, uneasy but entertained and it feels like it should draw attention to her.

She’s in a simple pale purple dress, hair just like always and she’s pressing her lips together because this is kind of ridiculous. Next to the officiant stands Tatsuo, hair a mess as always. The suit he has isn’t the fanciest, but he seems breathless like he was just dragged in on a whirlwind.

A gunshot deafens everyone present, and the guests scatter. The eight who exist here in dubious clarity turn in perfect unison to see Mariko in jeans, a plain shirt and her leather jacket over it, trained on a man who falls out of the sky just far enough away to be unreachable - his ankle a ruined, shattered mess and what could only be his foot leading your eye to where he would likely land.

But Mariko screams and drops the gun and as it clatters away - her three grooms stand shoulder to shoulder, nothing but damnation in their eyes - shining in the holes of oni masks.

The first groom speaks, blue mask rendering his voice neutral, almost computer-like .“You only love my grief. You don’t care about being happy with me.”

“Hideo, that’s not - I…” her voice is weak, tears silencing protest.

The second groom speaks, his mask a red-tinged black - voice frustrated and hoarse from yelling. “I was terrified for us and you just wanted me to enable you!”

“You never fucking listen to me, Matt!” her tears burn slowly down flushed cheeks.

The third groom speaks, in a placid, unremarkable tone through a white mask that looks like it was waved through smoke. “I’m just comfortable, I guess. Easy to keep. Easy to let go.”

“Tatsuo” her sob is short and shocked before she takes an impossibly long breath in and draws herself up to full height.

Mariko, age twentysomething, stands at the beginning of the aisle, her three Oni grooms at the other end and watching.

91 perc -- Data corruption. Please let the dawn be waiting in the Underworld

A mass of wires sits on what can only be described as a tech throne, the cables wind so smoothly into what looks like an intentional weaving. In front of it, as if to block interference, stands Mariko in three incarnations. The child met earlier is on the left, her eyes full of suspicion and heartbreak. One the right is the near-bride, frustrated and exhausted. In the middle stands Mariko as you know here - or not quite. Dressed in riot gear so dark it seems to suck in light, something in the ceiling seems to cast a shadow on her. The shadow obscures her, making her hair and eyes darker in the absence of proper light. She’s the first one to address you, interloper, in a voice that sounds more accustomed to giving orders than conversation.

“For we know in part and we prophesy in part, but when completeness comes, what is in part disappears...”

Little Mariko speaks next, fearless and clear - the way only kids can manage. “When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child.”

Near-Wife Mariko speaks next, tired and wanting this to be over. “When I became a man, I put the ways of childhood behind me.”

They stand together, hands clasped and fingers twisted together impossibly but between the gaps of their bodies, the knotted wires on the throne can be seen.

Comments

[standalonehuman]

For a second, Togusa regrets his request. He feels like a voyeur in someone else's house. These are memories, not dreams, these are things that really happened, not things that could happen, or memories crammed together to make a new picture.

The second flash, and the scene changes, almost back to where they were. Togusa sees them. Mariko's parents embrace, a gentle and quiet moment that emits pure happiness. It frames the earlier pain, and now Togusa can feel an extra stab into his heart from what he saw. This is what was lost.

"Do you think it wasn't worth it, then? Is the hurt not worth the joy that you had in your life?"

Togusa turns back, like he's trying to find his way back to the church. "Is it not worth taking that chance on a new piece of joy?"

His hand goes to his hip, his weight shifts outwards a little. "You and Tatsuo. Okay, I can see it. He's nice, and he's got more of a sense of excitement than you'd think."

"You and Matt?" Togusa shakes his head gently. "I still don't understand how you two were so disastrous together. But in a way that worked? Wouldn't expect that Matt had such an adventurous side to him."

"I still..don't know what happened, back in Japan." He shakes his head. "And I don't need to, not if it still hurts. Whoever that is, if you regret that possibility.." He shakes his head more. "I don't think you should regret that path closing."

[megatechbody]

Mariko makes a face, eyes snapping to the far edge of the water as Togusa conjectures about her exes. She rubs at one of her eyes, tired - really, really hoping he can't see the heat that spreads across her cheeks. She's never been 'snow fair' but every once in a while even she can't disguise the way her body is determined to snitch on how she really feels. After all, she knows that it's impossible, but just stop asking questions, Togusa.

