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rafesbabyg1rl · 2 months ago

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The Watcher ~ Part One

Part Two, Part Three,

Summary: Rafe Cameron x Reader, Stalker!Rafe x Pogue!Reader Reader's parents work late on Friday nights, which she spends alone. Except Reader hasn't been alone in a long time, not that she knows of at least. Rafe has watched you for years, he's very good at it. He has no plans of formally meeting you, as he's satisfied with the current arrangement. He likes it better when Reader doesn't know he's watching. But his idea of staying an anonymous stalker is ruined when reader catches him in her bedroom one Friday night. Rafe has to figure out how to fix his mistake before he loses the only thing that makes his life worth living.

Warnings: Rafe stalks reader...that's literally the entire plot. He's pretty pervy in this, I guess. Masturbation (Rafe) in front of unconscious reader, strong/vulgar language, somnophilia (I guess?), death threat(?). If I missed anything from this part that I should include in the warnings, please let me know!

Word Count: 5.9k

Author Note: My sneak peek got a few likes, so thank you if you liked it, y'all are the reason I'm finally posting this part! I'm not sure how I feel about this fic so far, I definitely have a habit of overly critiquing my own work and never being fully satisfied with it, but I'm trying to get over that. I don't have plans for this fic, it's just going in whatever direction I can think of as I write, so if you have any suggestions, PLEASE PLEASE PLEASEEE let me know, I'll write pretty much anything. This is my first work published on tumblr and the first thing I've written in years, so I hope it's at least readable, and maybe even a little enjoyable. If just one person enjoys this, then my mission is accomplished. Thank you, I hope you enjoy! And do NOT be shy to share feedback or give suggestions/requests. Again, thank you!

For those of you that DID read the sneak peek, a large portion of this part was included in the sneak peek, but I highly suggest reading it over in it's entirety. This draft has undergone several additional rounds of editing and I believe it is better than the version I published as a sneak peek.

CREDITS: The foundation of this fic was heavily inspired by/ based off of one of @faiszt 's bots on character ai. So, if you like this and you like character ai, I greatly suggest that you check out the bot!

One thing about humans is that we always want what we can’t have, especially when everyone else wants that same thing. It’s just something all humans do; but what happens when you already have more than you need and everything you could ever want? Well, almost everything. Rafe Cameron has more money than he could spend in his own lifetime, he can practically buy anything he wants. Except one thing, you.

At first he just thought you were pretty, but the more he saw you out in public the more and more he liked you. The way you’d talk or laugh when you were out with your friends…god, he could tell just how sweet you are. Too delicate for him to touch, like the wings of a butterfly or the petals of a flower. This is when he went from wanting you to needing you.

See, another thing about humans is that we admire things. And, admiration can easily turn into obsession. Everyone has been obsessed with something or someone at some point in life, it’s normal. Obsessions will come and go, like a cycle. You get obsessed with something, you get over it, and you let it go until a new obsession marks the beginning of the new cycle. But things are a bit different for Rafe, he has never gotten over anything like, ever. Not once has Rafe Cameron ever let anything in his life go. When Rafe wants something, when he needs something, he will do whatever it takes to get it. And oh, how he needs you.

Rafe’s fascination, his obsession with you has been going on for years. He won’t ever admit it, but his perfectly curated collection of your personal items in his closet proves just how bad he’s been obsessing over you. The first thing he had ever stolen from you was your drink, you had been at the same party and you left your red solo cup about three-quarters full. Nobody noticed anything when he casually picked up the cup and finished the rest of your beer, purposely lining his lips with where yours had touched the cup, which was perfectly marked by the lipstick you had been wearing. After you’d leave a restaurant, he’d take the straws from your drinks. Rafe eventually worked himself up to breaking into your house and stealing your things when nobody was home. And Rafe made sure to explore every single inch of your room. All of your favorite panties? Gone. He’d take everything, your shirts, bras, whatever he liked really. You had noticed things kept disappearing from your room, but you’d just think you misplaced it–whatever it may be, or left it in a bag somewhere. Rafe had a good system. He knows exactly how much and how often he can take from you.

Rafe knows he’s sick. He knows that it’s wrong to watch you from outside your bedroom window, that it’s wrong to follow you around in public, to purposely bump into you so you have to mutter a ‘sorry’ as you move around him. He just really, really needs you. And in Rafe’s twisted, dark, mess of a mind he believes this is the best way–the only way. He couldn’t treat you like every other girl, no, you were special. You were his and you just didn’t know it yet. Starting early on in his life, Rafe has always been neglected, always pushed into the shadow of his younger sister, Sarah. He’s been told he ruins everything, that everything he touches turns to ash. And you’re way too perfect to ruin. So, he follows you around like a creep, lurking from a distance. Of course you didn't know he’s been following you everywhere…he liked it better that way.

Rafe knew the line had already been crossed. Hell, the line had been crossed a long fucking time ago. He doesn’t care anymore, he needs you. Heaven is smelling like you; and not because you had left your scent on him, but because he had bought the same perfume as you. He needed to know what you smell like, how sweet you are…how sweet you taste. Heaven is watching your chest rise and fall as you sleep peacefully in your bed. Heaven is you.

What Rafe has been doing to you for years could be defined as worship. Rafe was worshiping you. He’s your good boy; your loyal man and he was going to take care of you; protect you, even if you don’t know it yet. You’re what he lives for; you’re all that keeps him going, the only thing he cares about.

Since he’s been watching you for years, of course he knew your schedule. Of course he knew that on Fridays your parents work late at the local bar & grill that they own. This means you slept in your house by yourself practically every Friday night. So every Friday night, Rafe would sneak in through the back door that you always forget to lock. He just wants to check on you, he wants to see his pretty girl sleeping beautifully, he wants to know that his baby is okay. This is not a crime, it’s not a crime to care; he’s not insane, he’s just in love–if you could even call it that. How can it be wrong to protect what’s his? Oh, and god forbid anyone ever get in the way of his stalking routine, if anyone were to take you away from the inevitable path of meeting him…oh, the things he would do; whatever it takes.

One unforgettable Friday night, you fall asleep on your couch watching a rerun of one of your favorite shows. You enjoy being alone. If only you knew you haven’t been alone for a very long time. You’re woken up by sudden, loud noises coming from your bedroom, but you think maybe it’s just the cat, or maybe you didn’t shut your window. You get up from the couch and in several slow, cautious steps you tiptoe over to your room. When you enter your doorway, you’re immediately greeted by the sight of a tall and broad man standing in the center of your bedroom holding the last shirt you wore to his nose, breathing in your scent. The sight of all this makes you immediately freeze and stand motionless in your bedroom doorway, staring at him blankly.

Rafe doesn’t startle when he realizes you’ve caught him red-handed. Instead, quite the opposite actually. He’s actually a bit amused, relieved even; if you hadn’t caught him just now, he never would’ve been able to work up the nerve to finally talk to you. He didn’t want to have to be creepy about things between you two, but he couldn’t talk to you like a normal person. It’d be too unpredictable, too unknown. Meeting you like this…he has all of the control.

“There you are,” he grinned. “How beautiful…” The strangely offputting man gloated in your fear and it was obvious.

You take a step back from where you had been frozen. He takes a step forward. This cannot be happening, you think. Your brows furrow in hopelessness and defeat. Again, you freeze where you are standing, even more afraid to move now.

You feel like you’ve seen the man before, which you have, plenty of times; but he was careful to never have too big of an interaction, so that you couldn’t recognize his face. You have no clue that you’ve been and always will be his.

“W-wha…who are you? W-why are you in my house?” You try to keep your voice as strong as possible, but the way your words shake with trepidation betrays you.

The man takes a quick step forward, slowing to a stop and putting his hands up in mock surrender as you jump back. “Woah, woah, hey…calm down, alright?”, he chuckles when he sees the utter horror and complete fright in your eyes. His tone switches into one of a little more seriousness, “I'm not here to hurt you, you don't need to be so scared...”. If you didn’t feel like your only choice was to look him in the eyes, you might even believe him. But, you had no other option but to witness the animalistic spark in his eyes that lit up with each word he spoke. With each step he took, you took one further back—your heart dropped into your stomach at the sight of his cocky, twisted smile and the way he looked at you…like you’re a zebra grazing in your natural habitat and he’s the lion waiting to pounce and attack you in your own home.

“I just wanted to see you," he leaned up against your dresser, taking in the look on your face. His face almost instantly drops the predatory look and adopts one of mock concern, almost convincing enough to hide his amusement. “Hey, it's okay, baby, it’s okay…”

“Please,” you beg. “If you leave I won’t call the cops. I won’t tell.”

Rafe cocks his head and lets out a slow breath, as if he’s disappointed in your reaction; you aren’t supposed to want him to leave. “Hey, hey…I’m not gonna hurt you. Just listen to me…you don’t wanna have to call the cops at three in the morning,” he elaborated. He’s trying to be as convincing as he can because he cannot screw this up. Even so, he still can’t help his smile that only grows at the sight of your terrified face. He shakes the smirk off, adopting a serious expression once more. “Especially when the cops won't be able to do a damn thing.”

He continues to step closer to you with each word. He stops once his figure is looming over you, looking at you like a lion about to pounce on its prey. “You should really be more careful, sweetheart, leaving the back door open like that at this time of night, when you’re all alone…you never know who might be out there.” His voice is cold as he warns you about the dangers of the world; the dangers of himself.

“Who are you?” You repeated. The man looks so familiar but you just couldn’t quite place his face anywhere. You just need to know what he wants; who he is.

“That’s not important right now baby…we’re focused on you, yeah?” The man’s eyes widen, taking in every detail of your face; the only other times he’s seen you this close is when he watches you sleep.

You could feel his breath on your face as he spoke. The look in his eyes tells you to take another step back, but when your back collides with the wall you jump; there’s nowhere left for you to go and that was exactly how he wanted it. He wanted you like this alone, afraid, and cornered. He loved your fear. The man stares at you with a predatory look although aside from the darkness and lust in his eyes, you can see something else, but…what is it?

“W-what do you want?” You ask, keeping as calm as you can. Even though with every passing second the air gets thinner and thinner. Your stomach is in knots and your throat starts to close up. Not to mention the stinging tears in your eyes, threatening to fall at any given moment.

“Me?” he cocked an eyebrow, his eyes shamelessly roaming your body as he blew out a huff. “I just wanna have a little chat, that's all...” The unknown man takes another step towards you, invading your personal space, his tall frame towering over you as his bottom lip finds a home between his teeth. Rafe reaches up and tucks a strand of your hair behind your ear. “No need to be so scared, baby...”

“T-talk about what?” You have no idea what this man who you don’t know, could possibly want to talk about with you. Why is he acting like he knows you when you’re sure you’ve never even seen him before? Why is he…admiring you? No, that couldn’t be right. The mystery man is so confusing, all his twists and turns giving you whiplash.

“Ah, you see...” he responds, pausing to place his other hand on the wall behind you, almost trapping you in. You feel his hot breath against the sensitive skin of your face, burning you like hot steam. His breath was slow and steady. He was completely calm. He liked this. He gave you a genuine smirk, bringing his face closer to your ear. “It’s more of a proposition really…”

“What is it…?” You ask. Not out of curiosity because honestly, you’re too afraid to know. But because you figure things might, just might go better for you if you play along. He stayed silent for a moment—enjoying the look in your eyes and your erratic breathing.

“All this fear…all this trembling...” he trails off as he brings his hand up to your chin, his thumb slowly tracing the outline of your lower lip. “It's nice to finally meet you...” He chuckles and leans in so that his lips nearly touch your ear. “Will you stop shaking like that if I tell you what I want?” His thumb moves from your bottom lip and he tucks a piece of your hair behind your ear; he doesn’t want anything getting in the way of his view of your pretty face.“Hmmm?” he challenged. “Or will you still be shaking like a scared little puppy?”

“I-I don’t…” You stutter, not being able to speak or even think clearly with the way he’s glaring at you.

“Shhhh… ” he tutted, bringing his other hand from the wall to your lower back and drawing you even closer to him—until your body was almost flush against his, his touch surprisingly warm. “You're not answering my question,” he whispers your name as he runs his fingers through your hair, it’s softer than he’d imagined.

“Please just…” The tears were no longer threatening as they began to fall down your cheeks. “Please…” Hearing this man who you do not know, say your name, was probably the most frightening thing to happen to you yet.

“Shhh, stop that...” he calmly commanded when he saw the tears falling from your pretty eyes. Rafe's voice was soft but stern—he hated seeing you so distressed. His hand moved from your lower back to your chin, making you look up at him. “Hey it’s okay…it’s okay baby, no need for tears. I just wanna talk to you is all." You almost believe him for a moment with how sincere the glint in his eyes appeared. But you’ve picked up on his manipulative expressions.

“My parents will be home soon…” You vaguely remember your parents mentioning something about something and blah blah blah…they’re closing early tonight. You really hope it’s true and isn’t just a figment of your imagination; something your mind is making up so you don’t completely give up.

A cocky smile returned to his face as he let a small huff of amusement slip past his lips. He knew your parents were working late, just like every other Friday night. "Bullshit,” he chuckled. His hand moved back to your lower back, holding you against him. “It’s just you and me, pretty girl.” He grabs your waist and within the next second, you’re on your bed and he’s hovering over you. You can feel his hot breath in your ear, you can smell him, feel the excessive heat radiating from his body. He speaks quietly now, more serious than he’s been this entire time, “Don’t ever fuckin’ lie to me again. Got it?”

His words provoke a small whimper from you. How long has he been watching you? What’s he gonna do? What does he want to talk about? Your mind is filled with questions you’re too afraid to ask. “I-I’m not lying.” He leans down, his lips almost touching yours. Rafe’s eyes are looking straight into yours, admiring the complete and utter fear your eyes possess. He doesn’t want you to be scared of him. But fuck, does he love it.

