#🐍 ⊱ sɴᴀᴋᴇ ɪɴ ᴛʜᴇ ɢᴀʀᴅᴇɴ ᴏғ ᴇᴅᴇɴ ⊱ VERSE — P5 THIRD SEMESTER.

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@heartsaligned -- akechi finds akira in the snow ❄️

SLEEP was an interesting concept for Goro. It'd always been difficult to turn his thoughts off to allow sleep to consume him for a few empty hours. But he needed rest in order to keep his mind sharp for the day that awaited him when he cracked open his eyes. Being dead made him wonder how much sleep provided a necessity in that regard. How much being dead meant he needed to do anything required to function.

During the numerous scandals pertaining to his decline in fame, he'd slept less than usual and ever more fitful. After thinking he'd shot Kurusu in the interrogation room, when he found a moment's respite he'd been plagued with dreams about the hollowed look fading from his suddenly lifeless eyes. The dark blood from the gunshot wound spilling out onto the metal table with brain matter and chunks of broken skull. He'd dreamed frequently over Kurusu coming back to life and asking him why he'd had to do it, if it was WORTH it, and if this was the victory that Goro had sought. A victory that had been handed to him on a silver platter through cheating and lies.

They'd always felt so real, wracking him with guilt. Kurusu had never done anything to deserve what had happened in that room. Even killing the men who'd tortured him for hours left Goro feeling numb and empty. There was no satisfaction reaped, only in the message that they couldn't live to hurt anyone else. Everyone else Goro had targeted had a corrupted heart. None of them had been saintly. Not even Wakaba was wholly innocent.

Goro could never atone for the horrible things he'd done, all the deaths caused by his hand. But offering those condemned souls Shido's head felt like a justified reward for the numerous deaths that had gotten him so far. Knowing that each of their forfeited lives would serve a purpose.

RITES OF JUDGEMENT, after all.

Each death served a purpose toward his eventual goal--a childish dream that never truly came to fruition. He'd have to live with being satisfied having Shido in jail and could only hope that he would stay there until he eventually died. Politics were a messy business and Shido had done a tremendous amount of damage that there would always a chance he could be released in some way.

Goro had done it all for his mother. But death wasn't going to place him wherever she was. He'd fall back to darkness when Maruki's reality lifted. Almost like a never ending sleep, but without anything around him except for an endless sea of black.

And now, he stared blankly at the clock on the table beside the bed. The red lights glowed through the dark. The number changed again and Goro pulled back the covers to get up. After the first night, he'd made a point of not going to sleep until he was sure Kurusu was out. But his company liked to wander at night and he'd leave. Goro couldn't blame him, and he didn't worry. His neighborhood was quiet, the residents in his complex kept to themselves, and Kurusu was never gone for long.

Goro took his time getting dressed, watching as the snow falling outside his windows went from gentle white flakes to heavy and dense puffs that began to collect on the sill. Kurusu still wasn't back as he did up his scarf. Goro let out a disgruntled sigh. Really, he was going to make him go out and find him? It occurred to him to just let Kurusu die of hypothermia, but Goro had fought too hard to keep him alive up until this point. Mother nature wasn't going to claim what was rightfully his.

He'd walked the streets longer than he'd planned to until finding a dark mop of hair buried beneath the fallen snow. It was a sorry sight. The snow crunched beneath the soles of his shoes. ❝How long do you intend to stay out here for?❞

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@heartsaligned -- yu & ann attempt bonding  🧁

    Like everywhere he went, Yu could always make an impression–one that stuck. He’d LONG stopped caring how he came off to others; the polite young man had gained a silver tongue and it dripped bitter juices.

    UNIMPRESSED and unapologetic, he’d give the benevolent tyrant credit where it was due: only those who wore the scent of timely death should have known the sight of the reaper. A single snap of his fingers and ISHTAR’S lightning came hurdling down, taking out the bulking brute an entire team couldn’t put a dent in. That was barely a fraction of his strength, if he could even register it. The full glory of Yu’s outrageous power could tear apart realities, erase a goddess of death, and probably go even further if he ever bothered to consider it. For the sake of the world, it was probably for the best he didn’t entertain the notion too hard. He was a perfect foil to a man who trapped people in a veil of hazy lies. Yu was deadly, and everything about that stood to reason.

     A SAVIOR to humanity, a beacon of light, none of it was true because Yu knew Maruki could care less as he stared with piercing eyes at the unaware faces along SHIBUYA. Yu may be a god, but he didn’t seek to control the masses with promises and gifts of brainwashing and lies. Humanity didn’t deserve it – whatever that meant. Sympathy, because he understood falsified realities would look pleasing or the idea of being striped of freewill. The good were a low number outweighed on an even greater scale. Akira could worry about freeing humanity, letting it survive. Yu had only ever cared about two people, and that wasn’t liable to change. He liked Akira well enough. But when it came down to it, he was expendable. Yu had even made a point of telling him as much, and he’d taken the information better than anyone else he’d known would. Others had seemed appalled, aghast, and Yu only proceeded to finish his drink while Yosuke had elbowed him.

     Even with attachments, Yu knew he could pick himself back up again and move forward. His heart just didn’t have the room for anyone else. When he was younger, he would have been more bothered by that realization. Now, he’d become really apathetic. He was in it for himself, anyway. Being hated wasn’t a foreign concept. Taking away Yosuke and having to see Adachi, that was a step too far.

     ❝God damn it. It makes me sick,❞ he said. ❝Nobody knows a thing about this world, not us or anyone else.❞