"There's no clean way to explain any of this." Even mortified, she chuckles a little.

The emergency lights flicker on the water and stop, the worlds fades to black before he hears something. A beep. A heartbeat. A drum, faster and faster until a final heavy beat and spotlights. Mariko, stage left, in her traditional bride's kimono and stage left, the plain man's in his similarly traditional kimono, wearing a blue Oni mask.

She's embarrassed because it hurt her more to disappoint her father than it did to leave me.

His voice is damn near conversational, but Mariko bristles and frowns anyway.

"Well it was either cold feet or a divorce in record time. Excuse me for choosing to have a little dignity."

Blue Mask laughs, the genuine amusement a startling contrast to his earlier speaking tone. In an instant, she appears in the tactical armor visibly bracing for whatever comes after the laugh.

Dignity? Is that what you call it? He almost sounds like he's mocking her kind of incredulity, the tilt of the mask giving away the clear down-up appraisal of his gaze. Then what about the way you would come to me in the middle of the night, crying about loneliness and how I was the only one who'd get it? And then you let me 'comfort' you.

The word is weighted nastily, the sentence oozes with Mariko's brand of venom and now she really is blushing, eyes flashing furiously as she looks at the spot between his feet.

"We were young and hurting and clinging to the first thing that made sense to us. Don't get mad at me because I woke up first."

And now your abandonment is enlightenment. Is that how you stomached all those years of tying lust and grief together while you let me fu--

The crack of the gunshot does nothing to obscure the teeth of the accusation and it does nothing to ease the way the way the world seems to flicker like candlelight. Shadows move like cut puppet strings behind Mariko as she drops the pistol, hand flying to her mouth to stifle reflexive revulsion.

Hideo's blue mask begins to bleed away and in the crack formed, he watches her sadly. His voice is conversational once more, tinged with sadness.

Is it really so bad to be who you are, Mari?

[standalonehuman]

It's a good thing that Mariko at last fires, because Togusa could feel the anger shooting up his own trigger finger at the man's words. It's not the real man, this is just Mariko's conceptualization of him, so he has no idea how accurate it is. But spirits if it doesn't make him want to punch the man in the face.

"You never had to be responsible for your father's happiness. Especially if it meant minimizing who you are, Mariko." Because that's what links the moments together, isn't it? Trying to be the good daughter, repressing her anger and rage. Trying to be the good wife, repressing grief and loneliness. "You should never have had to just play a role."

Togusa's head raises, watching the blue Oni mask bleed out, the construct of this man Togusa has never met. "You found something to empathize with in him." Togusa waves with a hand, like he's pointing back towards the riverbank. "Something none of the rest of us would get. Hold that memory in your heart. Know that you aren't alone in it. But move on from it. Remember that it's in the past, and don't regret growing from it."

Togusa thinks again to Tatsuo and Matt. There is a connecting thread there, too. "More people might understand than you'd think, though." There is grief and comfort in both of their hearts, Togusa can see it.

[megatechbody]

“Not responsible, no.” She seems to flicker, between the provocative way she used to dress in college and the more understated, ‘ladylike’ version she must have worn to survive summer heat in Japan.”But I was all that was left.”

Mariko is in the wedding kimono again, stepping shyly toward the figment of Hideo - eyes sad and shining with unshed tears. They could have been good and she knows it.

I used to dream about this, you know?

They speak in perfect unison, moving cautiously to meet. Mariko moves with a consideration that is ...unlike her, reminiscent of a dancer or a tightrope walker. Yeah, like a tightrope walker.

“Marriage, is a step forward. It’s all the kind of things I hate thinking about and I know that I maybe could have. But it would have required me to stop being selfish.”

You say that like I don’t know that about you.

Mariko shakes her head and the kimono dissolves off of her in motes of pixelated light, leaving her in her jeans and t-shirt and leather jacket. The figment of Hideo considers her, smiling a little mischievously and she smiles back to match. It’s the look of conspirators, of people who can make whole sentences into single glances.

You should really talk to him, you know.

“He doesn’t listen.”

It’s then the conversations start to play, a cacophony of arguments that flicker between English and Japanese. Accusations of ignorance and selfishness fly. A shadow of Mariko, one from nearly a decade ago stalks about, phone to ear as she speaks. She knows that Togusa has seen her mid-conversation before, but as the conversation goes on she’s sure he’s seen the aftermath of this one.

