ximilian | reach the residents

（ what she says only serves to strengthen his resolve. his mind was already decided, but it helps to hear it aloud, spoken by someone who can rifle through his history as readily as she can. who knows, who has seen.

he is accustomed to being an island — to making his own choices and forging his own path. after shisui died, he fell to keeping his own counsel and was neither honest nor forthcoming with anyone. thus — asking for her opinion is an aberration, an anomaly as strange as it is selfish. he does not regret having done it, though.

(her own reaction to his deed is noted and, for the time being, set aside. he will review it when he is less tangled in his own feelings.) ）

I will take （ he tries to say my father's, but he can't make himself say the words. instead, there is an moment's dead space in the air, and he continues in his usual steady voice — ） Fugaku Uchiha's eyes.

But if you could also secure Shisui's, I — it would be appreciated. There are certain jutsu unique to the Uchiha clan that I may need to utilize on missions that carry the cost of blindness. It would be foolish to wind up in this situation a second time.

（ pragmatism. as she said.

yet, he cannot help the wave of revulsion that crawls down his spine and settles in the pit of his gut. he can only think of danzō, who had gone through the uchiha compound after the massacre and taken the sharingan from his many, many dead kinsmen. the idea of keeping another set in reserve is abhorrent to him, as much as it's practical. ）

[ it is no less than what she would have expected from him — if sentiment had triumphed, she would have been truly surprised.

but she is not without sympathy; his follow-up request, justified by the same pragmatism she'd referred to (and that she suspects is still only part of the reason, there), gets her approval. ]

Yes, of course. It would be best to be prepared, should this happen again. I should be able to get them for you for when you return in a couple months' time.

[ but knowing his history, she adds, after a considering pause — ]

You're doing it only because you have to. And taking only what you know would be given to you without hesitation.

[ her words form statements; there is no undercurrent to reassure, or make him feel better about it. simply facts — his reasons are different. his methods are different. no one can argue that; not even itachi himself. ]

My father was a good man. He did not deserve the death I gave him.

（ there's no self-pity in his tone — as soft and factual as her own. the shinobi world is not kind, and death is rarely deserved. that does not prevent its happening just the same. his regret has never been that he killed him.

as much as viveca's statement does not ring as soft sentiment to him, the fact that she chooses to say it at all is — telling. nothing about their relationship to one another necessitated it as either kindness or courtesy, it was simply a choice she made. ）

May I ask a personal question of you? （ there is something wry in his tone — never let it be said he does not learn quickly. ） I will try to ensure it is less... fraught than what I have asked you prior.

Most who death claims don't.

[ and yet, die they do. and yet... there are those who do deserve it, too. before her words, there's again a pause as if she very nearly says something else —

but whatever that is is a choice she does not make.

instead, he responds with a question about a question, and she can't help a soft chuckle. ]

And I will try to ensure my answer is not quite as sharp.

[ which means, go ahead. ]

If it is sharp or not does not concern me. Some things can only be answered with an edge.

（ he had been careless, and her reaction was only natural. he expects if such a thing follows a second time it will be as deserved as the first. ）

Do you dream?

（ as questions go, it's almost... whimsical. entrenched in the ephemera of such a concept. he is still learning about her, after all, and there are things that by her nature he cannot know. her existence is still very much new to him, and in ways his ignorance of her has pulled out some facet of an almost boyish curiosity. he always had a thirst for knowledge. ）

[ it takes her a moment to respond — the only thing that gives away the fact that she'd clearly not expected the question... but when her answer comes, there's no biting edge to the words. if anything, she sounds wistful. ]

No... I don't. Why would I need to? [ there's a half-laugh at her own pragmatism. ] I could turn myself offline, I suppose, leave the back-up system running everything — but even then, it'd be more like falling to a deep sleep and not dreaming at all.

（ the wistfulness shouldn't cut him, but it does. he knows what it's like, to think of things long lost. ）

It is less a need and more a — frivolity. Sometimes such ephemera are beneficial to our wellbeing. So I've heard.