“Oh yeah?” He mumbles as he presses his face into your hair, taking in your scent. He can’t believe he’s finally this close to you. He didn’t think it’d ever happen, and if you didn’t catch him tonight, it probably wouldn’t have. It’s meant to be, he thinks. “What did I tell you about lying, hm baby? I know you’re fuckin’ lyin’ to me, so you wanna try that again?”

Before your brain could muster up some bullshit response, the sound of the front door unlocking echoes through the hall and into your bedroom. Rafe holds his breath and puts his hand over your mouth, causing your eyes to widen as he leans to the side to glance down the hallway at the front door. “Shh…”, he whispers. You weren’t lying. Your parents came home from work early and they’re about to turn the doorknob and come inside the house. Rafe looks at you, the look in his eyes beyond unsettling. “Tell the cops…tell anyone, and I’ll come back and fuckin’ kill you, okay? This is our secret. Don’t make me come back and hurt you babe, I really, really don’t wanna have to do that, alright?”

He has to be bluffing, right? But, when you look up to meet his gaze, you can tell; you can tell he meant every single syllable that he spoke. It’s not like the cops would believe you if you said you had a stalker anyways, you’re a pogue. And cops never believe a pogue. Rafe doesn’t need a response from you, the fear in your eyes tells him all he needs to know.

Just before you hear the front door open, Rafe smirks at you. “We’re gonna have so much fun together baby.” Reluctantly, the disturbed man leans back and takes his hands away from you. Without another word, he walks over to your bedroom window and pushes it open. Before ducking to climb out, the large man looks back at you. Your breath hitches even further if that’s even possible.

“Goodnight puppy.” The outline of his smug grin is visible even in the darkness of your room. Just as you hear the quiet voices of your parents enter your house, the dark figure turns and exits your window. When the man is outside you sit up and rush over to shut and lock the window behind him.

With caution, Rafe watches as your mother comes to peek her head in your bedroom. She only lingers in your doorway long enough to see your dark shape laying in bed. Covered in blankets, you pretend to sleep, knowing that you wouldn’t be able to hold a casual conversation with your mother at the moment. And the last thing you want to do is raise any alarm. Not while he’s out there–whoever he is. Hot, salty tears fall from your eyes, wetting the soft skin of your cheeks. When she shuts the door, you let out a shaky breath, finally being able to breathe.But, you keep your eyes sealed shut. At least then you can’t see if the man is still watching you from outside your window. You lie awake for hours, how are you meant to go back to sleep after whatever the hell just happened? All you can do now is wait. Is he coming back? When will he come back? Who is he? Why does he want you? There’s a million different questions and worst scenarios circling around in your head. So, you just wait, it’s all you can do.

As you wait, the hours turn into days, days turning into a week as the next Friday approaches you; you spend your time worrying about having to be home alone again. There still had been no sign of him since your encounter last week, but you decide to stay the night at a friend’s house, not wanting to take the risk. The second Friday after you came face-to-face with your stalker, you get a friend to spend the night with you. And now, after four weeks of waiting there’s still no sign of the deranged man. Although, if you had no knowledge of him stalking you for years he clearly is good at staying hidden. As the fourth Friday approaches, you think over your options. You can go to a friend’s house or have a friend stay over, as you’ve been doing. But, you’re tired of waiting for something to happen. You’re sick of not feeling safe in your own home and of having to look over your shoulder at all times. You used to love being alone, and now it’s been weeks since you’ve spent any time to yourself. You’ve had enough. This Friday you’re not hiding, you’re done being a coward. You will not allow this creep to keep taking away everything you love; you won’t allow yourself to waste any more time worrying about that psycho. So, you stay at home by yourself. He’s not gonna show, right? He was just bluffing or on drugs or something, that’s what you convince yourself.

You pull back the fluffy comforter on your bed and climb in. You pull the covers up and completely over yourself, you used to do this as a little girl when you’d have a nightmare or you’re scared of the thunder or the monster in your closet. If the blanket could protect you when you were little it should work now…right? Well, maybe it’d still work if you had a nightmare, but logically, what is it gonna do against your stalker? But no matter how much you force yourself to believe that he’s not coming back, you still find yourself praying. You’ve never been very religious, but recently you pray to whoever will listen.

You had bought some sleeping pills from the store a few days after you discovered your secret stalker. They helped you sleep, since your brain hasn’t once stopped thinking about him since the whole fiasco. Reaching over, you pull out the drawer of your nightstand. You grab the bottle of pills, you swallow a couple dry and set the rest on your nightstand. The pills start to kick in quite sooner than usual, must be because you took double the amount…you’re gonna need them to fall asleep tonight. Your first night alone in weeks. In just a few short minutes, you’re out cold, buried underneath an absurd amount of pillows and blankets.

Rafe spent the past few weeks feeling overwrought after what he did. He feels wrong–a feeling he’s not used to experiencing. But it’s because he knows he’s ruined any chance he might’ve had with you. Before you caught him in your bedroom, he had a chance that you could meet him regularly and think he was just a normal guy. But now, all hopes of you ever thinking he’s ‘normal’ have been abandoned. He actually feels shame and…regret for his actions? He’s been seeing less and less of you, and it’s making him angry, so fucking angry. Your schedule has been relatively the same for the past years and now you’re switching it up? You’re hiding from him; running from him just like everyone else in his life. Maybe the things his family has been saying about him for most of his life is true; maybe everything he touches does turn to ash. God, why does he ruin everything?

You are the one thing, the only thing that Rafe did not want to ruin. You’re the one thing in his life that’s too perfect to ruin…too innocent. But, the damage has been done. He doesn't have many options left. He could leave you alone, but then he’d be weak for not sticking to his word and he can’t have you thinking he’s weak and that you have the power. He could go back, but then what would he do? There was absolutely no way in hell you’d seriously talk to him, and he didn’t want to force himself onto you. He really wanted you to need him back, you have to want it. But everything you do or say now will be out of fear, it’ll be you trying to stay alive. He wanted you to be desperate for him, not desperate to get rid of him. Either way, you’re never gonna forgive him; you’ll always hate him now. Since you’ll feel the same no matter what he does now, he decides that he just needs to see you, he needs to talk to you again. It’s been far too long since he’s been close to you. He can’t take another goddamn second without seeing his reason to live.

He hurries over to your house, parking an entire block away as usual. He makes sure no eyes are on him as he sneaks around to your backyard. Rafe tries peeking through the curtains that block your window to see if you were in bed or not, but he can’t get a good view. He needs to know if you’re home. He needs to see you.

Rafe sneaks around to the side of your house, checking all windows and doors in the process, but he has no such luck. But he doesn’t give up yet, he’ll get in, he’ll find a way. He tries the side door that leads into your garage. He lets out a giant breath of relief when the door clicks open. Once he’s inside the garage, he takes a quick glance around to analyze his surroundings and burn every inch of your house into his memory. When he finally enters your house, he takes his time to look around. Obviously Rafe knew you were a pogue–he knew everything about you, but you never really looked or acted like one. However, the inside of your home puts your life on display, making it very clear you’re a pogue.

You sleep soundly, only being interrupted by the occasional dream; completely unaware that your stalker is making his way down the hall and into your bedroom. Rafe opens the door quietly. Your room is dark like the rest of your house, but the moonlight shining through your thin curtains provides just enough light that he can see the outline of your sleeping body. Now that your presence has been confirmed, he feels like he can finally breathe and he lets out a breath he didn’t even know he was holding.

Before he became totally obsessed with you and he’d see you occasionally in public, you used to just make him horny. He’d catch a glimpse of your smile or hear the softness in the way you spoke, or the innocence in your sweet laugh and his dick would be hard within seconds. And when his obsession grew and he’d watch you more frequently, sex with other girls started not doing anything for him. He needed you…he needs you. When he actually started paying attention to the way you spoke, the way you acted, he fell in love–what he thinks is love anyways. Rafe realized you’re the sweetest, most pure person he’s ever known. He didn’t think people like you really existed. His discovery led him to watch you more closely, he started taking more risks just because he needed to find your flaw. There’s no way you’re actually this perfect, it has to be an act. Now, after years of watching you he can confidently say that you really are just that perfect. Rafe needs you for more than just getting off now, he needs your comfort, he needs the kindness that radiates off of you. Which is why he’s always trying to find a way to get closer to you, he needs to absorb your sweetness. But hes really done it now; he’s fucked up big time. You hate him.

He hadn’t realized that the hate he brought upon you would tint the kindness that radiates for your being. He has to get you to let go of the hate he’s caused you, he needs you to be yourself again. He just doesn't know how, if it’s even possible.

As you sleep soundly, his large frame towers over you as he stares down at you through the darkness. You look so peaceful, so innocent. It physically pains him to know that he’s taken away parts of your innocence. All he can do is stare at you as he mentally curses himself. He can’t wake you up and ruin your small moment of peace. It’s better if you don’t know he’s there.

Your stalker slowly raises his hand and uses his thumb and pointer finger to pull your blanket down to your knees. Even with the blankets pulled down most of your body was hidden from him. Almost everything is left to the imagination in the loose, patterned pj pants and the oversized, long sleeve shirt that you’re wearing. He can only see a small portion of your lower stomach due to your shirt slightly riding up. And that small bit of skin is enough to trigger his memories of you. Because of course he’s seen you countless times; he’s got your body memorized.

He’s practically panting as he takes in the sight of you, imagining that you’re unclothed beneath him; his memory is sharp enough to almost see it. His cock grows to press against his jeans and his eyes trail up to your beautiful face. The ache in his needy cock starts to become unbearable. Your name slips past his lips in the form of a mumble when he starts to palm himself through his newly tightened jeans.

Okay, Rafe has definitely jerked off to the thought of you, your smell…everything about you makes him lose whatever control he ever even had to begin with. Something he hasn’t gotten to do yet is jerk off with you right in front of him as a live viewing source, fresh for his eyes. He’s gonna be able to cross that off the bucket list soon enough; he can’t wait any longer. His hand stops its ministrations over his jeans as his head turns and he moves over to your closet, grabbing a pair of delicate, worn panties from the top of your laundry hamper. He brings the treasure up to his nose to smell you. God, he could cream his fucking pants right now. He quietly walks back over to you, taking a look at the pill bottle on your nightstand. He picks it up with his free hand, eyes quickly scanning over the label. He smirks as he sets it back down. Rafe turns his head to look back at you. His smirk grows even wider as he leans back, cocking his head as he observes you. Yeah, you’re definitely gonna be out for a while.

With his pants and boxers around his ankles, he stands over you. Your panties between his hand and his cock as his fist slowly pumps up and down his length. His other hand meticulously pulls your shirt up to reveal your chest.

“Fuckkk…” he whispers under his breath as his bottom lip is held captive between his teeth. Your perfect tits are spilling out of your bra as you lie asleep on your back. He lightly fiddles with the ends of your hair as his hand pumps over his dick repeatedly and without rhythm. He takes his time, Rafe never likes to rush this. Especially not with you.

Your subconscious mind reacts to his light touch and sounds, pulling you into a wet dream; seeing as a main side effect of the medication you took was vivid dreams. You’ve also been unusually horny lately, probably because you’d been too afraid to touch yourself when you thought you were being watched twenty-four/seven. His fingers trail up your stomach and into the valley of your breasts with feather light touch.

You stir a bit, not because you felt him, but because the dream you’ve been thrown into by your subconscious is starting to get your body all worked up. You’ve been extra horny recently and keep having sex dreams since you haven’t been able to touch yourself the past few weeks, having a stalker and all. As he leans down to lightly kiss the skin in between your boobs, a moan slips past his lips, vibrating off of your skin and interrupting the mostly silent room. The only other sound that can be heard in the quiet room is that caused by Rafe’s hand quickly moving up and down his cock; the friction caused by the soft fabric of your panties generates a quiet noise. Pre-cum leaks from his slit and seeps into the fabric of your recently worn panties. He leans back down to create a hickey on your chest and hopes that you won’t wake up from the sudden feeling, although if you did that might be even better. Shaking the selfish thought out of his head, he sucks strongly at the smooth skin between your beautiful tits. He pulls his mouth off with a pop! Leaning back to see the mark he left, he smirks knowing you’ll see it too eventually. The already rhythmless movements of his hand gets even more erratic the closer he gets to reaching his orgasm.

The man standing above you runs his hand back down your chest and abdomen as you sleep. Completely unaware of what's happening to your physical body right now, you begin to get all wrapped up in your dream. You only ever get sex dreams when you’re so overly horny, which you’ve been the past few weeks. That combined with the sleeping medication you took, made this particular dream feel different; it felt so…real. The only dream-like part about it was that you couldn’t see the man's face for whatever reason.

While you’re in a deep sleep, you involuntarily let out a needy whine as your active mind plays games with you. When Rafe hears you he thinks he imagined it, until he hears you do it again. He wonders if you could feel him, except he’s not even touching you right now. Realizing that's clearly not the reason, he furrows his brows in confusion. He pulls the duvet cover completely off of you to reveal the way you keep periodically squirming as your body searches for the same feeling your mind is experiencing; and the way your toes tighten up and curl as you’re tricked into thinking you feel pleasure.

He can’t take it, not when you look like this. The man hovering over your unconscious figure lets out a lewd moan that corrupts the silence as hot strings of his cum spurt out of the pink, glistening tip of his cock and onto the pair of your panties that he's got clenched in his fist, immediately soaking into the fabric. Surprisingly, when he gets through his orgasm, he adoringly covers you back up with your blankets and leaves your house, locking the door he entered through to be sure you were safe. He got enough to satisfy him for now as he works on a plan to change the way you think of him. He’ll be back for more of you soon enough. He has to fix this; the biggest mistake he’s ever made and the only regret he’ll ever carry.