‘Explain to me why you couldn’t find yourself with him‘
‘I don’t owe you an explanation for anything. It wasn’t an easy choice, but it was right for us.’

‘You could have had EVERYTHING, Mariko. Hideo would have taken care of you and your kids—‘
‘You know how I feel about kids.’

‘And you know your responsibility to this family. You’re running around following childish whims. Grow up.‘
‘Well, it’s not like I got to do it when I actually was a kid’

‘Excuse me? You think it was easy dealing with you and that pissy attitude you never grew out of‘
‘Considering it was like looking into a mirror, no - I imagine it wasn’t easy at all.’

‘That’s what you have to say? Because life isn’t perfect you get to ignore your responsibilities.‘

Mariko, the one before him, the one who looks at Hideo with such sad eyes looks to the ground and mouths along, like they’re words to her favorite song. The Figment of Hideo mouths them too, expression darkening with frustration.

‘God, you’re selfish just like your mother.‘

The shadow Mariko pulls the phone away from her ear, staring at it before winging it out of view. She disappates in a plume of wafting smoke, crying as the phone audibly shatters. Mariko wipes at her eyes, sighing roughly because, for a second - she forgot how bad that one hurt. It’s true and untrue and the figment of Hideo looks at her sadly.

Please don’t say it. You know it’s not true.

“Says the man I nearly left at the altar. He is. It doesn’t make me the devil. It just complicates things.”

[standalonehuman]

There is something unquiet continuing to bubble up inside Togusa as he watches and listens. There was understanding in this man, he touched, or Mariko thought that he touched some part of her that maybe no one else has been able to reach. It was something that couldn't last, Togusa will take Mariko's word on that, but it was something.

But her father. It's the urge in Togusa that drives him towards giving his all to be a good father that makes him grate against everything when he sees a poor excuse for a father.

Togusa's head lowers, and he holds both hands out, in a 'hold everything, wait' gesture. "Would you stop beating yourself up over not being able to be what people think they see in you? Or what they want to see in you? That image that they're just throwing up there that you can't ever possibly live up to?"

One of those hands raises, points a single finger straight up. "And I recognize the hypocrisy of me saying these words. I don't care. If you get to call me out on it, I get to turn this around on you." Because I'm your friend.

"Forget what Matt wants out of you, or Tatsuo, or your father, or even what I want out of you. You've got to forget all that. Or you're going to lose yourself to what Retrospec wants out of you." The riot gear shows up again, and for once, it looks like it fits Togusa like a glove.

"You want me to accept it, but every time this shows up, you get this look on your face like you're repulsed. Like you can't imagine yourself in this person's shoes." One hand taps his chest plate.

"But instead you're all caught up in the idea that you have to sacrifice some part of yourself to get the life that you want." The grooms, the family, children?

"You don't want this life," a gesture to the grooms again, "you don't want Retrospec's life. What life is it that you really want?"

[megatechbody]

"If I had that answer, do you think I'd be here right now?!"

Mariko bristles and for once, it's not her infamous prickliness or her well-documented dislike of emotional conversations. Her hand flies to the back of her neck, to where they both know her Other's port sits and the dream stutters. Matt in the Red Mask and Tatsuo in the White Mask look like statues, standing in the courtyard of the resort they now both recognize.

"I don't make good choices unattended, Hitori."

The eyes of the Matt statue flicker with eerie red light and from the mouth of the mask comes the garbled audio of a scene. There's barely enough to discern - the bang of a door forced open then static that fills in for voices, two men and a woman. Unintelligible words become a scream. Widows scream like that - the ones made by bullets and bad timing, do - and the sound's so full of the grief and rage that it tears the throat. It's hard to accept that kind of sound in Mari's voice.

Mariko pales at the sound and she jumps to cover her ears, shaking as she screws her eyes shut. She can't take the look that's coming, the one where everything shatters because he'll know after this. She rolls her shoulder, trying to keep the tension from locking the joint.

Black smoke flows from the Red Oni's mouth, leaving nothing but glowing eyes as staticky voices screech in garbled panic. A 'click' of an empty chamber echoes like a gunshot and Mariko's voice counts in a tone almost robotic 'One'. and the static is still obscuring proper words. There's yelling and sobbing (Click.Two), the dull thud of a body hitting a hard surface (Click.Three) as the static eases enough to make out a crying man so far beyond terrified and (Click.Four) Mariko's voice too cold and casual for anything besides murder.

