[ rolled a six on being useful this tag. "you weren't rolling for that" rolled a six on
aerith has no strength when she brings her hands to his neck, circling it, and that touch of static as encircle it is so different from her usual touch. his vision is blurry, and cloud thinks it might be tears, but he's not--sure. the whispers in his head are louder than ever. he can't even hear what aerith is trying to say over them.
(you couldn't stop yourself. that rage filled your hollow heart, puppet. and now you've lost again. everything but me. so why don't we show them?) ]
Please. [ he doesn't know what he's begging for. ] Just hang on. You'll be okay.
[ it's a lie. he knows it's a lie as he watches the blood drip down from her eyes, but he can't let her go. not yet. his own blood pulses for him to pick up that sword and do something, but. ]
Don't leave me.
[ cloud could you please be useful for FIVE seconds ]
[ Elise. He can't even say her name back, his throat is so raw right now. You did this.
He can only look back at her with such a deep level of exhausted grief and the extremely present desire to just die with her, get away from this nonsense and the city and the world -- but not in front of this garish audience. All he does is grasp that hand with his own, even if its clawing in a last-ditch effort to hurt him and nothing else.
Folks! He wants to die. But he can't, so he's only here long enough until this terrible manifestation of Elise bleeds out her last from these tubes that supposedly keep her alive, until she stops moving, or Audrey II -- poised and ready to consume -- eats her first, if she has the strength and wherewithal to Hulk out one last time despite the circumstances. Everyone else can deal with their own shit, man, he's already got so much on his plate. Let a man get widowed again in peace. ]
[ The entire arena is in shambles and Aventurine is going down with this sinking ship because i rolled a hearty one.
She tackles them both and Aventurine falls, his back hitting the ground enough to momentarily knock the breath out of his lungs. And then she's up and over him, hot blood falling from the cut on her cheek down to meet his own face. The sound of his name, the way she calls it in such a heartbroken manner, transports him back to that rainy day when she'd taken him by the arms and begged him to run.
He chokes back a sob, arms coming up to wrap themselves around her shoulders and pull her in for a hug. He wishes he could tell her how much he's missed her, the hardships he's had to suffer, the hardships he's overcome, but he can't. All he can do is tremble and bury his face into the side of her golden hair. Hold her one last time and think about when all they had for warmth and comfort were each other during the cold desert nights.
And then he raises the sword, driving it into where she'd already been stabbed by her dagger, pushing it through her body with such a force and an angle that the blade sinks into him too. It keeps them in place as he lets go of her shoulder with his other hand and reaches out to wrench those tendrils out of her. ]
[ lots of choking in this round but honestly that's what i get for not giving so many of these people weapons
with a lovely 9, kanda is able to get alma's tail clean off. alma roars in pain, this horrible wail. the response is to try to bash his head against kanda's angrily, trying to make that brain soup rattle around in there. this is just a fight that's continuously going because the rest of the girls in this fight are kinda normal-ish
cloud is not useful. cloud is losing his wife again. but doesn't he know that that's what she's apologizing for? for leaving him again. for still not being able to stay. for everything that she wanted for them to do together, but failed. she tries to smile, if only so that the last image he sees doesn't have to be her crying—but the bloody tears don't stop. her last word, as her body starts to grow cold is simply this: ] .... scared.
[ audrey ii can go ahead and eat daan's wife if he really wants. the hand that he's holding is still fighting—for what? to kill him? to live at all? to be with him, in whatever form, even if it's this twisted form of love? her fingers dig into his hand until they draw blood, trying to clutch onto him. the plant grows wildly out of control as daan loosens his hold on it, and it will begin to eat at his wife's soon-to-be-corpse, munching on her piece by piece.
aventurine knows how to use a sword, and immediately wielded it to give us all depression. his sister cries out in pain when the blade sinks into them both, and then screams again still when he rips out the tendrils. red coats them both, until he's drenched in the blood of his only family. he ends his people again, this time with his own hand. but with her final breaths, she brings a hand up to his hair. at first her fingers curl like she's about to pull—but instead her hand trembles as she tries to pat him on the head. broken, off-tune noises leave her mouth in fumbling notes. one last lullaby. ]
[He's heard Alma screaming before, but--last time, he was so, so focused on his rage. The pain in his voice now hurts far more than any of these physical attacks, cutting into him where he's deaf to the cries and screams elsewhere in the arena.