To be continued...

Thank you for reading! I hope this was enjoyable and not a waste of time. I spent a lot of time on this part, especially with the editing since I never really feel done with anything. If you have literally ANY feedback, questions, or suggestions, PLEASE feel free to let me know! I don't really have any solid plans for this fic so if you have any ideas I just might include them, there's not much I won't write!

I'd like to thank @faiszt for inspiring me to write this fic!

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1moreff-creator · 2 months ago

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DRDT CH2 PT2: Full Analysis

While CH2 Part 2 was releasing, I chose to make liveblog-reaction posts to the episodes to record my immediate thoughts for posterity, but that meant that actual, coherent analysis was pushed to the side in favor of me freaking out over… everything going on. But goddamn; even accounting for recency bias, this might just be my favorite trial of any DR style killing game I’ve ever seen (though admittedly I'm working with a small sample size). So I felt it merited a bit more… cohesive analysis. That’s what this post is!

WARNING: This post is around 28k words long. Do not click "read more" unless you're ready for lag, and make sure to take breaks while reading if needed.

Spoilers for DRDT CH2. CW: Murder, suicide, hanging, execution, gun violence, self-harm, blood, stabbing (fork).

(Btw you can find my immediate reactions in my post masterlist. Not linking each individually here because I hit Tumblr's 100 link limit. I know, I know)

How do I even structure this? I guess I’ll start with the actual case itself, then go character by character because WOW.

Also, I hope you forgive that I can't put images for every referenced piece of dialogue (Tumblr 30 image limit when I catch you...), so I'll save them for when they're necessary and instead add links to the referenced quote in the episode.

The Case

Although I’ve made many posts talking about this damn thing, I don’t think I’ve ever expressed just how cool the actual mystery is. The evidence is all there from the beginning bar the note and alibis, introduced in a way that doesn’t make the method obvious, but that still allowed the audience to figure out the main aspects without much issue. Everything follows logically, and while there’s a few things that ended up being less important than some expected (that glove will haunt the fandom forever I fear), everything got explained in what I consider to be a pretty satisfactory way. It wasn’t obscenely complex or crazy, but I consider the method to be just right for a chapter 2 case.

Oh and the Nico case was cool too, even if half the shit in that crime scene will haunt me forever. Why were there two weights off to the side-? not important.

If there’s one critique I can give the actual discussion of the case (and this is legitimately the only real critique I have of this entire set of episodes), I’d argue that the way the method is presented is… weird. Like, I get why, DRDT is clearly more focused on character conflict than the murder mystery aspect, but there were still a lot of moments where it felt like Teruko’s thought process wasn’t explored properly, to the point where it sometimes felt like Teruko just… magically got the answers whispered to her by the ghost of Kirigiri.

As an example, take the ball of clothes over the rafters. Ace mentions the issue of getting the rope up there, and Teruko immediately jumps to the right conclusion of the seemingly completely unrelated ball of clothes.

To illustrate why this feels weird, let me tell you what my thought process was when I came up with the theory (because again, the evidence was laid out well enough that I did manage to call this, even if I got a fair bit of other stuff wrong). Obviously it's not the only admissible thought process, but it's a good example to see how I feel the presentation of evidence should have been handled.

We know Arei was hung from high up (Veronika’s account) -> We can confirm something happened on the rafters because the lights are broken -> Brainstorming how that could have happened (screening room connection? Secret ladder?) -> Perhaps something was thrown up there with the rope attached -> Ball of clothes.

In the series, however, we get:

Arei was probably hung from high (Veronika’s account) -> Discussion continues, literally the entirety of Nico's situation gets explained -> Ace brings up the issue for the first time like three years later-> Teruko immediately points to the ball of clothes -> The lights are only mentioned after.

You get what I'm saying? The progression doesn't feel as natural, because we immediately jump to the conclusion without discussing the evidence that leads to it. This also happens with things like the pulley method, where Teruko explains everything before bringing up the tape on the spinny thing, which is the only thing implicating said spinny thing in the method. And I feel like the reason quite a few people felt there should be more to the case is because the evidence wasn't presented properly.

That said, this is an extremely minor point. Again, DRDT is more focused on character drama than murder mystery, so I don’t particularly mind if I can nitpick a few things in the writing surrounding the mystery solving.

And oh boy, was there character drama this trial! Thank the gods I’m only covering Part 2, I think I’d die if I tried to talk about the entire trial as a whole.

Character Analysis

I’ll go in order, starting with the characters I feel had the least prominence, and making my way to the ones who really stole the spotlight this part.

Mai Akasaki

No content lol. Though this is probably a good time to mention that, in this post, I'll mostly ignore theorizing related stuff and focus more on straight up character analysis, even if the two sometimes intersect. Game Theory-like speculation will mostly be saved for dedicated posts :p

Xander Matthews

He got mentioned, but he’ll come up in David’s section so. Skipping him.

Min Jeung

Well, there were a few references. Such as:

Min: I'll fix your mistake! - Teruko: But I'll fix my mistake.

Something something, David-Xander vs Teruko-Min parallels, etc. And also:

I like the visual symbolism that the images are effectively flipped (Teruko on the left-Teruko on the right and hugger on the right-hugger on the left, Teruko facing the camera-Teruko facing away), because the situations are inverted. In Min’s, the culprit hugs Teruko after she dooms them to their fate, and in Eden’s, a non-culprit hugs Teruko as she starts defending them. I did notice on first watch, but didn’t say anything because at the time it was still possible Eden was the culprit. Alas, the symbolism is consistent!

There's only one last thing to mention about Min. One tiny, itsy bitsy detail that probably has no lore relevance whatsoever.

MonoTV [2-16]: Now loading the default XF-Ture Tech personality drivers.

Min [BE1]: But one day, we were visited by the founder of that big company, XF-Ture Tech. He told my parents that he would sponsor me and pay for all of our expenses.

Oh yeah, MonoTV was created by the same company that sponsored Min as the Ultimate Student! Hey, what the fuck?

We'll get into it more later in the (I cannot believe I'm about to say this) MonoTV section (or rather the post linked to in said section), but MonoTV seems to have been created specifically for the killing game. This means there's a very real chance XF-Ture Tech is behind all this. That paints the sponsorship of Min as a strikingly shady thing (well, more than it already was), to the point there's a very real chance Min is straight up connected to the origins of the killing game, if not outright the mastermind. We'll have to see how this plays out later, since right now, we're still lacking a lot of critical context.

But hey! We might get more Min content in the future! I, for one, am very, very excited.

Charles Cuevas

Not too much character insight on this one, but he got a couple of cool moments. As always, funny, bounces well off Whit, very helpful in the trial, weirdly knowledgeable about jockeying (or maybe he just, like, thought about it, it’s not like most of what he says aren’t conclusions anyone could arrive at by simply knowing what horse racing is), and-

Charles [2-15]: I'm the only person reasonable enough to make that sort of judgement call. Everyone else who does so is being biased to the point of idiocy.

-it’s nice to see his pridefulness didn’t just go away after CH1! He’s neat :)

J Rosales/Moreno

Half of her dialogue this part is just her talking about how murder is bad. It’s fine, it’s just odd.

I guess if you want someone to point out murder’s bad, J’s one of the only real options, isn’t she? You need a confrontational character (so no Eden or Rose or Whit), who wouldn’t be a hypocrite (this eliminates Nico, Ace and Levi, arguably Hu since she defends Nico), who is mentally stable enough for their opinion to be held in high regard (this eliminates Arturo, David and Veronika, alongside half the cast), who is willing to derail the trial to talk morality (eliminating Charles and arguably Teruko), and who isn’t dead or missing (like Xander, Arei, Mai or Min).

Wait that’s the whole cast. Holy shit she actually is the only one that makes sense to be murder bashing how is this even possible.

…Regardless, you could still argue that you don’t need someone constantly pointing out murder’s bad, meaning there could very much be a deeper reason J is being so vocal about it. Apart from possibly being setup for her to be primary support moving forward, I personally think all this points to her just having a very strong set of beliefs regarding most things, which we could already kinda infer anyways.

Or maybe Mariabella killed a guy. Yeah, sure. Why not?

Veronika Grebenshchikoba

There were certainly a couple interesting Vero moments here, which is always fun. It was finally confirmed her secret was, as most theorized, the “took on your talent to distract yourself from the need to hurt yourself for fun” one. I mean, I feel like everyone called that one from the moment the curtain fell away from the screen with the motive secrets, but you get the idea.

We also learnt she had a pact with Hu regarding their secrets, which I would love to learn the details of, and definitely makes me interested in where these Recap Foils are going, as well as-

Veronika [2-13]: After all, my own so-called secret isn't even the worst thing I've done. Isn't that so utterly disappointing of this motive?

… whatever the hell that means. Why’s she gotta be so ominous? (I love this about her).

The last notable scenes to point out are all the scenes where she's... Veronika, and I wouldn't have it any other way. Her psychoanalysis of Levi will probably wait for when I talk about him, and her help during the time Teruko was figuring out the murder method is appreciated, but specifically about her:

Veronika [2-15]: Swallow your pride and say that you're too weak, too stupid, and too incompetent to perform this murder. Accept the fact that no one thinks highly of you. Or defend your dignity at the risk of admitting that you're perfectly capable of committing this murder and continue to be our number one suspect.

I just think the voice acting in this line in particular is very auditorily pleasant so I wanted to point it out :D

But Episode 15 actually has a much more insidious Vero moment, which I felt was way more noteworthy. After Ace admits to the crime, he goes on his whole speech, which includes directly calling out Veronika's words as part of the reasoning why he killed, there comes a point when Ace calls himself a "piece of shit", and no one denies it. When that happens, Veronika smiles.

Veronika: Oh my. How tragic.

She is such an awful person, just such a piece of garbage. I adore her.

Anyways, my appreciation of actually horrible women aside, we need to discuss the biggest question she leaves us. And that is "hey, why is her reaction to Ace's execution and Levi's almost death so different from her reaction to Min's death?"

Veronika [about Min, 1-12]: Min died in such a cruel manner...

Veronika [about Levi, 2-16]: If Levi dies because of this... Kehehe... I'm sure I'll miss him, but... This is quite a way to go. I can't say I wasn't entertained.

Veronika [about Ace, 2-16]: Aha... Ahaha... How incredible...

So, after considering it for a little bit, I think we're lacking a little bit too much critical information on Veronika to confidently state why the hell her reaction is so different, but I can come up with a few different possible answers. I'll list them in ascending order of likeliness in my opinion, and we'll see just how wrong I am once we get more insight on her!

+Veronika cares more about Levi than Ace, and more about Min than Levi. This is because she just said Ace's execution was "incredible," while she mentions she'll miss Levi, and obviously looks genuinely distressed over Min. I see no actual reason to believe this, though, because I... don't think Vero and Min ever even interacted beyond the trial? So unless we're pulling some very strange Veromin agenda out of nowhere (or Veronika is Mai Akasaki), this doesn't work imo.

+Veronika was acting in T1, but doesn't care by the start of T2. Possible, and it's true that Vero was more self-conscious about freaking people out in CH1, but I'm not sure if there's enough evidence to truly say she was only pretending to be distressed by Min's death.

+Veronika's reactions are based on the executions (and execution attempt) themselves, not anything else. This is consistent with her specifically reacting to the way Min died ("Min died in such a cruel manner") rather than the death itself. She specifically says she'd be entertained by Levi's death, and is clearly entertained by Ace's. So, I guess she just finds Min's execution particularly cruel/boring? Does she... have wolf related trauma? Test related trauma? I don't know, but I think this fits decently well, so.

+Veronika's slowly getting worse. A logical conclusion from the fact that she reacted one way in T1, and another literally four days later. Certainly possible given her analysis of people shattering in the killing game, so for now this is the interpretation I'm going with.

Whit Young

.... Sigh. You're not even that important to this part, how are you still gonna require so many words of analysis?

Alright, let's start with the pretty infamous scene where he talks about drop hanging. I do want to make one thing clear; just because Whit talks for a pretty long time about drop hanging, it doesn’t mean he actually says anything particularly groundbreaking. Like, everything he says is very logically sound, which means they’re conclusions anyone could have drawn.

Like me. Because even though I don’t think I wrote them down explicitly, I did more or less arrive at the same conclusions as he did, and I don’t have any experience with drop hanging. I’m clarifying this because I’m on enough lists as it is just by firefoxing shit like “can turpentine knock you out” and “how long do people pass out after being strangled” I do not need any more allegations on my person!

That said, I am also not a fictional character who exists within a story which follows narrative conventions (as far as you know, anyways). Whit is. And it’d be silly to instantly dismiss that the dev specifically chose Whit, a character who is otherwise not the most helpful in trials, to be the one to deliver this explanation, and without any interruptions no less. Even Teruko and Charles usually have one character or another finishing their explanations, like Levi when Teruko explained the slingshot or… Levi when Charles talked about jockeying. Huh, Levi kinda goated?

Thus, because the dev specifically chose Whit to give this explanation with no interruptions, we can infer that he may have a special connection to drop hanging. Given what we know, I find it likeliest that his mother committed suicide by hanging. At present, I don’t find much evidence that he would have attempted himself, though…

You know how Whit dyes his hair to look like his mom’s? And how Color Theory in LGI gives him (among other stuff) “degraded copy”, likely in reference to this? If his mother killed herself via hanging, do you think he would try to replicate that, too?

Food for thought. Again, not much reason to believe it yet.

Other than that, there are... the allegations. The part started strong with MonoTV stating it let slide a rule violation because it was funny (especially weird given what we learn in 2-16, but Whit's not the only rulebreaker in the cast so we're chilling). And then, 2-16 happened.