Red Oni's eyes burn brighter through the darkness of the black smoke, enough to wash Mariko in hellish red light. There's another scuffle, another thud (Click.Five) and the man shrieks like prey, like he can feel death washing over him and Click. Six. The audio clears and there is nothing but sobbing and Matthew Murdock's voice almost too far away to hear, screaming 'Mari! Mariko!'.

Looks like death doesn't want you. A cell it is, Lucky.

Mariko flinches and slaps a hand over her mouth, swallowing whatever sound she was going to make with the narrowly suppressed gag. Her shoulder locks and she makes a sound, not unlike the one she made as a child, as she curls in on herself. It hurts...it hurts...

"I know what I'd be without all of you." she croaks, voice thick with Bad Things.

[standalonehuman]

It's almost a physical chill that goes through Togusa's whole body, a cold that shoots down into his stomach. He knew there was something, something bad that turned the budding relationship between Mariko and Matt into the raging fire that it is today. He'd been willing to chalk it up to committment issues, Matt always seemed like the stable, family-wanting type. While Mariko, until this very moment, never had. What if she did want it too?

But no. That was never the issue between them.

There's a doubt in his mind, how crystal-clear is the memory, how much of this is impacted by the emotion and the dreamscape and Mariko's own guilt? All of this is shot through the lens of Mariko's mind trying to hurt her as much as it can.

Togusa shudders and has no choice but to turn away before it's even over. He has to go to Mariko's side, the real Mariko. He still will not touch her, that's not the kind of comforting she needs. But his voice is low, even as it shakes.

"You think I don't know. I'm in a position of privilege to not kill. I get to choose. Not everybody does. You don't." A hard swallow. "Who would have died if you hadn't? Who would have gotten hurt? That's what it would take to get you to that point?"

A scoff, almost a laugh. "Maybe it doesn't matter. But you have us. You have me. Apparently you always will."

[megatechbody]

Of all the shitty things Mariko has done, she knows that this is the one that changed her. It's easy to write off connections, swear that breaking hearts just comes from miscommunication. She's capricious and full of unchecked indulgence. Drink, Sex, Anger...but this...this makes a different beast of her entirely.

"I'm supposed to be one of the good guys, Hitori." It's so ...unlike her, how heartbroken she sounds as she shakes her head. "But that didn't matter. I wanted someone to die because he looked at at someone who was mine the wrong way."

Crying comes easier now, now that she's not keeping this away from everyone. Still somehow, it manages to be dignified aside from the shining tracks of tears over her cheeks. She scrubs at her eyes with a quiet, watery sigh.

"We all walked away that day, it was a fucking miracle and I know it - but it doesn't change the fact that I was ready to kill and didn't give a shit about any of the consequences. But never forgot how cold that felt and neither did Matt."

Her brows furrow and almost by sheer association, her hand moves like there's a gun in it.

"She feels like that. That's why I know we're the same, deep down. That night I rolled my ankle, I saw it - he jumped through the sky and I shot him."

Mariko looks up to something in the air - the man who she shot at earlier and interrupted the wedding. He hangs in the air, moving in slow motion. She raises her gun to fire, training on him like he isn't meters and meters above them and with a single shot Mariko ruins the ankle on the leg he has extended to land on.

"I shot him like it was nothing," She nearly wails, dropping the gun which skitters across the ground to the statue of Matt's feet. "It was just squeezing a trigger, just a handgun and no scope and his ankle shattered."

She rakes her hands through her hair, down the back of her neck and it's so easy to see her fingers press and search along the skin.

"I don't know how I made the shot, Hitori. People can't make shots like that."

[standalonehuman]

No. Finally, she needs something closer, and the way Mariko is nearly clawing at herself is too much for him. He steps in, one hand covers hers over the back of her neck, and he presses down, flattening his hand, her hand, over the blank expanse of skin on the back of her neck.

"There's nothing there. And on the day that there is something, you're still going to be you."

Togusa's hand grips at hers more insistently. "I wish I could give you the same assurance you gave me. I'm afraid of what I'm going to become before this is over. Physically, that's one fear. But you think, what? You're just going to become who you are on your worst days?"