（ his tone is so very dry. practicing what he's preaching? never. but he is at least... trying. viveca is perhaps the only person he can be truly honest with aboard the ximilia, and it's happened all by accident. so, she gets his odd, half-hearted attempts at human connection. ）

So, what is it you do to — entertain yourself? I cannot imagine that searching for the orbs occupies your every hour. Do you... （ there is a brief, awkward silence. then: ） — read?

（ look it's literally the only hobby he has he doesn't know what normal people do this is already a difficult conversation please have mercy on him failing at this. ）

Some would argue I don't really need to be concerned of my wellbeing.

[ the wryness is back to her voice — it seems the way she copes with the situation is self-deprecating humor, when given the chance for it... which isn't much, as she can't talk about it with the others, and with degar... well. it's complicated.

she chuckles, less at his halting attempt, and more at — ]

Yes, actually. I do. It's useful, to learn as much as I can of different places, customs, and so on. [ then, admitting as she suspects he can relate: ] I've never had much time for things like hobbies, before. Entertaining myself was never something —

[ she pauses, changes track. ] It's not bad, here, to have the time. I've learned some games, too. Chess, shogi, the like. And some card games, because Degar isn't the biggest fan of the strategy-heavy ones.

[ said with fondness, though. ]

You aren't a tool.

（ that's an immediate response, and there's a bit of a bite to his tone. it's the same cold rationale that lead to people like kisame and zabuza, the unflinching brutality of a world that views people as things to be used and discarded when necessary. viveca may not be human, but she is as much a person as any of them, and she carries more. ）

Your wellbeing is important, and you deserve the chance to look after it accordingly. Those that might argue that are ignorant and foolish.

（ fuckin' txt it. give him a moment to crawl off that soap box that he absolutely refuses to entertain for himself, and — ）

If books can be brought back from the various worlds we visit, I could digitize them for you.

（ a perfect photographic memory vs the earpiece's functionality: who will win? he suspects, of course, that she can simply get her own books, but perhaps the element of the unknown would be gratifying. ）

Likewise, if you would like a partner for your strategy games. I know both shogi and chess.

（ why is he not surprised degar's not a fan? smh. ）

... thank you, [ comes the response after a longer break, her tone quiet and inflectionless and yet somehow full of feeling regardless. ]

I think I'd like that.

[ the books, or the games? perhaps both. but this is where she ends the conversation. ]

（ no message accompanies this, but there are several items included in this attachment:

☀ there are a handful of fables that have been digitized for her, things from taeum's perfect library. their titles are: 'the golden glass child', 'to be a man from ix'tahlen' and 'black moon, silver sky'. they are mostly somber stories, things that end poorly or with clear moralistic intent. one, 'the star queen's embrace', is the sole one with a purely uplifting end.
☀ there are also several notes on talisman arrays which seem to be mostly his own observations, as well as a handful of examples and their use. handwritten in the margin of one of these pages is a note, for Cmdr. Degar.
☀ there's a link to a chess app. when she opens it, she will find that the 'virtual' world involves twelve boards set up, all the white pieces arranged on his side, the black pieces on hers. there's a complicated rule-set that involves swapping pieces to different boards depending on what's been taken where, and he's made the first move. ）

[ she had been expecting it, to an extent — she knows what he's like, of course, and knows he's not the type to make empty promises. if he says he'll do something, she expects it to happen...

and yet, it all takes her off guard. the tales she's not read before make her smile, and she reads each one several times until she's analysed every little thing, committed cultural references to memory; the talisman notes she sends to degar, who receives them with a bright quip but eyes sparkling with interest; and the boards...

he can't hear her laugh when she opens the app, but it's one of surprise, and then delight.

she makes her move, then, and the back-and-forth starts. it's surprisingly good — his careful consideration and sharp intellect clashes with her analytical mind and risk-taking feints that seem like mistakes but are looking ahead dozens of moves —

about halfway through, her voice floats to him, ]

I hope you're not just indulging me.