Whit [seven seconds before Teruko's execution, 2-16]: Charles, stop talking and cover your eyes! [...] Whit [post Levi shooting]: Ah, crap. The smell of blood is really strong. Even though I told [Charles] not to look, he still...

And, of course.

Whit: ...

Of course.

Alright, so let me start by the elephant in the room. The hand behind the back. The moment the cast learns the elevator doors won't open, we see Whit with his left hand behind his back. Many have assumed this means, understandably in my opinion, that he may be holding a remote control of some kind to close the elevator. In other words, Whit's the mastermind. But, while I consider him one of if not the best mastermind guess in the market, I don't think this is good evidence of it.

You see, there's no reason to believe such a remote would be required. By all accounts, it should be MonoTV's AI who is keeping the elevator closed with no need for outside interference, regardless of who the MM is. There is simply no reason to believe that any MM would have an "elevator manual stop" or even an universal remote (apart from J!MM for obvious reasons), because it should be MonoTV who is running this stuff.

As an aside, I will point out that, per the CH1 QnA, every character is right-handed apart from Teruko (lefty) and Arei (ambidextrous). You could use this to argue Whit shouldn't be doing anything with his left (the hand behind his back), but that's not good reasoning, as the sprite might just be drawn that way for aesthetic reasons and you're supposed to ignore handedness. Eden also used her left to rip out Xander's eye, apparently. I haven't seen anyone bring it up, but I have made this mistake before with a certain bat swinging Milgram prisoner, so I'm saying this to avoid others making the same mistake.

That clarified, however, the first point is still valid. Although I consider it perfectly possible, at present I do not believe Whit is holding anything behind his back.

Why does he pose like that, then? To answer that, perhaps it'd be better to answer what the deal with his other behavior is.

Because it's weird, right? Whit focuses on Charles even when everyone else, Charles included, are fretting over Teruko and Levi. And then, despite being able to brush off things like Levi's secret confession and Min's execution with nothing but a "that's wack," joking about rewatching said execution, etc., somehow the elevator being closed is what finally gets him to bring out the breakdown sprite?

Well, yes. And this shouldn't be all that surprising, imo. Because everything about Whit's reaction is perfectly in line with his previous behavior. Not to say it isn't weird (it is), just that it's weird in the way Whit's always been weird, and not in any new special way.

This is because every part of this reaction comes from the already established way Whit deals with tragedy; he avoids it, and moves on. You'll immediately think of Whit's mom when I say that, the way he omits her death whenever he speaks of her to the point he genuinely forgets that's a thing until a few seconds after the secret Rose received was brought into the conversation, but there's more examples that are actually closer to this situation. In particular, I want to direct your attention to the investigations in both chapters so far.

For the first trial, Whit spends literal hours hanging out with Charles while the Chemist has a breakdown, to the point he almost didn't investigate at all. This is excusable, of course; he was helping someone in need, and the culprit was thought to be obvious enough that investigation wouldn't be necessary.

The second, though, is perhaps a bit stranger. First, Whit doesn't look closely at Arei's body because he was busy comforting Eden, apparently. Alright, fine. But, hey, how did he try to comfort Eden after everyone started to filter in?

Whit [2-8]: There, there. Pat pat. Do you want to sit down somewhere else?

He immediately wants to leave the room. But, he's still trying to help Eden; maybe he's projecting? Because he'd want to leave the room if a loved one died, so he's asking Eden if she wants to do it?

Except, he does leave the room. He doesn't have any other lines in the playground past this point, and then he starts investigating with Charles, the one dude he knows won't enter the scene of the crime.

And you know when he splits off from Charles?

Whit [2-8]: If you're worried about Rose tampering with evidence, then all you need is another witness to watch over her, right? I can do that, since I'm here. I mean, unless Charles needs me for something.

My guy will genuinely do anything except investigate the playground.

And that's where the pattern starts to be noticeable. Whenever something bad happens, Whit finds any excuse he can to distance himself from the situation. And to be clear, they're usually good excuses; it makes sense for Whit to do all this in a vacuum, it's just odd that he constantly finds them. Other examples include him bringing up alibis when the note first comes up, and then, when he's pressed about it:

Whit [2-9]: Eden has [the note]. Ask her.

He doesn't even... want to have the responsibility of the note? Admittedly that could be for other reasons, but still.

With this pattern of avoidance in mind, the things he says in 2-16 are perfectly explainable. Instead of focusing on Teruko's incoming execution or Levi's injuries, he chooses to focus on Charles, because that's easier for him. He's once again finding an excuse to look away from tragedy.

By the way, I don't want to make it sound like Whit doesn't care about Charles as anything but an excuse to get out of thinking of bad stuff. It's pretty clear a big part of why Whit does the shit he does is that he genuinely cares about Charles as a friend (crush?). Whit probably does want to help Charles just for the sake of helping him, but it does come with the benefit of helping Whit avoid stuff he doesn't want to think about.

This whole avoidance thing is also why Whit is so perturbed by the elevator. When Levi gets shot, Whit probably hopes that they get to leave the trial room quickly to take care of him, at which point Whit can just avoid the situation entirely by just sticking to Charles like usual. But they can't. The elevator is shut. Not only does Whit probably realize that means they have to watch the execution, but it also means Whit is not able to get out of the room where a guy is actively dying, and sticking to Charles only lets him ignore the situation so much.

Why does he have his hand behind his back? Well, this is gonna sound like I'm on anti-Whit!MM copium (I swear I like the theory well enough), but I think he's simply balling up his fist out of stress. It's just that Whit "I don't want to talk about any problems ever and don't want anyone to ever know when I'm suffering" Young is instinctively hiding it so no one sees any sign that he might not be okay.

Does that make sense? Barely? Well, it's not like "emergency elevator shutdown button" is particularly more believable in my eyes, so that's the answer I'm going with for now.

Anyways. Jesus Christ Whit you're barely even relevant to this part how the fuck did you still force me to write so much about you.

Arturo Giles

I have less to write about Arturo than Vero and Whit because he's a bit more straightforward, but I'm still putting him here because he was more directly important this part. Speaking of, what notable things did Arturo do these episodes? Ah, right.

Arturo [2-12]: You shut your whore mouth!

"I thought you were only doing necessary imag-" This one's necessary shut

I'm using this to talk about the big speech about his talent, that he started studying plastic surgery when he was 12 and that it's impressive he's a plastic surgeon this early in his life. Props to dev for addressing this, I know some people are irked when characters are in the medical field from way too early in life without good justification like this. The fact he started so young also adds to the theory that Arturo's home life sucked, because it'd be really odd for a 12 year old to already be planning to leave otherwise.

The way the cast keeps insulting his skill, even though as he's said several times over the course of the series, the shit they expect him to do is way beyond his area of expertise, is a good way to build up to the way the cast also dismisses Ace's intelligence and skills later.

Other than that, there was one more moment when Arturo took part of the spotlight. When Levi gets shot, despite everything that happened earlier, everyone still turns to Arturo to save the Stylist. This leads to one of the most human moments Arturo's given us since 2-10:

Arturo [post Levi shooting, 2-16]: I--! I'm not that kind of surgeon! I've told you, over and over, I have no experience with saving lives! Something like this! There's no way I can do it--

Apart from the stellar voice acting that cannot be pointed out enough times, Arturo's doubt over Levi's condition is certainly a good setup for CH3, I'm really interested in how he'll handle this. Especially because...

Do you think he'd think of Felicity, looking at Levi like that? Because just like Arturo ignored Felicity's feelings (to an extent) in pursuit of his dream, he also neglected to study the more standard medical knowledge in favor of becoming a plastic surgeon faster, and now he needs that standard medical knowledge to save Levi's life. Food for thought.

Arturo is definitely an interesting character to watch out for moving forward, he's certainly in for a very curious CH3. Final note:

Arturo [to Levi, 2-13]: How could you simply *forget* that you murdered your own family member?

Get it because the death of Felicity haunts him even though he didn't kill her himself- Man I love recap foils.

MonoTV

I cannot fucking believe that this hunk of metal is getting its own section, but it is. 2-16 what an episode you are.

Thankfully, I've already expressed most of my thoughts about this damn thing in this linked post, so I'll just refer you to that one instead of writing it all again. As a summary, there's quite a few lore implications to the fact that we now have a clearly stated purpose for MonoTV, a goal for the killing game, a connection to XF-Ture Tech (because MonoTV seems to have been specifically created for the game), and I'm really wondering why the hell the default XF personality seems to care so much about Teruko and where that could lead to in the future. Also, very curious where the theme of fate will be taken with it, as well as where dev is planning to take the fact that it seems to have feelings of grief and pain and maybe even cares about Teruko??? Or has compassion in general??? What is wrong with this dog-

Rose Lacroix

Btw I greatly appreciate everyone who colors her name rainbow, I see you and you're valid for it. I need to color code my highlighting though, and if I have to do rainbow for every word I highlight I will actually die. Also I would need to put in an epilepsy warning in my posts lol

Rose got a few nice lines, but when it comes to her, there's one big moment that's really on everyone's mind.

Rose [2-14]: Has it really gotten this bad? I think my brain is falling apart. I can't even recall what day it was when that happened. Levi: You can't remember? I was under the impression that your memory was the best out of everyone here. Rose: It's true that I remember everything I see. But that means that most of my memories are meaningless junk. The kind of thing a normal person would forget without a second thought. But I can't forget. My brain won't work the way I want it to. I can't draw associations so easily. Everything reminds me of something meaningless, and I get distracted. And the worst thing is that I remember it all in perfect detail. Xander's body. Min's execution. I can't even look at Teruko without seeing blood. I know I'm supposed to remember everything. I know I'm supposed to be smart. I know I'm supposed to be helpful. Yet I'm not. I... I'm sorry for being useless. Maybe if I tried harder, if I just got over myself--

Do I... need to talk about this, beyond pointing out how good the VAing is? Everything about it is heartbreaking, but pretty straightforward. It's an extension of the conversation she and Teruko had in 2-5, where we also throw in Rose's growing self-doubt and self-blame over everything that's going on around her. It adds into the theme of this cast pushing expectations on each other (like wanting Arturo to be a better doctor or Ace being too stupid to do a murder), throws in some parallels to Teruko and Hu and Eden (the self-blame sisters!!! *fire emoji* *fire emoji* *fire emoji*) and Xander (the survivor's guilt boy!!! *fire emoji* *fire emoji* fire emoji*), foils with J (J who rejects what others like Mariabella want from her VS Rose who internalizes the expectations and accepts the whole Spurling situation), there's the "a normal person would forget" wording that kinda connects her to Nico and Levi and David (the "feeling separated from other humans' experience" siblings!!! *fire emoji* *fire emoji* *fire-), obviously memory is connected with Charles and Teruko, etc.

You see why I don't always talk about parallels? I have to bring up every single character up every time because that's the shit that happens when your writing is this *fire emoji* *fire emoji* *fire emoji*.

The other thing is Nico, but maybe it's better to keep that for their section. Overall, just a fantastic feast for enjoyers of Rose angst.

Arei Nageishi

You know this trial went crazy when Arei got a whole ass character arc during it, and she's the dead one.

For this part in particular, the big Arei moment was obviously during 2-13, when we finally got to hear the end of the conversation between her and David. I'm not transcribing it, because I'm sure we all got the gist. Arei figured out one of the main themes of the chapter, that everyone is a flawed person, and that means that no one's ever too far gone. There's always a possibility of becoming a less shitty person, and that's sweet.

But beyond Themes, learning what Arei's mindset about good and bad people was really helps to understand her actions before this point, though I do find it interesting that the whole "sorting people into good and bad" mentality she had is actually pretty similar to the way she talks about people in her FTE, which is some fun consistency!

Arei [CH1 FTE]: Yup, that's right! I organize everyone I meet into categories of how I should bully them.

... Well the context's different but you get the idea.

Arei used this principle of "sorting" people into "good" and "bad" to deny herself the possibility of getting better, because trying to change is scary. Man I wonder why that rings a bell.

Teruko [to Whit, 2-2]: But if you start talking about me and saying that I could be a good person if only I make an attempt to change, then I'm going to stop you right there. Don't say that I could be a good person, because all it'll do is make me feel bad that I'm not.

Ah right because Teruko's a well written protagonist. And actually wait, isn't there someone else?

David [2-11]: "People can always change?" What complete bullshit. No one ever changes. People who are born lazy, useless and stupid will stay that way until they die. If you were able to "improve" yourself into a better person, then it only means you were a better person to begin with.

Ah right because David is a well written character. Carry on then.

I do wonder why she waited until night three after the motive handout to talk to David about it, though, instead of doing directly after the playground breakdown. Was it, like, she didn't want to confront it directly after and only got the motivation/courage/whatever after talking to Eden? And then couldn't find David until then? It's odd, but I imagine there's no, like, big reason behind it necessarily.

Eden Tobisa

Hey Eden sorry I suspected you as the killer for a year can we still be friends? :,)

There's two big Eden moments to take into consideration, one in 2-14, one in 2-16.

Eden [2-14]: Why... No one... believes in me... Why? I'm... Arei's killer? No... No way....... Hu: Eden? Please don't cry. Eden: This whole time I've been trying to hold myself together... because Arei died...... I wanted so badly for this all to be a dream, and for Arei to be alive and by my side.... But now, you all think I killer her? Why? I cared about her! Arei is... She could have been my friend! Why would I kill her?? Levi: Eden, please calm down... Eden: Why am I being accused of murdering Arei? I wanted to help her! I just wanted to be friends with her! Why would you say that I killed her? Is it because you think I hated her? That's not true! I didn't hate her! Teruko: Eden.