"Mariko, you are one of the good guys. The kind of good that knows that sometimes, to keep the good, the bad needs a bullet between the eyes. I'm insulated from that. It's why you couldn't do my job, and I couldn't do yours."

He finally lets go of her hand, lets his own grip slide off, and takes a half-step back again. "But if you are still afraid of this, then remember it. And do better. And even when you get her memories, keep this one. Remind yourself why it's not worth it."

"We're so worried about Them dragging us down, the Others. Why can't we lift them up?"

[megatechbody]

The reaction she usually has when people touch her plays distantly in her mind. A lifetime away, Mariko feels herself push away, bristling and swearing because being that kind of close with anyone not her mother or father is too much.

Togusa speaks and she feels herself stabilize, feels the way her thoughts tear away from their usual train to listen. He’s got her dead to rights, the way only he can really get away with anymore and when he speaks the things she’s been trying to not even think about it draws a laugh; a quick sharp ‘ha’ that only happens when she thinks something is funny when she knows she should be crying. Out of everyone she’s known, only Togusa knows how she’s made a lover out of grief and she thinks that they’re going to make someone jealous one day because there’s no clean way to say ‘Oh, he’s just literally my soulmate.’

It’s two lifetimes, their shared two lifetimes, that allows him enough room in her pride to stay where he is. He continues and for a moment, she thinks that maybe he’s going to push for the connection and lace their fingers.She feels herself balk at the idea but no, Togusa only pushes a little, holds her hand a little harder maybe. He keeps speaking like holding her hand let’s the words get through to her heart and it humbles her that Hitori Togusa knows how to navigate her emotions better than she does.

“I trust your Other more than I trust her.” It’s not a great answer, but it’s probably the most honest that Mariko has been about this as Togusa gives her enough room to staple her dignity together. “And good guy or not, she’s dangerous. More dangerous than a good guy should be.”

She straightens out and the dream is both kind and disorienting. Mariko looks the the same as always, no red eyes or flushed cheeks from crying and she looks at the statue of Matt in the Red Oni Mask.

“The Major is still a mystery to me,” In an instant the floor of the courtyard is littered with copies of the geisha who’s head she ruined and what looks like a two legged mech with a chest caved in by impact marks. “And someone as dangerous as she is, shouldn’t be.”

[standalonehuman]

Togusa knows that there is a space in Mariko's heart for him, and there is a space in Mariko's heart not for him. And he has spent the last decade cautiously feeling out the shape of that space so that he doesn't put a toe over the line and shatter the whole thing. Mutually, they have a place in each other's lives that no one else before or since has managed. So he thinks he knows when to push and when to stop.

The geisha, they are familiar, but Togusa finds himself balking at the sight of the mech. That had to be huge, standing up. Did Mariko's Other... no, he knows her name. Did the Major do that? There's some significance there, to Mariko. But to him? Nothing. Not even the pull of a Retrospec memory.

He can't even quite tear his eyes away from it before he starts speaking. "The world they come from seems to need someone that dangerous. Like it needs the Tachikoma, and the-" a shake of his head, "the big guy with the eyes."

Togusa doesn't notice that he has summoned back their wedding guest with his words, standing silently on the very edge of the scene. The bear of a man with eyes replaced by steel, and an expression that is hard to read because of those eyes. Brow furrowed, arms folded, jaw clenched but mouth slightly open. Jealousy, perhaps?

"But how do you fit someone that dangerous into a world like this? That doesn't necessarily need her?" Togusa's lips press together hard, before he sighs. "The bullshit I've been feeding everyone else on this line isn't going far with you, and I know it. You get the honest answer: when anyone figures it out, let me know."

Togusa can pretend to be more enlightened on this point when it comes to the teenagers, the civilians. Mariko knows better.

[megatechbody]

Mariko can't help but cast a quick glance at the big guy, a thought on her lips but suddenly it evaporates with him. Whatever. If she can't remember it, it's nothing. It has to be, for now.

Togusa poses a very good question and Mariko considers as the landscape has somehow transformed. It's still the courtyard of the property from the Geisha raid dream. However, the yard is clear of extraneous bodies and clear of a Matthew Murdock sized statue (or mostly clear, as it's billowing away in a cloud of dark red smoke.

Instead it's just Tatsuo, sitting on the stairs, holding the white Oni mask in his hand as he watches Mariko and Togusa.