[ and that he's enjoying it, too. ]

If you feel I am the sort to do so, I fear I have misrepresented myself.

（ it's as close to playful as he generally comes with people, and there is an element of genuine warmth to his voice. he does not often permit indulgence like this, intellectual by-blows done for fun rather than as some greater feint in a larger scheme. if he is indulging anyone here, it is only himself. ）

Though I do have an unrelated query. （ he makes several moves as he speaks — the nature of the game requires such a pace. ） Would you be able to send a message to Angrial of Giva on my behalf?

（ he does not know if it's possible, given the world's afterlife. however she transported them there, perhaps it was a one-time thing. but he wishes to know. ）

Hm, really?

[ she could easily retort back that what she believes him to be is someone who rarely indulges himself — so the fact that he does, this time, is of great joy to her. still, her answer is a question with a playful tone in return.

after she matches his moves — ]

... I can try. I say no to messages to your home worlds as those may disturb the timelines even further — but those in Givan Purgatory know of you and your mission. It shouldn't be of more danger to anyone if I do it.

What proof would satisfy you, Viveca-san?

（ perhaps he is teasing her, or perhaps he is simply poking fun at himself. she has become rarefied to him, someone to whom no doors of his past are locked — yet his company does not trouble her, nor his past alarm. it means she is the only lonely soul aboard the ximilia he is any measure of at ease with, and is chiefly why he seeks her out.

he studies her move-set for a time, contemplative both of his verbal and game response to her rejoinder. he plays a protective game. nothing lost without cause, or need. ）

The message is not significant. I only — I wished to say thank-you to her. For trusting in what I said, and for what she told me when she gave me the orb. I wish her the best of many tomorrows yet to come.

（ he did not have a chance then, he was shocked and still in the very fresh pain of venom's attack, there was no time. but her words have a resonance, and something of them lives in him now. he has never been one for hope — if ever he held such a thing in his hands, it was a gift from shisui, and it died when he did. but he thinks perhaps he is clawing it back to some flickering semblance of life, in no small part due to the events in taeum. ）

How about agreeing to more than one game?

[ the wry tone persists, but there's something genuinely warm there — a warmth that doesn't go away when she continues to say, after another set of moves, ]

I wouldn't call a thank-you insignificant. In fact, it's probably one of the most significant things anyone can say.

[ and so many don't seem to realise that. ] I'll get the message to her. I can't promise a message in return, but I'll try my best.

Very well. Then, as a condition — let us say the winner of this game gets to pick the nature of our next.

（ there's more than just nightmare chess, after all. he's sure she's equally as familiar with many others, and he has always enjoyed learning. it is simply strange to have the time. what was not spent on missions to foreign nations was portioned out for reading, training. he and kisame played chess on occasion — the man was remarkably astute, but his style was too straightforward to be interesting for long.

he ruminates briefly on one of his knights, and then makes his counterplay with deliberation, allowing a sacrifice in the interim.

meanwhile — ）

Then, thank you.

（ perhaps that's just the tiniest bit playful. ）

If you have any requests for books I might encounter on our next mission, now is the time to ask. I'm afraid I don't have much experience with genres beyond world history, tactical philosophy and poetry.

（ local nerd, intensely specialized. ）

Sounds good.

[ her response is immediate, both in words and in gameplay — the sacrifice was not unexpected, but the way she responds perhaps is, a move that leaves her vulnerable, this time... but also traps him neatly into only a few possible moves, and each leads to a worse outcome for him. ]

I like all of those, [ she says with a slight laugh, and then adds, ] But I admit I also enjoy stories. You know, the kind you tell to children, to teach them about the world, about morality, about what is right and what is wrong. I find you can learn much about a given place and time from what they teach their young.

（ hm.

he recognizes the trap for what it is, and spends a few seconds mentally charting out possible moves from this point onward. it does not take him long to conclude that it results in a lost game regardless of what he chooses from this point on, and he actually laughs, a soft exhale of sound. ）

I resign. I believe it is your turn to select the game, Viveca-san.