But they were free. They were free, and Kanda will not let that be taken from them. It doesn't matter how Dr. Fuckface made this happen, it doesn't matter how much it hurts to cut down his soulmate yet again--Kanda won't let him stay trapped in this wretched state of bloodthirst.
So, he tanks the hit and fights through the burst of pain, the way it rattles his already soupy brain that is now sizzly and ringing from blood loss and ear loss. He grabs Alma's neck with his free hand, pressing his head hard against Alma's to keep him close--and then tries to run him clean through with his spirit blade. Maybe he can make it quick.]
[ he says it like it's a wretched thing. it's not like being with her did anything. scared. she's scared. she... was scared. that's the last thing she felt before she died.
i'm less worried when it's with you, aerith had said, and cloud hears that echo briefly. (no... not scary at all, she told someone else, and he can't think about him without it skipping through like a faulty record, but there's the ghost of a hand ruffling his hair and staring down at someone else as they lay bleeding and dying, but-- that's not right. it morphs into a girl with dark hair and that-- did that happen? is any of this happening right now?)
he can't make sense of anything in his brain, so he stops trying. he lays aerith down so, so gently, wipes the bloody tear marks off her face. he gets up, grasping onto his sword, blood splattered all over the white of his new outfit. he can't feel the pain in his sword arm anymore. he can't really feel anything anymore. all he can see is the man who made her suffer, that mad scientist laughing at them-- he took her mom and he took them and made him and the lines are a little blurred right now about which scientist cloud is seeing, but that doesn't matter. what matters is
he is going to run doctor nutsack through with his sword now.
heyyyy did you guys like having hostages cauuuuuuse ]
[ WELL I HAD IMAGINED MORE LIKE... A EAT IN ONE GO TYPE OF ORDEAL BUT. HELP!! Please don't tear into his wife bit by bit. Well at the bare minimum he'd like the death to be as instant as possible and for him to not see her face anymore. Just chomp her head off or something first.
His hand fucking hurts but so does the rest of him. It's like a prick of his finger after weeks, months of deep cuts. What's another? What's another. It'll heal -- or maybe it won't. He kind of doesn't care? He's been on a downhill descent for days, weeks, months, and seeing Elise again, being toyed with again, losing her again might just have depleted all the sense of anything he had left for the time-being.
He looks around at the others, distant. Aerith is in half. Aventurine's sister who I don't remember if she was ever even named in the game is also practically in half. Alma is soon to be in half. All of their hostages are also soon to be half.
[ He won't use his hands to block out the screaming from his ears because he wraps them back around her instead, holding her tight even as her blood soaks him. She pats him on the head, hums a familiar lullaby, and Aventurine can only shake as he feels his own blood pooling beneath him.
But he can't break here. Movement catches the corner of his eye, and he turns his head in time to see Cloud making a break for the man whose name i have already forgotten because we keep calling him variations of ballsack. Aventurine struggles to push his bangs from his forehead, all the blood coating his hand smearing across his face and hair in the process.
And then he opens back his third eye in an effort to stop Cloud with more mind control. That's what my roll of 15 was for if that helps or does not help any, but he can't let the hostages get hurt. ]
[ well i rolled an 18 so it turns out cloud's brain soup is too dense to even register mind control anymore? or like, there's a one person maximum mind control thing going on? aventurine's hair is not silver enough to succeed?
[ kanda tries to make it quick. kanda does not succeed. alma manages a 16, so while the sword runs through him—it doesn't yet hit anything vital. it's not instantaneous, and instead he suffers. he coughs up blood directly onto kanda's face. the same blood tears as the others starts to run down his face, and finally those words from earlier find their complete form: ] Kill... me.... Kill... me....
[ a plea. selfish and rotting, but sincere.
daan is out there being a husk of a person, but i'll let the plant continue to vore his wife. she is the final person to shed those bloody tears, despairing. in the final moments, whether from blood loss or otherwise, her grip in his almost turns gentle. loving. ] Good... bye.... Daan.