I'm gonna cut it off there and resume in a bit, partly so I can organize this better and partly to make absolutely sure I don't hit the Tumblr limit on characters in a single text block (because my entire blog is evidently dedicated to testing this hellsite's limits lmao).

There's honestly a surprising amount of nuance in this small breakdown. We start with re-establishing that Eden is someone who constantly tries her hardest to remain strong in the face of adversity, holding herself together as best she can when her newest friend just died and she's more or less blaming herself for it.

Then, while I always praise the voice acting (because it deserves it), I need to bring special attention to the sheer amount of emotion in that "Why? I cared about her!" Hearing Eden genuinely frustrated at the accusations on top of her sadness is heartbreaking, and just a wonderful display of humanity from a character who is at times almost inhumanly patient. Makes me feel bad for suspecting her, and she's fictional in our world!

On top of that, "she could have been my friend" is an interesting choice of words regarding Arei. This is where having hyper-analyzed all Eden lines comes in handy lol. Because taken at face value, it means that Eden recognizes that her relationship with Arei wasn't at a stage where she could genuinely called her a friend, given that as far as we know the last conversation they had was after the Arturo thing. Nice depth!

The rest is pretty standard, though again the phenomenal VAing still makes my heart ache. Continuing:

Eden: Teruko... I didn't kill Arei..... Do you believe me?! Teruko: Listen-- Eden: *sniff* I, I didn't do it! Please.... Believe me... This whole trial has been cruel to me.... Help me, Teruko... I can't stand it... I just wanted to help Arei.... I didn't kill her... Teruko: You know I can't just take your words at face value, Eden. Eden: Please, Teruko... You're my friend, aren't you? Friends help each other... So please, help me... I promise I didn't... I didn't kill her.... I'm innocent... Please trust me..... Please.....

AAAAAAAAAAA-

Okay with that basic reaction out of the way, because evidently the reactions didn't have enough "text screaming" for me to fully get it out of my system, this is just a really heart-wrenching scene. Just the combination of VAing, music and visuals, man... ouch. It's especially tragic when taking the following line into account:

Eden [2-3]: Teruko, relationships aren't transactional. It's not that I did something good for you that you should do something good for me.

The Eden hyperfocus comes in clutch again- Is it weird that being an Eden!Culprit believer for so long is making me appreciate her character more now that she's confirmed innocent? :v

Teruko has, up to this point, never outright claimed herself to be Eden's friend, at least not as far as I can recall. Hell, her lines following Eden's plea for help seem to completely disregard the idea.

Teruko [2-14]: So for now, I'm going to assume you're innocent. Eden: W-What? Really? Thank you so much, Teruko... Teruko: Don't... get me wrong. This isn't out of kindness or pity or anything else. This is only because you helped me in the last trial. I'm repaying your favor, and nothing else. That's why I'll trust you, just this once.

How much she means that is for the Teruko section. What's important is that this means that when Eden says "you're my friend, aren't you?", she is actively going against her claim that relationships aren't transactional. She expects Teruko to consider herself Eden's friend because Eden has done a lot of stuff to try to make that friendship work.

This. Is. Wonderful. Don't you love it when characters fail to uphold their beliefs when faced with a horribly stressful situation? Well, I love suffering, so I sure do! :D

To be clear, I'm not trying to paint Eden as a hypocrite or anything. She's right in saying that relationships aren't transactional, and is justified in asking Teruko to help her because she considers Teruko her friend, even if it's a slight contradiction. After all, what are humans if not a swirling well of contradictions, desperately arranging themselves like the magnetic moments of a metal to try to make the slightest bit of sense of a reality they hopelessly seek to understand-

Ehem. The point is I like Eden a lot :D

Speaking of wonderfully human moments, time to switch to the other big Eden character moment!

Eden [2-16]: This... This all could have been prevented, couldn't it? [...] Of course I know [we can't blame ourselves for Ace's murder]. Ace planned to kill Arei, and even before that, he was planning to kill me. Rose: Then how can you forgive him? Eden: I never said I forgave him. It's just that... The Ace that I met for the first time wasn't a murderer. I... I can't forgive him. He killed Arei, after all. She was innocent, and he killed her for unfair reasons. But... Those unfair reasons were unfair to him as well.

You know, we joke about how awesome it is that the entirety of the DRDT cast is mentally unstable (because it is), but it's also cool to see the one actually more or less functional member of society in the group being the voice of reason like this. Not to spoil anything, but I find her stance regarding Ace's murder as the most reasonable stance one could have, and it's always cool to see a character who has reasonable opinions every now and then. But having such an opinion is easy when you're outside the show and the characters are all pixels on a screen; the fact that Eden can still find it in herself to be charitable towards Ace's situation while not outright forgiving him for his actions is a really powerful statement about her strength and sense of morality. Eden could not stop catching Ws this part.

Anyways, here's a few more fun Eden moments this part gave us.

Eden [2-15]: Wait, but... Is Ace even capable of doing a feat of strength like that? He's injured, after all.

I just think it's sweet Eden tries to defend Ace even when she's the other prime suspect :)

Levi [2-13]: And if tomorrow it turned out you all had passed away, I'd care as much as if we had never met. Eden: But you're a good person. Why are you saying these things when it's clearly not true? You're so kind to everyone. You're always helping others out, even when it'd be easier not to. Like that time Ace almost died. You kept trying to help him, even if he always pushed you away. Isn't that what "a good person" does?

For all the Eden Ws, she had to take an Eden L. Come on, Eden, Levi doesn't need to actually care to be a good person, he just needs to do good things, you know this :(

It makes sense character-wise, though. Eden has a surprisingly strong belief system, which is heavily shaped by her emotional nature, so it makes sense that Levi's Deal of doing good things with no emotional attachment to them would throw her off.

Still cool of her to accept Levi as a good person even though she just learnt he killed four people, however. It's good characterization; despite her misunderstanding with the lack of empathy thing, she still chooses to judge Levi based on the things she's personally observed, as opposed to making assumptions over things she only has half the story for.

Man, she's just so mature and cool and awesome and not fucked up in any way! Now that the tape thing's been resolved, I can't think of a single thing that would make anyone think that she might be a little-

Ah. Right.

Well, as a first reaction, this is definitely an Eden W in the oh so prevalent... DRDT powerscaling scene? She apparently managed to slash at Xander's eye, twice, with a fork. And with her non-dominant hand no less!

So... what the hell am I even supposed to do with this? Unfortunately, we're currently missing gigantic amounts of critical information regarding this situation, meaning I can't for the life of me come to any conclusions, at least not confidently. I tried to look at the pre-prologue dialogue to see if I could find anything, but...

Ouch... I really wasn't expecting her to attack me like that. I made a massive mistake to trust them. I can't rely on anyone. All by myself... I have to end the killing game. And even if I can't do that... I have to kill Teruko Tawaki. No matter what.

Fuck am I supposed to gather from this.

Uh... someone told Xander that Eden would be down with whatever plan Xander had to end the killing game if he just showed her whatever documents we're seeing in the Bloody Hands scene??? And she got too scared and just stabbed him with a fork??? Who is the "them" who told Xander this, a group of people, or a single person and Xander's playing the pronoun game? Or was it Nico???

Nico [1-9]: Are you really using unclear pronouns for dramatic effect? That's such a cliche.

Fuck it, locking in Nico as the one who told Xander to talk to Eden, just because that's the funniest possible reason Xander could have used "they" there. I doubt it's true, but it's gonna feed my God complex if I get it right, so-

Yeah, in case it isn't obvious, I have very little idea what this scene could even be about. Very excited to see where this could go :D

Nico Hakobyan

Nico stole the show for practically half of 2-14, so it's natural we should start at the main event.

First, the soft confirmation that Nico really did attack Ace with a plan to get away with the murder and escape as the blackened, particularly framing Hu by using her wire. This... vaguely contradicts something they claimed earlier, so we gotta discuss the implications.

Veronika [to Nico, 2-9]: Is this what you were envisioning when you tried to kill Ace? That the trial would happen like this, but with Ace instead of Arei dead? Nico: I didn't... I never thought about it... I... I never should have... done that...

Were they just... lying here? Did they mean something else?

My best guess to explain this apparent contradiction is that Nico thought about the trial in a more... impersonal sense? Like, when planning to kill Ace, they figured they should try to hide that so they didn't go down with him, but sort of... ignored that winning the trial would kill everyone else? It's hard to describe, but that's what I get from that line as well as:

Nico [2-14]: I tried to kill [Ace] because I don't like [him].

When they say they "never thought about the trial," they probably mean that they never thought about the full implications of it, even though they did plan for it. They knew in some level they were supposed to hide the murder if they did it, but things like escaping the killing game and actually getting everyone else killed didn't fully register. This thought process makes sense in my mind, I hope it makes sense in yours because I don't know how to describe it any better :v

Second.

Eden [2-14]: That's- That's so cruel! Nico, why? Aren't we all friends? If something was bothering you, you could have talked it out with someone else you trusted? Nico: ... Someone I trust? What are you talking about? I don't trust anyone here.

Fantastic bit of characterization here. Nico, despite being relatively civil to anyone they're not actively planning to kill, apparently trusts no one. However, I want to explore what exactly that means. Because it's not like Nico is paranoid they're gonna get killed per say:

Hu [2-12]: Nico does have an alibi. I was having breakfast and tea with them in their room early in the morning as well. Drop it, Ace.

I can think of few better opportunities to kill someone than being alone with them, in their room, at around 7:30 AM when it's still officially nighttime. Nico, at least, trusts that Hu won't kill them, though whether that's because they're confident they could survive anything she tries or because they genuinely trust she wouldn't try at all is up in the air.

Point is, Nico is distrustful, but not as paranoid as, say, Ace. Because of that, currently, I believe Nico's claim that they don't trust anyone is an extension of things they've said before; that they prefer animals because people are unpredictable. Really, Nico's lack of trust being interpreted as "not trusting people to react to their concerns properly" is very consistent with the way they've acted in the past, particularly their reaction to getting forced into revealing their secret, so we probably shouldn't be surprised.

Nico [2-6]: I thought you would laugh at me. I was worried you would pick up rocks and start throwing them at me or pick up clumps of mud and start throwing them at me.

Next point:

Nico [2-14]: You all are right. I tried to kill Ace and pin the murder on Hu. What else should I say? Ace: W-- "What else should I say"?? You tried to murder me. You fucking tried to murder me! And after all's said and done, you can't even say something as simple as "sorry"?! Nico: ... I tried to kill you because I don't like you. Even now, there's still no use to try and pretend that I like you. If I say "sorry," you're still going to hate me.

... Yeah.

Nico [2-2]: If you're having dinner and want someone to pass the salt, you can say, "Please pass the salt," or you can say, "Give me the salt." One of those things is supposed to be more polite than the other, right? But why? They both mean the same thing. They're just slightly different mixes of words. It's like that. I don't understand why some mixes of words come off as "rude," and some don't, even if they mean the same thing.

I don't even think I need to explain this further. I think it's pretty clear why Nico wouldn't apologize to Ace. Nico's just not to into social conventions.

Except:

Veronika [2-15]: What's wrong, Ace? You seem stressed. [Your neck injuries] are only wounds. What's the issue? Could it be that almost being murdered has traumatized you a little bit~? Ace: You think?! You think that almost being killed could have maybe given me a little trauma!? Nico: ... [Whispered voice clip: "I'm sorry"]

This one's... odd. Nico doesn't say it loud enough for Ace to hear, evidently, so it's just a genuine reaction to the harm they've caused. What could have triggered this change? Uh... maybe a little extra trauma dump will help? Let's pick up after where we left off in 2-14.

Rose [continued]: D-Do you even regret what you did to [Ace]? Do you regret what you were planning to do to everyone else? Nico: O-Of course I regret doing it! I'm not Levi, of course I feel bad about something like that. I'm not heartless! Levi: Heartless? Nico: That was the worst choice I've made in my life. I wish I had never done that. But looking back, I still understand why I did. I... I just can't stand being treated like that. My teachers, my classmates, my father... I don't ever want to relive what they did to me. It's because of those kinds of people that I can't be happy with who I am. That's why I hate Ace.

Okay cut off there. First, interesting to see Nico calling Levi heartless. I've seen it brought up that it makes sense for Nico, who struggles to relate to other people on a good day, to latch onto any defense of their "normalcy" they can, including "I'm not the weirdest person here" despite how hurtful that can be to say. That's some neurodivergent on neurodivergent hostility right there! Fun to see characters being flawed in new and unique ways /gen.

Apart from that, there's some nice reveals to Nico's backstory, which are always welcome. We already knew Nico was harassed because of their identity, but now we have names (as in, identity of aggressors); teachers, classmates, and Nico's father. That obviously comes with a question; was Nico raised by a single father, or did they have other relatives who were more accepting? For now, we got no clue.

But that final line is important, because I believe it's what explains Nico's whispered apology in 2-15.

Nico [already written]: It's because of those kinds of people that I can't be happy with who I am. That's why I hate Ace.

Nico's apology comes after Ace explicitly mentions being traumatized over the murder attempt, in particular in regards to his neck wounds. This can be taken as Ace revealing he's not happy with a part of himself (scars) as a result of Nico's actions. When abstracted this way, the comparison to Nico's situation (unhappy with a part of themselves (gender identity) as a result of others' actions) is much clearer. Nico apologizes for accidentally causing Ace a comparable trauma to their own. Which... I think makes sense from their point of view? People apologize when they do something hurtful they didn't mean to; Nico meant to murder Ace, so no apology for that, but they didn't mean the trauma, so they say sorry for it. Not that Ace heard it, but you know.

... That's a weird ass thought process, but I think it makes just enough sense to explain the apology. Let's finish the 2-14 scene.

