#and my fav josefina icon you cant tell me it doesnt look like shes hugging cyrus it kills mE

[obliviouskind]

FRAUD - A time my muse manipulated and outright lied or even gaslit someone.

𝚂𝙸𝙽𝙵𝚄𝙻 𝙰𝚂𝙺 𝙼𝙴𝙼𝙴

@floralcrowns, as well as @mercenaryrocket

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“… My name, as I appear to you today, is Cyrus...”

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If the question had been posed to Cynthia, then the assertion that he was a liar would be fastly reckoned as an absolute certainty. A man such as he (with his following of wayward sheep) does not, after all, gain such notoriety in a nation such as theirs without the usage of deception and outright fraud. Sinnoh’s young could not have been so foolish as to follow the promises of utopia under the names of children’s book characters – Saturn, Jupiter and Mars… – without the use of coercion. To have willfully turn their backs on their families and friends to chase after a dream of an unobtainable ideal was nothing but a fairytale scenario, and nothing more.

Cyrus Akagi had been a manipulator of the highest degree, unlike anything they ever had seen before within their rich boarders – and no one, not even she, could’ve seen it coming from a boy once so devoted to the faith (the heart) of their regions entire population.

… But, Cynthia actually could’ve known. Did know, yet hadn’t allowed herself to fully see. For even at an age as young as seventeen, where uncertainty and fear still had festered within his veins and the thought of falling into sin was worrisome enough to stain his flesh with bled gold – even back then, he had told her exactly what he thought of the world that they lived in.

Cyrus never had spoken untruthfully about his intentions to her.

(Never had hid who it was that he would become.)

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“… This world of ours is a crude one. In a word, it is incomplete. It has been, and always will be, a struggle to survive in this world…”

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If the question had ben posed to Hikari, then her answer would’ve been much less crystal clear. But, perhaps, more honest because of that fact.

Her first meeting with Cyrus had been the winter before her twelfth birthday, at the lake situated on the outskirts of her small home town that seldom saw visitors from city’s larger than Celestic. He had been a man of ivory towers, untouchable in a manner she never before had encountered. Yet, more than once throughout the years that would pass, she had felt her hand sit within his. Had heard his voice speak without that air of manufactured authority as he claimed – explained to her – that she was being lied to by those she felt she could trust the most.

In the Eternal forest, he had told her that if you tell nothing but the truth – then you won’t have to remember what it was that you said. --So that when it came time for her to make her choice… When it was time for her to decide for herself; that she could remember who it was that spoke truthfully to her, and who it was that didn’t.

… Perhaps most innocently, seated almost hip to hip on a grassy hill stained by painter’s hands, she had once asked him;

“Do you think I will grow to be just as tall as you?”

He had pondered for a moment, eyes of which almost were a mimicry of her own dancing over the height of her childish cheeks and bug-like gaze. She truly had been nothing but a child, way back then. “You can grow in many different ways, Hikari. I’m simply… tall.”

Such answers never were satisfactory for children, and she had seemed to muse over it all for a moment in time. Her lips, gnawed at by her teeth while her fingers had played with her off-white scarf.

(He had wondered when it was last that she gave it a good wash.)

“… But, do you think?”

Cyrus hadn’t lied to her. Had spoken nothing but the truth, with the faintest hint of a smile tugging at his cheeks.

“… No, I don’t think you will.”

(If only he had known how right he would be…)

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“…We humans and Pokémon are likewise incomplete. Because we are all so lacking, we fight, we maim... It is ugly...”

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He once had told her that if someone ever asked her if she was afraid – and her answer were to be a clear ringing yes – that she should tell them exactly that. Admit that she’s terrified, and that she hopes that things will turn out okay. --Advice of which, at the end of the day, he never allowed for her to properly put to use. Despite their private meetings under star-lit skies, their quiet walks in forests unnamed and lost – despite all of that, Hikari still had stayed on her path of manufactured heroics.

“Are you afraid, Cyrus?” Her dainty, bird chipper voice could’ve asked him as they faced off like the caricatures that they were in Veilstone. And his true and honest answer, as one by one she brought down the creatures he himself never had trained – as she beat his work (his dreams) beneath the earth’s soil; Cyrus would’ve answered her truthfully.

That he had been afraid.

Terrified.

And that he only hoped that things would turn out okay.

She never did ask him that question (why would she?) just as much as he didn’t ask her what she felt, when he sent the agape jaws of his hound to tear out her tender throat. Had not asked her if she, in that moment, had feared him.

Had feared for her life.

(She would’ve told him that she had been afraid. Terrified. And that she had felt as though things wouldn’t turn out okay.)

Cyrus’s lies to Hikari never truly ended up being so clear, and for it – neither would her answer be. For he followed his own advice to her effortlessly; he spoke the truth to her at every stop, every crossroads that they had come to share over the course of those two long years. --The way he had lied, was by having behaved as though he never would’ve be capable of causing her harm.

(He had thought, deep in his soul, that he never could’ve, either.

But fear makes people act irrationally and wrong… Emotions, truly, were the bane of humanity’s existence.)

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“… Together we pored over myths and exposed their secrets. Together we captured legendary Pokémon. And now, Team Galactic has obtained the energy to change the world!”

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The lies that had been spoken, however, had always been aimed towards those whom perhaps deserved them the very least… Cyrus, at his core, was not – and is not – a man who spoke untruths for his own personal gain. He never did manipulate, gaslight nor fake any action that he took – did not falsify any opinions that he held. --What he did do, was tell half-truths to those whom trusted him most.

Josefina – Commander Jupiter – had followed his every step like a pup lusting for its owner’s affection; and he had strung her along by the promise of a life greater than the one she currently led.

She had left behind her family, her security, for the promise of what he could give her.

A life with him, in a world with no strife or heartache. A life where she no longer would feel a void within the cage inside her breast.  

He had lied to Saturn just as well, but the boy never truly had been as gullible and trusting as all f the rest. Sevestyan, much like those before him, grew from promising beginnings and left it all behind; all via his own personal choice. And though he never got to know the full extent of what he had gotten himself into until it was far too late to back out – he had followed the beat of their wretched drum for the sake of earning the power high his street gangs no longer could afford him.

He had been greed personified, and had wished for the world within his palm. --And Cyrus had promised him that it would be so.

… He had lied to Mars in ways that perhaps weren’t so grand. In ways that, if one read between the lines, had held little meaning or purpose other than to help the young girls mind settle.

He had promise her the safety of a family – together with himself, and those that she knew she could trust.

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“…Though our missions may differ, our hearts beat as one.”

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With every single one of them, lies of different degrees had manifested themselves. Be it by his own half-truths, or by the perceived lies of the accuser. But… Does this make him a liar? A manipulator who’s irredeemable in the eyes of the world?

Does it make him a fraud?

Cyrus himself, in all honesty, wouldn’t know what the correct answer would be. What it should be. --But he would hope that no matter which one was correct – that who he was now, was different from whom he had been.

Hopefully he has grown in ways that are different from simply height.

If only by just a little.