[ a final farewell that they never received.
for catharsis, and because none of us liked this guy anyway, cloud is allowed to run his electricity sword through ichigaki—interrupted mid-cackle. in his hand, he fumbles with a syringe that falls to the floor, unused and still full of some freaky liquid. wonder what that was. his blood splatters all over cloud's white clothes, and his hand goes limp. weakling. the girls lasted longer than him.
over the announcement intercom, that customer service voice rings out again: ]
The Nood Doods violation of tournament policy and attacking Dr. Ichigaki has been noted. An appropriate will be delivered after the match.
[ which is quickly ending, one way or another.
the hostages again begin struggling. a gust kicks up as lenalee tries to activate her own powers, though she's quickly stabbed in the back by a demon's talons. she struggles to keep her feet, and pickles growls and barks in defense of her. topaz curses under her breath and looks left and right, trying to find a quick escape. laudna—she seems to be doing the worst of all, expression sunken and muttering darkly to herself. oh dear.
[It's fitting, really; the two of them have always been so, so hard to kill. They were made too well. That was the whole problem. It's why he had to hack Alma into a thousand tiny pieces back when they were children, slash after slash after slash, desperately hoping he'd be freed of his torment, unaware that he hadn't succeeded. It's why Kanda's still here after all this time--because this ridiculous body won't stop stitching itself back together, and Kanda's never been able to stop himself from choosing to live. It's not enough, so Kanda pulls him in close, heedless of the blood, of any sort of last minute attacks Alma might try. He can't let Alma kill him, so he'll take every last bit of pain Alma wants to cause him without complaint.]
...I know. I've got you.
[He holds on as tightly as he can, summoning another round of spirit shards to pierce him through from behind, aiming for Alma's core.
A part of him hears the hostages, he can see Lenalee over there, and he'll go in a minute, he will, he'll save her, no matter that he's not a savior--but he'll trust in her strength just a little longer. She'd never forgive him for abandoning Alma for her, even this terrible version of him.]
[ wow a syringe. i wonder what that was for. cloud has his like seventh mental breakdown of the day thinking too hard about syringes with strange liquids in them.
anyway he is out of rage enough to finally become aware of hostages. oh my god we had hostages this whole time? why did no one tell him "anyone would have seen them" why did no one tell him. he stares at them just a tad too blankly, taking in laudna (where's nona?) and the other girls he doesn't know.
why is pickles here. why does he look beat up already. why is it always the dog.
there's still a voice whispering that none of this is real so none of it matters none of these people really exist but cloud stares the longest at laudna before he turns to look at daan, kanda and aventurine in various amounts of distress. i rolled a 9 for sanity but i think i have been enough of a problem so im ignoring it. while kanda is finishing off alma: ]
Thought there were no rules to this tournament. [ he's not a loud guy, but he can be loud now; voice carrying to try to be overheard over the stadium. ] What, you demons think you can't keep some measly humans in line without collateral? You're so scared it's pathetic. You wanna prove something? I'll trade for it. Whatever you want to do to those four as punishment-- I'll take it. It's not like one regular human could handle that, right? You'd get my team handicapped no matter what. That's what you guys are after.
[ this is not helping EVEN REMOTELY actually but at least he's not fighting more people to the death
also i just need to say cloud isnt even a regular human ]
Great! He ain't got anything for that. What's the point all of you are dead anyway with the maybe-exception of Kanda. The fact that they're still seriously called the Nood Doods cements the idea that this cannot possibly be for real.
Cloud is now pulling a ARE YOU NOT ENTERTAINED? sort of thing at the stadium. Daan can only vaguely look around, see their surroundings, head pounding with the pain in his eye socket, like maybe he could simply find a pathway through the fog back to the camp.
He won't, it's only Tuesday. Well, at least he's also listening to however way they decide to react to Cloud. ]
He watches as Cloud runs Sack Man through with his sword, and Aventurine doesn't have any strength left in him to react. He can only watch helplessly as the hostages begin to struggle against their captors, and he thinks this is it. More people he knows dying around him.
Or maybe he can beat them to it, because he's very quickly losing blood from where he'd stabbed himself. His sister is basically dead on top of him, both of them pinned in place, and it's like, hey. Crazier things have happened to him before. Maybe it was always supposed to be this way, he thinks as he starts fading, vision blurring around the edges.