Nico [continued]: Even so... I'm not a child. I know that murder is wrong. I'm not the victim here. I know that it was dumb to resort to murder. I don't even know what I thought I would have accomplished back then. I mean, I started regretting it as soon as Eden and Teruko saw me. I don't expect you to forgive me. Very few people ever do. So I don't see the point in acting sorry. ... That's the entire truth of my murder attempt. I don't have anything else to say.

So... "I don't even know what I thought I would have accomplished back then" seems to corroborate what I said earlier about Nico not truly grasping the full implications of a trial while they planned the murder, which is nice.

Nico's attitude over this ("I'm not the victim here") is nice to see, and makes me very interested in where their arc is going to go from here. Especially since Nico maturely accepting the blame is already causing friction between them and Hu (even if Hu doesn't seem to notice), and will likely continue to do so in the future.

Hu [2-14]: You all are too cruel! None of you understand how much stress Nico was under! And yet you continue to insist on bringing this up. Can't you see that you're traumatizing them? Nico: Hu, I-- Hu: Don't worry, Nico, I'm on your side. I'll always defend you. I can be reliable for you. You trust me, right? Nico: ... I never asked you to defend me--

... We're gonna have to talk about this in the Hu section.

Finally, "I don't expect you to forgive me. Very few people ever do."

Nico, what the hell does this mean? What have you done in the past that requires so much forgiving? What in the [DR2 CH3 killer]-?

Unfortunately, this is one of those "we're missing critical information" situations when we can't even begin to speculate what, if anything, this is supposed to mean. We'll move on and patiently yet eagerly await elaboration.

There's one more big thing to bring up in respects to Nico, and that's... Rose. For who knows what reason, Nico never gives an explicit answer to whether they actually were interested in learning to paint or not.

Rose [2-14]: Did [Nico] even want to learn to paint? Or to be my friend at all? Or were they only using me as a tool for murder? Nico: ...

Regardless of what the answer is, that's kinda weird. I'm leaning "no, they didn't want to learn to paint," because it sure would be a hell of a coincidence that they just happened to gain an interest in painting just when they're planning a murder that happens to require a painting supply.

That said, Nico does still seem to somewhat care about Rose, and probably would like to be her friend. At least enough to eventually apologize to her out loud.

Rose [2-16]: [Ace]'s right. Only Nico took [the turpentine] from me, and I really doubt they gave it to Ace afterwards. Hu: You're always attacking Nico like this! Nico: It's the truth, though. And Rose is right. I kept it. I still have the turpentine in my room. I'm sorry.

And it's not like anything this chapter erased the FTE:

Nico [FTE]: I was going to thank [Rose] for hanging out with me. I really enjoyed her presence.

So, while I can't know for sure, I hope Nicorose can make a comeback, at least in time for Nico to die so dev can inflict extra psychological pain on Rose! :D

Final highlight:

Nico [to Levi, 2-13]: If you said you killed [your father] because you just didn't like him, I could understand that. But you're saying you forgot about taking a life...

Apart from Nico obviously projecting their own murder motives on other people, do we think Nico ever considered killing their own father? I doubt they actually did, else that would probably be their motive secret (provided it's not a Veronika situation where their secret isn't the worst thing they've done), but I could see them considering it given how they talked about him and Ace in the same breath, and... yeah Nico sure did want to kill Ace alright.

Hu Jing

Hu was quite fascinating this part, wasn't she? For someone that actually ended up having zero relation to the murder, she sure had a lot of important character scenes. Let's start with the confirmation of a particular theory that really helps understand her character better.

Hu [2-13]: I've been quite selfish this whole time, keeping my secret because I didn't want you all to think less of me. Most of all, I wanted to lie to myself and pretend that I had no ties to the person that I used to be. I wanted to believe that the past never happened. But that's just self-centered. I've always been a selfish person, haven't I? I should put those feelings aside and do what is right. No, I should have done this from the start. I will share my secret as long as you all promise to immediately move on. I have Veronika's secret, and she has mine.

Well that's just sad.

I don't think I particularly need to analyze this, it's all pretty explicit. Hu wants to be relied on because she feels useless if she doesn't provide guidance:

Hu [2-11]: I have to be the one to give everyone guidance. That's the only thing I can do. If no one relies on me, then I won't be useful anymore.

And if it comes out that she's attempted suicide, then in her eyes, that makes her less reliable.

(Obvious disclaimer is obvious, the character's views don't reflect my own, there's no shame in having attempted suicide or needing help to keep fighting it, etc.)

As a result, she dislikes the memory of that "hopeless child" who attempted three times, and wishes to avoid talking about it if possible. Metamorphosis (butterfly) and rebirth (water by her name being "still lake") symbolism pulling through.

Also, while there's many reasons someone could attempt suicide, that little "I've always been a selfish person, haven't I?", especially combined with other statements she's made in the past, heavily implies her attempts were a result of self-loathing :( . Thus why she so desperately seeks value in herself by helping others, which is sorta crumbling as everyone she put her faith on (David, Nico especially) starts to reveal themselves as not-that-great-people.

Hence why I'm worried we might see a fourth attempt in the killing game. Her secret quote seems to go against the idea, which combined with some of her statements in the series proper make me doubt it, but y'know... The precedent's there.

Anyways, I'm bringing this up first because, again, it helps understand her other actions this chapter.

Hu [to David, 2-12]: Unacceptable! What on earth [sic] is your problem? I have had it up to here with you! Because this killing game requires us to live, you think you should just reject that notion and kill us all? You lied to me, manipulated everyone, and tried to make us all commit mass suicide! You really are the lowest of human beings. You have no right to decide whether I, whether any of us, live or die, all because *you* feel like you have no chance! If you're so bent on dying here, then die! But don't you dare try and make everyone else die with you. If we decide to continue living, then we will. It is not and never will be your decision as to what happens with our lives. David: ... Rose: Wow. Hu can be scary. Hu: ... I'm sorry to everyone else. But I've lost my patience. I won't apologize to David.

(Obligatory props to VAing ofc)

I mean, yeah, it makes sense for someone who used to be suicidal to be mad at David's bullshit. Especially considering that, in regards to "you lied to me, manipulated everyone here," the line I mentioned before about providing guidance continues like this:

Hu [to David, continued from before, 2-11]: I have to be the one to give everyone guidance. That's the only thing I can do. If no one relies on me, then I won't be useful anymore. You knew how I felt, and yet you... You... You toyed with my heart! All that time you acted like you were encouraging us to reveal our secrets to "prevent conflict." That was all a lie!

Assuming the whole "You toyed with my heart!" thing isn't referring to a conversation we don't have information on (which, to be clear, is 100% possible), it's possible that at this point in the trial Hu felt bad for going along with David's plan, especially since she might have believed it directly led to Arei's death. I think it's worth noting that she's one of the two first person to speak after Ace confesses, and she asks if he did it because of the motive.

Ace [2-15]: I killed Arei. That's exactly right. Shit, it sounds really bad when I say it out loud. Eden: Why? Why did you kill her? Why would you do such a horrible thing? Hu: Did you kill Arei because of MonoTV's motive? Because you wanted to keep your "secret" hidden--

Which could be read as her trying to confirm whether or not going along with David's plan was a good or bad idea, maybe?

Admittedly, "going along with David's plan" in her case literally just means "she told David, Nico and Teruko that people used to call her Julia," which you could argue is too small for her to genuinely feel like she contributed, but keep in mind the "you toyed with my heart" line is directly before a line referencing the "reveal the secrets" plan. At the very least, she didn't go against it, not in a significant way anyways.

If I'm right to be reading these lines the way I'm reading them (which, again to be clear, might be wrong), then David purposefully used Hu's desire to help and be relied on to get her to agree with his plan, or at least not go against it, or at least Hu feels he did. Whether he intentionally targeted her, or if his methods to convince the others to convince the cast of revealing their secrets just happened to strike a cord (zither pun not intended) with Hu, is still unclear, but both are possible.

So she's already incredibly pissed at him for that, then he says he wants everyone dead, yeah my girl's got the right to go off.

Though, speaking of Hu blaming herself for what happened to an extent:

Hu [2-16]: Arei wasn't killed because of an accident. Bad luck or not, Ace had made up his mind to go through with this murder! So we can't possibly blame ourselves for failing to prevent something like that.

This is after Ace confirms that the motive and David's BS had nothing to do with the murder, so Hu can fully deny blame for what happened. Which is relatively fair, it's not like being mean to someone makes you guilty if they then choose to kill someone, but it's also presumably really important for her mental stability.

Did any of that make absolutely any sense? Maybe. Hopefully.

And that's just all the Hu-only stuff. Because a big part of her character this chapter was defending Nico far beyond what anyone could possibly see as reasonable. I'll bring back the example I gave before, because I think it's by far the most extreme.

Nico [2-14]: Someone I trust? What are you talking about? I don't trust anyone here. Hu: Stop! Just stop it! You all are too cruel! None of you understand how much stress Nico was under! And yet you continue to insist on bringing this up. Can't you see that you're traumatizing them? Nico: Hu, I-- Hu: Don't worry, Nico, I'm on your side. I'll always defend you. I can be reliable for you. You trust me, right? Nico: ... I never asked you to defend me--

Like, this goes beyond unreasonable. Nico literally says they don't trust anyone in the killing game, but Hu still thinks they trust her for... some reason. And even though Nico says they never asked her to defend them, Hu continues doing it past this point.

The thing is, though... why? Like, I get the basics here, it's what we talked about earlier. Hu only finds worth in herself by being reliable, and she sees Nico as someone who needs her reliability, so she tries to defend them no matter what. Hell, she even specifically says "I can be reliable for you" in the quote.

But... is there a reason she's so adamant towards them in particular? She doesn't get like this when Eden starts being accused, even though they have a good relationship with each other. Apart from reciting Rule 10 when it first comes up, once that gets thrown into question, the only thing Hu says when Levi and Arturo talk about Eden possibly being the killer is:

Hu [2-14]: Eden? Please don't cry.

She never pushes back against David's claim that he saw the corpse, even though that would practically exonerate Eden via BDA; that's Nico who does that. And Hu never claims Eden is being traumatized by being accused even though she clearly takes the accusations a lot worse than Nico was taking them in 2-14.

So, like, what the hell? Is there a deeper reason she's so defensive towards Nico and not Eden, or am I just going insane?

Well, at this point, if such a deeper reason exists, I have no clue what it could be. I could speculate about Nico reminding her of someone in the past, be it herself or someone else, or maybe Hu just sees Eden as less "in need" because she's generally more stable and happier than Nico, but really, I have no way of knowing.

The thing I can talk about in regards to the Hu-Nico thing is its parallels to Veronika-Arturo and Levi-Ace.

Veronika-Arturo is funny because, well.

Veronika [2-10]: Arturo, you're... You're so... Fascinating. You're really entertaining. So I'll take your side. I don't care about morals. I don't care about whether people get hurt or whether they die. I just need to be entertained. If you become more and more irredeemable, then I'll only love you more~ I want to hear all about those terrible things you did with no justification. Arturo: For someone who's taking my side, you sure are making me look a lot worse!

I really love how a big part of the Vero-Hu recap foil so far can be reduced to the "I can fix them" vs "I can make him worse" meme :p There are their secrets as well, but that analysis will have to wait for further elaboration on them, presumably in CH3.

Meanwhile, Levi-Ace... will have to wait for the Levi section, because this is already getting quite long for Hu, and it requires a bit more context on his character.

Miscellaneous highlights!

Hu [2-14]: Hang on! Eden isn't the killer! Don't accuse her! Charles: Not this again. You can't keep blindly defending the people you hope to be innocent if you don't have evidence, Hu.

Hu: I do have evidence! Why are you writing me off? All because I-- ... *sigh* Rule 10...

Damn she really gets defensive when you question her reliability huh?

Well, moving on. That was a pretty long section, hopefully the next one will be easier to write.

...

Oh. Oh no.

David Chiem

YOU

WHAT THE FUCK IS WRONG WITH YOU?!

Genuinely what is this motherfucker's problem? Everything he does seems to contradict something he did before, for reasons unknown. The only way I can even begin to try to analyze this son of a bitch is to go through everything he does in the series in chronological order, because trying to figure out his thought process in any other way would drive me in circles harder than anything in LGI ever did.

The first thing David truly does that informs us on his later actions is forming a genuine and positive relationship with Xander. In case the LGI MV didn't make it clear that David genuinely cared about the Rebel, we finally got near 100% confirmation of why exactly David liked him so much.

David [2-12]: You, and everyone else listening. I do so kindly request that pretty please stop talking about Xander at all if you don't know what the fuck you're talking about. It pisses me off to no end. After all, it's still unbelievable to me... ...That I'm the only person here who remembered him. Even if you all lost a year of memories for this killing game, there's no reason you shouldn't have recognized who he was.

While we unfortunately don't get much more clarification, it seems David knew what Xander did to earn the title of Ultimate Rebel, and likely admired him as a result. As per Xander's numeral I in LGI, "I have always looked up to you."

This admiration is presumably why David was so adamant in the first trial that there was no way Xander really tried to murder Teruko.

David [Debate Scrum, 1-8]: Are you saying that Xander is a killer? I find that difficult to believe.

You might argue that maybe he was just trying to throw the first trial, the same way he tried to throw the second. But that's not possible.

This is where we get to Weird Point #1. David didn't want to lose the first trial.

Nico [1-11]: Ah, right. Min was going from the laundry room to the kitchen. That path crosses the computer lab. She would have seen Teruko's body if the door was open. Min: ... Ace: And why exactly would the fucking door be open? Nico: U-Um... David: I suppose Min may have arrived near the computer lab's entrance just as Charles left. If she was curious, she would have even gone out of her way to see what was happening in there.