"The game is to figure out what she's good at," Mariko begins, drifting towards Tatsuo with careful steps. "put her to use. But that genie doesn't go back in the bottle when I let her out."

[standalonehuman]

A deep sigh, and Togusa nods. "For all of us. Once we let them be- them. We don't know how much us will be left."

Togusa's head raises to look at Mariko seriously. "But I know I'm your best shot at helping you work it out. Work her out. So anything I know, it's yours." It feels like the least he can do.

His head tracks to the lone figure left. Tatsuo. The big surprise standing there, and still standing here, feeling almost out of place in all of this. No, out of place to Togusa. This is Mariko's mind, so it makes sense to her. Something happened between the two of them.

"..What about him?" He has to try to broach the subject.

[megatechbody]

"Thanks."

She looks to dream-Tatsuo and smiles softly, looking relieved. He stands, playfully spinning the mask in his hand before putting it on.

Sometimes I wonder if you would have liked me better if I was more troublesome.

"You are troublesome." The jest comes easily after dealing with phantoms of the worst of what happened with Hideo and Matt. "But I just kept feeling like..."

Mariko trails off, grimacing slightly. She adored Tatsuo, but something never settled no matter how happy she was with him. Between the two of them she was the heavy, the reckless one; bad-tempered and easily tempted.

"I...don't think I would make a very good wife. Not for him."

White Oni cocks his head, a sigh the almost sounds like a hiss with the way it's amplified by the mask.

God, Mari. It's not like you let me close enough to try.

She doesn't flinch the way she has with the others. Matthew and Hideo could make accusations go deep like suck needles, but Tatsuo's accusation doesn't seem to register.

[standalonehuman]

Wife? It had gotten that serious between the two of them? Togusa looks at Tatsuo in a new light, trying to judge the connection between them. Tatsuo's words suggest maybe it didn't get that close. But she still sees him as, what? A missed chance?

"You're joking, right?" Togusa glances at Mari. "It makes a lot of sense. Even more sense than Matt. Tatsuo, he's always been attracted to danger. And he's better at handling it than Matt."

He looks at Tatsuo wistfully, the mask seeming ill-fitting on him. He can't be a danger like the others. "Your intensity wouldn't burn him. He'd get drawn in by the fire, but if anyone could navigate it safely, it'd be him."

Turns back to Mariko. "But you still hold something. Another regret?"

[megatechbody]

"No, I'm not."

Mariko looks to Togusa, irritation and embarrassment mixing in the expression. Without the hurt - or as much hurt - as the previous questions, she can't help but be acutely aware of how much you're learning about everything, Togusa.

As he conjectures about how well Tatsuo could handle her, he's smacked in the face with a puff of air. It's almost like a door was slammed in his face, hard enough to evoke the flinch response. As his eyes drift over Tatsuo, it becomes clear - it's not that the Oni Mask is ill fitting, it's that it fits properly. The Blue and Red Oni looked monstrous compared to Tatsuo's white mask, his eyes and lips easily identifiable once you get close enough.

Attention back to Mariko and she is dressed differently. Very differently.

The kimono almost doesn't register, it's simple and pale and pretty; white with a sparse pattern of darker flowers and a lavender obi. What registers is her mask. The face of a kitsune, that covers her own from forehead to her lips.

"I wonder what really he thinks of me, sometimes."

Her voice is ...wrong, it's too coquettish and full of put on playfulness. Even nearly drunk and too amorous to be left unattended at the bar, Mariko has never sounded like this. The mask makes the curious tilt of her head even more pronounced, and as she walks towards Tatsuo voices ring distantly. It almost hurts to try and hear them and focus on the scene before him.

[A ga maeba, kuwashime yoinikeri]

"For years we've danced around each other. He deserved spring, someone warm and kind who would grow. And all I gave him was autumn, chilly comfort and sudden warmth."

They meet and it's almost a fight, but ultimately too graceful to be violent. The White Oni tries to capture the Kitsune, but she's too clever to be under his grasp for very long. He growls, frustrated and she laughs - until he stops trying to capture her and simply holds her where she is. Then for a few scant moments they stand, breathing and disheveled from the struggle.

"Every line. Every boundary." The Oni mask drops to the floor and Tatsuo presses his forehead to Mariko's mask. "I never once made it easy for him to follow, but oh...how he chased me..."