Whatever happens next, he won't know. He's going to pass out from blood loss instead. See ya. ]
[ kanda knows what alma wants—and isn't that always the most tragic thing? to know someone so well, to feel their soul drawn to yours, and never finding a way to be together at the right time? kanda no longer blocks off any attack, and he settles for assaulting alma from behind. alma decides to match him. a giant, winged blade protrudes from his own back and then curves around sickeningly to stab kanda in the same breath. they can still go out together. they still can.
alma breathes his last.
cloud riles up the entire crowd, and honestly i think he's valid for it. the recording doesn't respond to him, so very spineless. instead the demons seem to respond to his bloodlust in kind. tear the human apart! rip him to pieces! who knows, maybe the committee will take it into consideration.
daan is the most valid bitch in this place. aventurine is going going going.... gone.
but koto will be a very loud wake up call, hopping up to the stage with absolutely inappropriate peppiness. she loves this shit. she's eating this up. ]
Incredible!! In a display of so many romantic, tragic, horrible ways to go, I've got a new fantasy list! By some miracle, The Nood Doods win their first round! Did you see this one coming, because I sure didn't!!
[ good job team.
though someone should probably wake up aventurine for what happens next. ]
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aerith has no strength when she brings her hands to his neck, circling it, and that touch of static as encircle it is so different from her usual touch. his vision is blurry, and cloud thinks it might be tears, but he's not--sure. the whispers in his head are louder than ever. he can't even hear what aerith is trying to say over them.
(you couldn't stop yourself. that rage filled your hollow heart, puppet. and now you've lost again. everything but me. so why don't we show them?) ]
Please. [ he doesn't know what he's begging for. ] Just hang on. You'll be okay.
[ it's a lie. he knows it's a lie as he watches the blood drip down from her eyes, but he can't let her go. not yet. his own blood pulses for him to pick up that sword and do something, but. ]
Don't leave me.
[ cloud could you please be useful for FIVE seconds ]
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He can only look back at her with such a deep level of exhausted grief and the extremely present desire to just die with her, get away from this nonsense and the city and the world -- but not in front of this garish audience. All he does is grasp that hand with his own, even if its clawing in a last-ditch effort to hurt him and nothing else.
Folks! He wants to die. But he can't, so he's only here long enough until this terrible manifestation of Elise bleeds out her last from these tubes that supposedly keep her alive, until she stops moving, or Audrey II -- poised and ready to consume -- eats her first, if she has the strength and wherewithal to Hulk out one last time despite the circumstances. Everyone else can deal with their own shit, man, he's already got so much on his plate. Let a man get widowed again in peace. ]
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She tackles them both and Aventurine falls, his back hitting the ground enough to momentarily knock the breath out of his lungs. And then she's up and over him, hot blood falling from the cut on her cheek down to meet his own face. The sound of his name, the way she calls it in such a heartbroken manner, transports him back to that rainy day when she'd taken him by the arms and begged him to run.
He chokes back a sob, arms coming up to wrap themselves around her shoulders and pull her in for a hug. He wishes he could tell her how much he's missed her, the hardships he's had to suffer, the hardships he's overcome, but he can't. All he can do is tremble and bury his face into the side of her golden hair. Hold her one last time and think about when all they had for warmth and comfort were each other during the cold desert nights.
And then he raises the sword, driving it into where she'd already been stabbed by her dagger, pushing it through her body with such a force and an angle that the blade sinks into him too. It keeps them in place as he lets go of her shoulder with his other hand and reaches out to wrench those tendrils out of her. ]
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with a lovely 9, kanda is able to get alma's tail clean off. alma roars in pain, this horrible wail. the response is to try to bash his head against kanda's angrily, trying to make that brain soup rattle around in there. this is just a fight that's continuously going because the rest of the girls in this fight are kinda normal-ish
cloud is not useful. cloud is losing his wife again. but doesn't he know that that's what she's apologizing for? for leaving him again. for still not being able to stay. for everything that she wanted for them to do together, but failed. she tries to smile, if only so that the last image he sees doesn't have to be her crying—but the bloody tears don't stop. her last word, as her body starts to grow cold is simply this: ] .... scared.