If David was trying to throw, he wouldn't be the first to explain how it would be possible for Min to be involved in the murder. And this is only one example, there's other lines where he specifically suspects Min. Apparently, he simply cannot handle a bad bitch winning (committing murder and trying to sacrifice 14 lives for her own benefit).

However, something in David shifts upon seeing Min's execution.

David [1-12]: I... I've seen enough. There's no point in keeping my hopes up anymore. We are all certainly going to die here.

This line is said pretty somberly.

Which is weird. Because not four days later, David will be trying to throw a class trial, which will kill everyone and him. Interesting detail about that, David doesn't seem to believe that the blackened will escape if they actually voted wrong, based on this line.

David [2-12]: 15 lives. Some of them are very dear to you. And your own life as well. Is there anything at all that could be more important to you than those 16 human lives?

Where he seems to imply a wrongful vote will cause 16 deaths.

But the thing is, it's not just the trial, is it? David also tried to instigate a murder through his "reveal all motive secrets" idea. That's what he does during the majority of CH2, starting in 2-4, just two days after Min's execution. Now, it's fully possible that at this point, he wasn't yet planning to throw the next trial, but rather, he was just doing this to hide his own secret. He certainly considers losing his "speaker persona" a genuine sacrifice, so it isn't unbelievable that he'd hope for a murder even if he was planning to win the trial if it happened.

David [2-12]: Even so... Lying about all that wasn't easy. Even I like to have good relations with others, however fake they might be. And I had to throw that all away. I know that no one will ever trust me, believe in me, or look up to me again after this. But doing "good" things requires sacrifice. Sometimes that sacrifice is being seen as "a good person." That's what I learned from Xander. Even if doing something will make you hated, if that action is for a greater good, then it's an action that you have to take.

(By the way, his views of goodness as martyrdom are quite interesting and I'm curious to see where it will go, but currently we don't have much more than this line for insight on it)

However, I don't quite think that he just wanted to keep the others' goodwill; I think he was already hoping to throw from the moment he started instigating the murder. And this is where we need to ask; what was it that made David switch up? What happened between the first trial and the second that made his goals change from surviving to... whatever he's cooking now? Because in case it wasn't clear from how I'm talking about it, I don't believe David gave the real reason for his throwing to the class. Let's look at the "confession."

David [2-12]: Ugh, fucking fine. You want an answer so badly? Any answer? ... I...

Ah... We're... in a television show, after all. That's... what MonoTV said, right? "Entertainment" is an ongoing show. If Min successfully got away with the very first murder and escaped while we all died, then isn't that way less interesting for a TV show? What's the point of roping 14 other people into one murder, only to kill them all off immediately? The killer is supposed to fail and be executed. We're all supposed to catch the killer, again and again, and participate in trial after trial. You're *supposed* to try to survive. All of you who are trying to solve these class trials to continue living on are playing straight into MonoTV's hands. [Confident] As if I'll accept that. I don't care how low I'll sink, or how despicable I'll have to become. I'll do anything to carry on Xander's ideals by ending this killing game, even if it means that I have to dirty my hands.

Although I wrote it all out, I want you to focus on the start: ".... - I... - Ah... We're... in a television show, after all." Even beyond the meta argument that it's unlikely we'd actually get the answer to why Xander wanted to win the class trial this early in the series (which is a valid argument, but I prefer to theorize without meta reasoning), that hesitation should tell you everything. The way it's written, it makes it seem like David is hesitating because he's making everything up on the spot, up to the "Ah..." potentially being the exact moment David figured out what angle he wanted to take. Given he's already admitted to both being manipulative and wanting to get everyone killed, this is the only reason I can see for why he'd hesitate to give such a relatively simple and "reasonable" (as in, it logically follows even if it's still insane) answer.

So, now we have two questions. What does he actually want to achieve by throwing, and why did he only start pursuing it after the first trial ended?

Well, let me say first that I don't think we're supposed to be able to answer these questions yet. Obviously; we're dealing with shit very closely connected to some pretty large, overarching mysteries of the series, which we probably won't get full answers for until much later than CH2. But we can try to speculate the general direction of what the answer will be. Let's look at another one of his lines to try to do just that.

David [2-13]: Achoo! Ah--Bless me! Also, excuse me! Wow, thank you for your support, everyone!

(I only included that line because it's fucking hilarious and I didn't want that to go unappreciated :p)

I have another interruption~ Hu: ... David: Teruko. Own up your [sic] goddamn secret already. You are the last person to do so. [...] Teruko: ... My family. David: ...

So, just like everyone who is somewhat deep in the DRDT theorizing community, I don't think this is true. I am pretty sure David has Teruko's secret, that secret being "How could I even select what secret to be your motive? Just about everything you've done in your life is worth killing for. The killing game is all your fault." There's many reasons beyond the weird ass David sprite pictured above, which many have already covered, but as a quick overview: the family secret ("you're constantly blaming yourself for the death of your parents and siblings. It doesn't matter that it's not your fault, just that you didn't go with them") fits Xander better (see: Bonus Episode 2, Xander's secret quote being the definition of survivor's guilt), the family secret mentions "siblings" plural when Teruko's only claimed to have one brother, we don't know what happened to Teruko's parents and brother when we know Xander's family is dead, Teruko didn't believe David when he said he got Xander's secret so she probably suspects the killing game one is hers, "this killing game is all your fault" is consistent with the second anniversary art code ("It's all your fault" in a picture which only features Teruko reaching out to presumably-Mai's hands, which disappear), etc.

So now we have four questions, because evidently I'm quite bad at this. Apart from the two mentioned before, we need to ask why David lied about the secret he received, and why he was happy when Teruko answered with the family thing.

But sometimes, one question can answer others. The reason I'm bringing this up is because I believe David's heel turn was likely motivated in some way by receiving Teruko's secret. Take a look at his immediate reaction when the secrets are first handed out.

Pretty frowny, huh? Yeah understandable given the secret he received is "hey the killing game is all the girl that Xander tried to kill's fault." Unfortunately this is the only reaction David has to any of the secrets, as the rest of his dialogue after this is just explaining J's secret. Well, and this:

Eden [2-1]: Then let's end the killing game before [the motive secret reveal]! Nico: Eh?! David: Optimistic as ever, Eden. I'll do my best.

Which is kinda funny in retrospect. Yeah, he sure did do his best to end the killing game before the secret reveals.

Tangent aside, the important thing is that David wasn't necessarily surprised by Teruko's secret, but rather, uh... Well it's hard to read him on expression alone. Frustrated, maybe? Possibly mad that Xander didn't succeed in killing her? It's also worth noting that this is shortly before Teruko goes into her whole "I don't plan on leaving" shtick, which includes the following tidbit (and yes David is in the room to hear this).

Teruko [2-1]: And I'd recommend that you drop that foolish optimism for making it out of here alive. With 100% confidence, I can say that... You will all die down here without ever seeing the outside world again. Ace: This bitch is totally out of her mind. Teruko: I'm not saying this out of ill-will. It's simply how this story works. You all have the misfortune of being "characters" in a story where I'm the "protagonist." Because of that, you're all doomed.

What's so important about this? Because I believe that, in David's mind, this proves Xander right. It proves that there is something off about Teruko, that he probably did have a good reason to attack her, that the note he received wasn't complete bullshit. If there is any single thing that would get David to follow Xander's footsteps, regardless of whether he has the full story or he's just doing what Xander was trying to do even without knowing the reasons the Rebel made the moves he made, it would be getting confirmation that the person he tried to kill specifically has something suspicious going on.

Especially because David does, in fact, seem to have a very weird fixation on Teruko.

David [2-14]: As long as there's a possibility that the evidence is false, as long as there's even the slightest reason to distrust others, then Teruko cannot trust Eden. Isn't that right, Teruko? Teruko: ... David: It's in your nature to distrust people. Everyone you know has already betrayed you. There's no one in this world who won't hurt you. Even the people you love will turn their backs on you in the end. You know that well enough, don't you? So distrust in others. Because that's the only way you know how to live. Teruko: ...

(Obligatory props to VAing ofc)

... Alright so it's five questions. Because how does he know all that?

Let me knock that one out quickly, though. Right now, I don't think this is solid enough reason to suspect that David knows more about Teruko than he's letting on. I could be wrong about that and David could just be aware of her entire backstory, but I currently don't believe that.

Instead, I think this might actually be an extension of his talent, in a way. The joke that he gave Teruko a "demotivational speech" is funny, but I also think it's actually on the right track. David knows the right things to say to someone to inspire them, to push back against their insecurities, as he did with Arei in the playground breakdown. Thus, it logically follows that if he's able to identify emotional weakness to push against it, he would also be able to exploit it.

Or, try, at least. He actually fails pretty spectacularly, since Teruko ends up trusting Eden anyways, and I don't think there were any reverse psychology 5D chess moves on David's part given his immediate reaction to Teruko's 2-14 speech to Eden.

Like, that's the face of a man who tried to be slick and failed miserably.

(And in case it isn't clear, I don't think his lie of seeing the body had anything to do with the trial, he did it just to fuck with Teruko)

In any case, what happened here is that he figured out the (relatively obvious, it doesn't take an Ultimate to see this) trust issues that plague Teruko, and is trying to make them worse in order to... uh... fill in the blank I guess. One option I've considered is that he knows something about how her luck works, that it hurts people she likes, so if she doesn't trust anyone then her luck's effects will be concentrated entirely on Teruko. However, that requires a pretty deep understanding of something he shouldn't have that much info on, so I don't find it that likely. Also I'm not 100% sure if this is how her luck actually works so there's that.

Yeah, unfortunately, at this point I struggle to see exactly what David's angle is here, which is probably intentional given, again, CH2. However, it does somewhat tie back into what we were talking about. Along with everything else I've mentioned, this fixation on Teruko's trust makes me believe that David's heel turn is at least partially motivated by receiving her secret.

And if we once again combine questions 3, 4 and 5, we can actually arrive at a new conclusion. We know David's hiding Teruko's secret, we know he's happy that she's not calling him out on it, and we know that he has a vested interest in getting her to distrust others. With all these combined, I believe that David is trying to look for a way to manipulate Teruko specifically as a backup plan if the cast managed to win the trial, which they did.

By getting her to distrust others, she'd isolate, making her an easier target for manipulation as she wouldn't have anyone to fall back on if David starts getting to her. And the secret is good blackmail, pretty straightforward why he he hasn't revealed it yet. That's also why he's happy she helped him keep it hidden; he can pull it as a card to make her seem less trustworthy and isolate her further. "She lied about her secret, she was trying to hide it." If she had been honest and said that neither the family nor the poison secret fit her and that someone lied about their secret, it would make her look comparatively better once the secret came out. In other words, it makes the blackmail even better, especially because now David knows for a fact that she wants to keep it hidden.

That brings up to question 6: why does David want to manipulate Teruko in the first place? And this is where we finally reach a dead end, because again, CH2, we're not gonna get all the answers yet. I have less than zero idea what David will try to manipulate Teruko into doing, when he will make his move, what his end goal is, or any other question you can imagine. I have my doubts that he'll succeed, obviously, but of course that depends a lot on what his final angle ends up being.

So, let's recap.

David knew of Xander before the killing game, admiring him because of his work as the Ultimate Rebel. As a result, David tried to establish a good relationship with Xander once the killing game started.

David originally rejected the idea of Xander attacking Teruko out of denial and nothing else. He had genuine faith his friend wouldn't do that. David wanted to catch the correct blackened in the first trial.

Upon receiving Teruko's secret and hearing her speech about everyone dying as a result of misfortune, David begins to believe Xander was in the right, and chooses to pursue what he thinks Xander was trying to accomplish. This includes trying to instigate a murder and admitting to killing Arei.

David lied about his motivation to throw the trial. I don't know if he's specifically trying to kill Teruko, or if he thinks everyone in the cast needs to die for some reason, or if he genuinely has no idea what Xander was trying to do and he's just following his actions blindly, or if it's something else entirely; whatever motivation he actually has, it's not what he said.

As a backup plan if the cast manages to win the trial, he hides Teruko's secret and plans to manipulate her via blackmail, for reasons yet unknown. This is why he's happy that she also keeps it hidden, and why he tries to build her distrust in others.

And that's the basics of what I believe regarding his actions... related to throwing the trial and Teruko. We still have one more David Moment TM to deal with.

David [about the Arei conversation, 2-13]: ... Nothing. Absolutely nothing. I didn't say anything to her, and she didn't have much to say to me either. Arei simply got annoyed with me and left without saying anything else. Nothing else happened between us, I promise. Eden: You promise? You absolutely promise, you didn't say anything to her? David: One hundred and one percent, I promise. Ace overheard everything, and what he told you all was the entire truth. Does that satisfy you? Eden: ... That's... a relief. That you didn't make her feel bad, I guess.

So, question 7, why does he hide the truth from Eden? I doubt he suddenly gained an interest in progressing the trial without further interruption. He's also not doing this for Eden's sake; what Eden wanted to hear was that Arei walked out of that conversation still hoping to change for the better, which she did. Hearing that Arei still wanted to "be less shitty together" even after knowing David's a manipulative asshole would have made Eden very happy.

But David doesn't want to hurt Eden, either. If he did, he'd lie and tell Eden that he said something that made Arei run out crying and having lost all hope, or something. I also can't really think of anyone else who would have much of a reaction either way, since as bad as it sounds to say it, Eden's more or less the only person who was genuinely invested in Arei's progress. Maybe "the blackened," but if David doesn't know who the blackened is, there's no way he'd know how they'd react, so it's likely not because of that.