He reaches, slowly, to take the mask off of her and the Kitsune snatches his hands away - quick and uncaring of how such a movement might hurt him. The Kitsune tilts her head, making sure that Tatsuo can't get any of the affection he's so clearly seeking.

"Even a perfect woman isn't worth ten years of waiting. So he learned."

Tatsuo begins to fade the way that Hideo did, in a thick plume of pale gray smoke, staring at the Kitsune with an expression to hard to read as he fades. The smoke billows past her, obscuring her from vision until Tatsuo has nearly faded away entirely.

Mariko holds the kitsune mask to her heart, dressed in her usual jeans and t-shirt and leather jacket - cheeks wet with tears but silent in her distress.

"I don't think I ever opened up to him the way I should have. But we became friends, real friends. We moved on."

She draws a breath, the kind that Togusa knows proceeds violence.

"Then I dreamt that we were engaged," Her fingers trace over the pattern on the pretty, smooth, perfect kitsune mask. "Because I can't even picture what being married would be like - even when everything else was perfect. And I should have, Hitori. I should have."

Her fingers dig, the way they did at the back of her neck and with a vicious growl she spikes the mask. It shatters, but she never quite does - just glaring at the shards on the ground.

[standalonehuman]

What else can Togusa do but watch? He has to step back, to almost dissociate, and remind himself that he is viewing this from Mariko's perspective on himself. This is so far removed from how he sees her. But the way that Mariko sees both herself and Tatsuo, wrapped up in larger than life myths and figures, it starts to make a specific twisted kind of sense.

A trickster. Why would she paint herself in this light, except if she believes that she is lying to everyone? They are reaching that point again, that there is some piece of Mariko that Togusa is not allowed to understand. And yet, he's getting closer to seeing it. When Tatsuo fades, Togusa even raises a hand towards him, unthinking, before he lets it drop.

He doesn't move again until the shattering of the mask makes him leap nearly out of his skin. "Mariko." He approaches, but he knows better than to touch her right now.

"It's not fair. I know I keep saying that, but it's not. You've got so much love and caring to give. More than even you know." He holds his hands out to the sides. "But just because something looks like it would be perfect, life doesn't work out that way." A bare wisp of thought behind Togusa, a woman with very long hair, before the smoky shape disappears again.

"You should have. You should have been able to."

"It's not a lie. The happiness that you and Tatsuo could have had? I don't see a lie there. And even with Retrospec, even with the past, you can still find that happiness that works for you. I know. I know damn well it sounds like my usual wishful thinking. But I, at least, have to keep looking towards a future."

;D

[megatechbody]

For a moment, she swears she sees Gentiana before she disappears on the same current that took Tatsuo.

"You're so ...annoying."

Mariko is still looking at the shards, but her voice is too warm and the corners of her mouth visibly lift - just enough. She's lucky and grateful for him being so convinced, so full of faith. She's so glad that one of them is, even now.

"And it's not that I don't think- I mean..."

She huffs, brows lowering. Don't over-explain. He knows better.

"If I lose him - it doesn't matter if it's Retrospec or the field - that's it, Togusa. And it will be a miracle if I don't."

Her hand flies to her mouth because that's not what she's supposed to say. She's supposed to believe in Togusa, believe in his heart and his honesty - but all the truth in the world won't sooth this fear, the knowledge that...that.

There is a snap, a whine of static and Mariko shudders, she shivers because, that's just it - isn't it.

Knowledge, what they know to be true both here and what they know to be true in their memory. There's too much in common from this life to the next for Retrospec to be feeding them a lie. She knows it. She knows it. But how can they know, with such clumsy people at the board?

It's just a whisper. She hears it in her...

Open. Close. She starts and stops a sentence, a million times before she meets Togusa's gaze. Her pupils are so constricted he can tell even at his distance, the whites of her eyes visible around the honeyed brown of her irises.

Suddenly, everything disappears - the flat black of the lights being turned out, though that's not right either. There is nothing for his eyes to focus on in such perfect darkness and nothing to feel besides the ground under his feet.

Mariko's breath is tight, on the edge of panic. He can only hear, only half-witness the truth leave her in perfect, complete simplicity.

I'm scared. She blurts it out, in a shaky rush, like it might just save her life. I'm really fucking scared.