[ audrey ii can go ahead and eat daan's wife if he really wants. the hand that he's holding is still fighting—for what? to kill him? to live at all? to be with him, in whatever form, even if it's this twisted form of love? her fingers dig into his hand until they draw blood, trying to clutch onto him. the plant grows wildly out of control as daan loosens his hold on it, and it will begin to eat at his wife's soon-to-be-corpse, munching on her piece by piece.
aventurine knows how to use a sword, and immediately wielded it to give us all depression. his sister cries out in pain when the blade sinks into them both, and then screams again still when he rips out the tendrils. red coats them both, until he's drenched in the blood of his only family. he ends his people again, this time with his own hand. but with her final breaths, she brings a hand up to his hair. at first her fingers curl like she's about to pull—but instead her hand trembles as she tries to pat him on the head. broken, off-tune noises leave her mouth in fumbling notes. one last lullaby. ]
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But they were free. They were free, and Kanda will not let that be taken from them. It doesn't matter how Dr. Fuckface made this happen, it doesn't matter how much it hurts to cut down his soulmate yet again--Kanda won't let him stay trapped in this wretched state of bloodthirst.
So, he tanks the hit and fights through the burst of pain, the way it rattles his already soupy brain that is now sizzly and ringing from blood loss and ear loss. He grabs Alma's neck with his free hand, pressing his head hard against Alma's to keep him close--and then tries to run him clean through with his spirit blade. Maybe he can make it quick.]
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[ he says it like it's a wretched thing. it's not like being with her did anything. scared. she's scared. she... was scared. that's the last thing she felt before she died.
i'm less worried when it's with you, aerith had said, and cloud hears that echo briefly. (no... not scary at all, she told someone else, and he can't think about him without it skipping through like a faulty record, but there's the ghost of a hand ruffling his hair and staring down at someone else as they lay bleeding and dying, but-- that's not right. it morphs into a girl with dark hair and that-- did that happen? is any of this happening right now?)
he can't make sense of anything in his brain, so he stops trying. he lays aerith down so, so gently, wipes the bloody tear marks off her face. he gets up, grasping onto his sword, blood splattered all over the white of his new outfit. he can't feel the pain in his sword arm anymore. he can't really feel anything anymore. all he can see is the man who made her suffer, that mad scientist laughing at them-- he took her mom and he took them and made him and the lines are a little blurred right now about which scientist cloud is seeing, but that doesn't matter. what matters is
he is going to run doctor nutsack through with his sword now.
heyyyy did you guys like having hostages cauuuuuuse ]
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His hand fucking hurts but so does the rest of him. It's like a prick of his finger after weeks, months of deep cuts. What's another? What's another. It'll heal -- or maybe it won't. He kind of doesn't care? He's been on a downhill descent for days, weeks, months, and seeing Elise again, being toyed with again, losing her again might just have depleted all the sense of anything he had left for the time-being.
He looks around at the others, distant. Aerith is in half. Aventurine's sister who I don't remember if she was ever even named in the game is also practically in half. Alma is soon to be in half. All of their hostages are also soon to be half.
It's Tuesday! ]
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But he can't break here. Movement catches the corner of his eye, and he turns his head in time to see Cloud making a break for the man whose name i have already forgotten because we keep calling him variations of ballsack. Aventurine struggles to push his bangs from his forehead, all the blood coating his hand smearing across his face and hair in the process.
And then he opens back his third eye in an effort to stop Cloud with more mind control. That's what my roll of 15 was for if that helps or does not help any, but he can't let the hostages get hurt. ]
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the point is
sword go brr ]
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[ a plea. selfish and rotting, but sincere.
daan is out there being a husk of a person, but i'll let the plant continue to vore his wife. she is the final person to shed those bloody tears, despairing. in the final moments, whether from blood loss or otherwise, her grip in his almost turns gentle. loving. ] Good... bye.... Daan.
