just jumping from one topic to another

[cutbelow]

[Half-mended doors and blown-out windows shudder in their frames as Hajime walks past, and patches of the sidewalk that weren't previously damaged in the last Arehtei incursion crunch into rough gravel under his feet. He's noticed, of course. Part of him even remembers hearing and reading about why. (Did he pick that leaflet up a few minutes ago? An hour? Three?) Those are the rules of this world, set in stone, just as alien and washing just as far over his talentless head as those of the one he left.

What he doesn't know is where the hell he's going. But if he stops moving, his train of thought will get going again instead. And if his train of thought gets going, it'll only circle back around to the same place - the same chill in the cavernous class courtroom, the same silence so different from the heat of the earlier trials. The same despair.

There's no way he can handle that. On his own, there's no way someone like him can handle that...]

Damn it!

[For a moment he makes as if to bodily ram all of his frustration into the partly-crumbled wall beside him, but in the end he just slumps. He's tired. Every cell inside him is tired. He's tired, he can still see her smiling at him from the opposite podium when he screws his eyes shut, and there aren't many people who could make a day like this worse.]

Comments

[eyeswideopen]

[Were he operating by his old island rules he'd pick the whole counter-argument apart. But he'd thrown that rulebook out just now. It's strictly the Verens rules from here on.]

I doubt it. The living and the dead come here, Enoshima's sister is very much alive, and from the point I came from just opening the file, so was I. [It's not like he's upset he's dead. Actually, it makes a lot of things so much easier. He's far calmer than he probably should be. No need to look beneath the flooring to why he so desperately wants Hinata to understand.

No need to think of any of it.]

As far as we can tell this world is crying out for help, from the depths of its coma. It's trying to survive, Hinata-kun and somehow we're the solution. All those who come here, anyway.

From all manners of universes and species. It's a bit like a novel. [A fondness enters his voice. This is home, now. He doesn't have to worry about going back. There's no need for that either.]

[cutbelow]

[The object of that affection is lost on Hajime. Then again, the way it feels to him, so is everything else. What if he makes himself black out again? Would he wake up somewhere else? Would he be able to do it over and over until, at long last, he got away? From Komaeda, from... admittedly, mostly from Komaeda.

That is what would bring this extended nightmare to an end, right?]

Then... how do we leave? [Because it sounds like they don't. It sounds like they're trapped, again. And the sinking sensation in the pit of his stomach at the thought is one that Nagito probably recognises.]

[eyeswideopen]

I don't know. But I will find the way to return you to where you belong. [Hinata is alive. He deserves to go back. Whatever happens to him, will happen. Death isn't so bad. In a way, it's a freedom he craved so badly.

Here he can be someone else. Something else.]

It will have to be after the interdiction. It's a barrier that is supposed to slowly fade.

[It isn't lost on him that Hinata wants to be away from him. The feeling is mutual but he can't ignore him either. Not with Junko around.] You might leave all on your own. That happens at times.

No one has to kill anyone here. Not that we'd stay dead if we did. [The reason Junko isn't dead, really.]