（ if she decides on pong, superhuman reflexes demand that they be here a while. ）

Very well. I will gather what I can for you, then.

（ he is silent a moment, to the point it seems he is almost done with the conversation at all. at length he asks her if she'd like to hear one from his world, and supposing that her answer will be yes, he will launch into a story. despite his withdrawn nature and his tendency to eschew much visible emotion, he is a natural storyteller — falling into the cadences of it easily.

it is an old folktale, one he once told to sasuke. ）

Hm — backgammon?

[ but several of them at once, of course, with the numbers on one board being added or retracted from those of another according to a complicated set of rules.

and while she sets that up, she listens to the story — one might not expect him to be great at telling stories, but he is, and after he is done she is silent for a long while, so long that he might suspect she is not going to answer at all — ]

Ah, [ she says then, a half-syllable that sounds a little choked — but so short is that that if it were anyone else than him, it might be easy to think it imagined, as then she continues in a normal, level voice, ] An interesting story... it could be one of warning, if it didn't have the daughter's devotion to her mother.

[ and certainly it illustrates his background well — the importance placed on family, on remaining filial. ]

（ once the boards are set up in the app, he rolls the first of two die to decide who will go first, and lands on a four.

if he notices the slight schism of emotion in her voice, he does not give any indication of it, simply continues — ）

I suppose that is the nature of fables — to demonstrate what could be, and what is, and where the two might overlap for good or ill.

（ another pause, and then, softer — ）

You would have liked mine. Uchiha Mikoto. She was a powerful kunoichi （ of course that's the thing he would note of her first — ） and a tender mother. She was always very good-hearted.

（ he knows how broken it was for the loss of uzumaki kushina, bearing witness to that grief in the weeks following the kyūbi attack. but he never witnessed her saying an unkind word, or being cruel. he does not flinch from his last memories of her, but there are times he regrets them just the same. ）

[ perhaps surprisingly, her answering roll is even worse, giving him the first go of it. there's a half-laugh at something he says at first, there, though it's hardly a funny sentence — instead, she seems to laugh at something that only she picks up on.

and then, softer than she's ever sounded, ]

I believe that. [ she would forgive you, she thinks, she loved you very much. she doesn't say it; he knows it already. all the words would bring is unnecessary pain. ]

（ one day in the not-too-distant future, itachi is absolutely going to look back on this moment and likely laugh himself.

instead, in the interim, he shifts the first of his pieces to differing points off the back of that first combined roll. he shakes his head very slightly as his fingers hover over the last of the checkers he intends to move, and then: ）

You'll have to tell me about yours, one day.

（ bc irony. ）

Edited 2022-06-18 22:09 (UTC)

[ she rolls her dice, then, and with a huff indicating she's unsatisfied with the result, starts moving her checkers.

her answer takes a moment. ]

... maybe. [ and then, with a soft, fond tone, ] You'd like her, too.

[ because alexandra is everything that viveca wants to be, kind and genuine and with morals and a sense of justice strong as the earth. but she's got some of her father in her, too, and her edges are dangerously sharp where her mother's aren't; it makes her pragmatic.

(quite deliberately, she prefers that choice of word to something else it could just as well be.) ]

（ he is not accustomed to anyone speaking of him as one worth liking — so he has no response to that. his silence is contemplative, encompassing. it seems perhaps he might speak, by the faint variation to an indrawn breath, but silence prevails.

he simply continues the game. it spills well into the small hours of the morning, nearer than not to when he customarily rises, and as the last of the checkers are borne off, he suppresses a yawn. ）

We will have to continue this another time, Viveca-san. Perhaps you will indulge me with a game of Shogi?

（ there's a faint trace of warmth there, like a stone that's been left overturned in the sun, and has carried its heat into the spell of night. but then, he disconnects. ）

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vivecai - 2022-06-23 21:30 (UTC) - Expand

reach the residents

● ● ● REACH THE RESIDENTS

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