[ a final farewell that they never received.
for catharsis, and because none of us liked this guy anyway, cloud is allowed to run his electricity sword through ichigaki—interrupted mid-cackle. in his hand, he fumbles with a syringe that falls to the floor, unused and still full of some freaky liquid. wonder what that was. his blood splatters all over cloud's white clothes, and his hand goes limp. weakling. the girls lasted longer than him.
over the announcement intercom, that customer service voice rings out again: ]
The Nood Doods violation of tournament policy and attacking Dr. Ichigaki has been noted. An appropriate will be delivered after the match.
[ which is quickly ending, one way or another.
the hostages again begin struggling. a gust kicks up as lenalee tries to activate her own powers, though she's quickly stabbed in the back by a demon's talons. she struggles to keep her feet, and pickles growls and barks in defense of her. topaz curses under her breath and looks left and right, trying to find a quick escape. laudna—she seems to be doing the worst of all, expression sunken and muttering darkly to herself. oh dear.
oh dear. ]
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...I know. I've got you.
[He holds on as tightly as he can, summoning another round of spirit shards to pierce him through from behind, aiming for Alma's core.
A part of him hears the hostages, he can see Lenalee over there, and he'll go in a minute, he will, he'll save her, no matter that he's not a savior--but he'll trust in her strength just a little longer. She'd never forgive him for abandoning Alma for her, even this terrible version of him.]
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anyway he is out of rage enough to finally become aware of hostages. oh my god we had hostages this whole time? why did no one tell him "anyone would have seen them" why did no one tell him. he stares at them just a tad too blankly, taking in laudna (where's nona?) and the other girls he doesn't know.
why is pickles here. why does he look beat up already. why is it always the dog.
there's still a voice whispering that none of this is real so none of it matters none of these people really exist but cloud stares the longest at laudna before he turns to look at daan, kanda and aventurine in various amounts of distress. i rolled a 9 for sanity but i think i have been enough of a problem so im ignoring it. while kanda is finishing off alma: ]
Thought there were no rules to this tournament. [ he's not a loud guy, but he can be loud now; voice carrying to try to be overheard over the stadium. ] What, you demons think you can't keep some measly humans in line without collateral? You're so scared it's pathetic. You wanna prove something? I'll trade for it. Whatever you want to do to those four as punishment-- I'll take it. It's not like one regular human could handle that, right? You'd get my team handicapped no matter what. That's what you guys are after.
[ this is not helping EVEN REMOTELY actually but at least he's not fighting more people to the death
also i just need to say cloud isnt even a regular human ]
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Great! He ain't got anything for that. What's the point all of you are dead anyway with the maybe-exception of Kanda. The fact that they're still seriously called the Nood Doods cements the idea that this cannot possibly be for real.
Cloud is now pulling a ARE YOU NOT ENTERTAINED? sort of thing at the stadium. Daan can only vaguely look around, see their surroundings, head pounding with the pain in his eye socket, like maybe he could simply find a pathway through the fog back to the camp.
He won't, it's only Tuesday. Well, at least he's also listening to however way they decide to react to Cloud. ]
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He watches as Cloud runs Sack Man through with his sword, and Aventurine doesn't have any strength left in him to react. He can only watch helplessly as the hostages begin to struggle against their captors, and he thinks this is it. More people he knows dying around him.
Or maybe he can beat them to it, because he's very quickly losing blood from where he'd stabbed himself. His sister is basically dead on top of him, both of them pinned in place, and it's like, hey. Crazier things have happened to him before. Maybe it was always supposed to be this way, he thinks as he starts fading, vision blurring around the edges.
Whatever happens next, he won't know. He's going to pass out from blood loss instead. See ya. ]
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alma breathes his last.
cloud riles up the entire crowd, and honestly i think he's valid for it. the recording doesn't respond to him, so very spineless. instead the demons seem to respond to his bloodlust in kind. tear the human apart! rip him to pieces! who knows, maybe the committee will take it into consideration.
daan is the most valid bitch in this place. aventurine is going going going.... gone.
but koto will be a very loud wake up call, hopping up to the stage with absolutely inappropriate peppiness. she loves this shit. she's eating this up. ]
Incredible!! In a display of so many romantic, tragic, horrible ways to go, I've got a new fantasy list! By some miracle, The Nood Doods win their first round! Did you see this one coming, because I sure didn't!!
[ good job team.
though someone should probably wake up aventurine for what happens next. ]