So, if David doesn't hide the truth for the sake of the trial, and he doesn't lie because of Eden, and he doesn't lie because of anyone else, then he's lying for his own sake. I believe that David is trying to hide how much he genuinely cared about Arei, and probably doesn't trust himself to be able to tell the story without giving the game away.

And to be clear, he did genuinely care about Arei. If his immediate reaction to her death doesn't convince you, his breakdown after hearing the Arturo-Eden-Arei story should.

David [2-8]: Of course. Of course this would happen.

David [2-10]: If Eden and Arei really had that conversation, then it explains a lot. I had my doubts. A clearly suspicious note, asking her to meet alone and with no explanation as to why. During a *killing game* of all times. What kind of person would fall for such an obvious trap? You'd have to be shortsighted, naive, foolish, senseless, downright idiotic. ... Unless, of course, you were Arei. That girl wanted desperately to prove herself as a "friend" to Eden. And yet she completely lacked any experience with what "friends" were actually like. Of course it never occurred to her that handing out suspicious notes was not something that normal people did. What could she know about "friendship," after all? Someone like her, who had not once experienced kindness in her entire life up until now? Even if she had her misgivings about something so suspicious, she must have pushed it aside due to her unwavering faith in her blossoming friendship. A friendship that she didn't understand in the slightest. It's... It's so... Ahaha. It's just so foolish. For someone to take advantage of Arei like that. It's absolutely unforgivable. All she wanted was to change. What a reprehensible person this killer is. I look forward to seeing their painful execution.

(Do you think all this talk about "suspicious notes" is making him think of Xander with the suspicious note he received? Don't know, maybe :p)

Between David hiding the end of the conversation and the whole "Arei was a temporary weather spell" line, it seems he's really committing to the role of someone who doesn't care about Arei.

There are many reasons he could be doing this, but I believe he's just pulling a Teruko: Showing no vulnerability, because if he did, then maybe people would actually try to reach out to him. And then they'd get hurt like Xander and Arei; quote one of the Hamlet quotes in LGI (one of the eight lol): "I did love you once. You shouldn't have believed me." And/or David would need to confront how awful he is to try to change and better these new relationships.

Because it's a lot easier to be an irredeemable asshole who will never get better, than to confront the reality that he can, just that it's hard. Cue parallels with Arei and Teruko and Ace and you get the idea.

Final note, completely unrelated.

Whit [2-12]: Hey, hey, you could say those fish were a... red herring? David: Ugh! Goddamn it, Whit, does everything you say have to be made into some shitty dumb joke?! You're actually really fucking annoying! Shut the fuck up!!

Question 8: Why is David so pressed about Whit's jokes? At the moment, my only guess is that Whit's attitude of always remaining positive enough to crack jokes reminds David a bit too much of his "cheery" persona, which also is supposed to always remain optimistic in the face of adversity, and David either hates that because he hates himself, or because he's envious that Whit can hold that optimism without trouble (as far as David can see). I lean on it being a combination, where he does hate his "cheery" persona, but also wishes he could genuinely be like that, but it's very hard to tell atm.

Alright that took way too long. Can't wait for this all to be proven horribly wrong the next time we get any solid info on David!!!

Levi Fontana

Hey Levi sorry for calling you an accomplice for like a year are we still cool? :,D

Although Levi had a lower amount of Big Moments than David, I consider them more impactful to the chapter. And when you're talking Levi, you're talking 2-13 and 2-16. Let's start with the former.

Levi [2-13]: The secret that Arei received, "You're a murderer, and you hold no remorse...." That's my secret. [Cast reactions] If you were wondering, it's not in my legal records. The court struck it from the records. Ace: No shit! There's no way Hope's Peak would have scouted a murderer! Levi: Don't make the mistake of switching cause and effect.

Let's take our time with this one, it's a long speech. First, nice to see we called this secret, it's nice. Also, I'm not the first to point this out, but it's a neat bit of characterization for Levi to first talk about the legal side of his secret instead of anything more related to emotions; he only really cares about the effects things have in the present (that'll become explicit in a bit), so the first concern he thinks of are the legal repercussions.

Then, Hope's Peak... Hope's Peak why are you this shady. Between Rose's situation, the Ultimate Contest for Eminent Students, and now this, it's now three times they've specifically targeted people in vulnerable positions. Four if you count Teruko, but that would imply they rigged the lottery for the Lucky Student, which I would believe but we currently don't have evidence for. No wonder Xander has issues with them, they're cooking something weird.

Rose [1-4]: I'm sure Hope's Peak wants me to become some sort of appraiser or forgery detective with the skills that I have. Taking some offending youth and turning them into a productive member of society would be a pretty good look for them.

Unnamed Classmate [BE1]: Why would Hope's Peak announce [the UCES] 12 years before it would actually take place, when all the would-be contestants are just children? Min: Because they wanted the contest to hang over the heads of kids like me for 12 years, from childhood all the way into high school. They wanted to single out those who were obsessive enough to spend their entire lives preparing for this one test from childhood.

Unnamed Classmate [BE2]: If you set out to do something, then never give up on that, no matter what obstacles may stand in your way. Even if it's risky or against the rules, as long as it's for a good cause... I'll trust that you know to do the right thing. Xander: Yeah. Of course. That's why I've come to Hope's Peak, isn't it?

We currently have no clue where this is going, but I'm noting it for further reference. Let's pick off from where we left.

Charles [continued]: Care to explain yourself? Levi: At the time, I was confronted by three guys who tried to start a fight with me. I believe they were some old enemies. I killed their leader first, which may have been justifiable as self-defense, but then I tracked down his two remaining friends several days later and beat them to death. J: "Old enemies?" "Leader"?? Were you in the freakin' mafia or something? Levi: No. J: ... Levi: ... J: Are you not going to elaborate?? Levi: I don't particularly think I need to elaborate. After all, that happened in the past and has nothing to do with Arei.

One question this speech leaves us with is "why did Levi track down the other two after killing the leader?" We don't have enough info to tell for sure, but I assume it's a matter of safety? Like, Levi thought those two would try to attack him again if he left them alone, so he needed to make sure that didn't happen. I think that makes enough sense for me not to lose sleep at night over it, but of course I'm open to being wrong.

Also, this is the point where Levi's pure pragmatism becomes apparent. "It's not important right now, so why would I elaborate?" A philosophy which is born from his lack of empathy which will be discussed later. This pragmatism is probably why he's the one to argue that Eden was in an advantageous position to kill Arei; the logistics of murder come before emotional aspects in his mind, which is understandable.

Eden [continued]: Who... Who did you even kill? Levi: They were three guys... a few years older than me... Uh... I don't remember their names or who they were.

Do we think Levi knew their names at one point and forgot, or did he somehow track down two people without learning their names? I find the former more likely, just wanted to point that out.

Levi [continued]: I was a bit of a delinquent when I was younger, so they could have held a grudge against me for any reason. Maybe I smashed their windows and robbed them? Or, wait, maybe something to do with that car I blew up once? Rose: That's... kind of a lot to admit all of a sudden.

One thing I always enjoy is when the character who reacts to cut off a monologue has some kind of connection to the thing being discussed. Like, of course Rose is surprised at everything Levi is saying. She's out here being haunted by the crimes she committed, to the point where the debt she put her family in is her motive secret, and then this other guy has broken All the Laws and is just admitting it openly lol.

Levi [continued]: I've forgotten most of the details, as I haven't though much about it since I was cleared of my charges. Sorry, I can't really remember why that happened. Arturo: How could you forget something so important? You can't even be bothered to remember their names? Did you not care that you killed three people?

Speaking of matching reactions to character, Arturo "I feel unending guilt over the death of my sister who I did not even directly kill" Giles cannot conceive how someone else isn't haunted by the lives he took, more recap foiling at eleven.

Veronika [continued]: You say that your backstory and secret aren't relevant to this trial, but they are. That second part of your secret, that you "felt no remorse" for killing people... If you don't care about murder, then you'd have a much easier time killing than anyone else here. You may even be unbothered by the fact that passing the trial would mean everyone else's execution. After all, you seem completely detached while admitting not only to murdering 3 people, but to several other crimes as well. Almost as if you didn't care about any of this. At least not from a moral standpoint, that is. Levi: I won't deny it. That is indeed how I feel. Ace: You are one sick bastard. What could you possibly say in your defense.

This is the first big hint of Levi's low to non-existent empathy, but I'll wait until it's fully elaborated on to discuss it in depth. Also this hints to Ace business that will be discussed in his section. Why am I even writing here.

Levi [continued]: That incident happened when I was in my junior year of high school. My junior year was also the year that Hope's Peak scouted me as the Ultimate Personal Stylist. To my understanding, it would have reflected poorly on Hope's Peak to recruit a murderer, so they pressured the court into not pressing charges.

I do wonder now why Levi even started styling in the first place. By his own admission he's pretty new to it, though he's got at least a year or two of experience if he was scouted in junior year (I think? USA why can't you fucking number your grades like sensible people I don't know what "junior" means without firefoxing that shit). Maybe a job he picked up after disownment? Though that heavily depends on when and why he got disowned in the first place; was it because of his father's murder, the murder of the three dudes and the court case just took a while, or was it something else? Questions to mull over, but can't answer without further info.

Levi [continued]: Err... Hang on. Now that I've thought about it a little more, my motive secret may not be referring to those guys. It could also be referring to the time I murdered my father. J: Wait, you-- YOU WHAT?! Levi: It's quite difficult yo tell what these motive secrets truly mean because they're all phrased so vaguely... It's a bit of a bother. J: No, fuck that noise! Go back! The hell you mean, you fucking killed your dad? Levi: Correct. I simply forgot about it up until now. That would make four people in total that I've killed, not three, I think...? Arturo: How could you simply *forget* that you murdered your own family member? Nico: If you said you killed him because you just didn't like him, I could understand that. But you're saying you forgot about taking a life... Levi: It wasn't that important. Not even the police cared about a man like him, so nothing came out of it. I truly just forgot.

(why is everyone blue you're fucking up my color schemes-)

Back to the whole "appropriate reactors" thing, while I've already mentioned the Nico thing, I think it's cool J (the anti-murder spokesperson with a bad relationship with her mother) specifically says 'dad,' while Arturo generalizes to 'family member.' Someone's being reminded of his past~

I find this admission pretty funny for a few reasons, and very interesting for many others. Funny because my guy is complaining about the vagueness of the motives while admitting he killed his dad and not elaborating in the slightest. Interesting because... why did that happen? Levi doesn't respond to Nico's comment, so it seems like he didn't particularly dislike his father or anything? Especially in the context of the way he's talked about his family in the past.

Levi [responding to Eden, 2-1]: No, not at all. It's for the best that neither I nor my family see each other ever again. Eden: Eh? If you don't mind me asking, why? Levi: Why? My father, my mother, my brothers... We were all bad influences on each other. That's all that needs to be said.

I mean, Levi's father probably wasn't a shining beacon of hope or anything, given the police didn't even investigate his death, but like... lumping him in with the mother and the brothers, and just saying they were "bad influences" instead of, like, genuinely shitty people, it all makes it sound like there's no specific grudge against the father. Which makes sense, right? Even his father would feel like a stranger, as Levi will describe later. I really wish we get some elaboration on this, because I'm pretty curious about what kind of situation would lead Levi to this. I did try to check what's caused Levi to snap before, see if I could figure out what could have prompted it:

Ace [1-9]: What's the damn point of this whole trial if we're going to make choices based on dumb crap like that?? You useless shit-for-brains! Are you even taking any of this seriously?! Whit: Huh? Am I taking this seriously? Nah, not really. Ace: YOU--! Levi: Ace, calm down. You are not helping at all with this argument-- Ace: You shut your damn trap too, Levi!! I'm done with you trying to play the moral high ground by pretending to be some peacemaker! "Oh dear, oh my, calm down, everyone. Let's not fight, alright? Aren't I such a level-minded pacifist?" Stay the hell out of this if you know what's good for you. Levi: ... Ace: That's right. Shut your damn mouth, you coward-- Levi: Fuck. Off. Ace. How far do you want to push it? Do you think that I don't have a limit to my patience? I would gladly strangle you right here and now to shut you up if I were allowed. But if you're the coward I know you to be, then you should back up before you dig your own grave. So shut. Your mouth. Before I shut it for you.

Uh... Personal attacks against Levi? Yeah I have no idea what the hell his father could have done to prompt the murder. As usual, we're missing too much critical information to make a call on it. I'm gonna wager a guess that Levi didn't plan the murder, but rather it was an in the moment decision, but again I have no actual way to be sure.

Levi [continued]: Frankly speaking, I see no reason to remain hung up over some incident that is long past, especially as it ultimately had no impact on my life. Eden: You forgot about all of the things you did simply because you didn't face any consequences? That's incredibly selfish! Shouldn't you feel even a little bit bad? Those were human lives you took! I don't know what happened within your own family, so I can't pretend to understand why you killed. But even then, I'm sure those other people had families and friends who cried over their deaths!

Again the responders; remember how Eden feels guilty over both Min and Arei's death even though she never "faced any consequences" for them (mainly because she didn't actually do anything wrong but you get the idea)? Yeah that.

Levi [continued]: *sigh* I wonder if I should really tell you the truth, or if it's best to keep it to myself. I don't know how you all will see me after this. Teruko: You've already admitted to murdering 4 people. If you insist on not being completely honest with a secret this bad, then you're going to be the next one on the chopping block. Out with it.

Considering the stuff he says later, it's interesting to me that Levi seems to be more worried about revealing his lack of empathy than admitting to murder, especially with the knowledge that he's only doing this because he thinks being honest will make him "a good person."

However, I think it makes sense. Amongst the cast, there's already several people who either killed or tried to: Xander, Min, and Nico. But a lot of the others still speak of them in good terms; David talked about how good of a person Xander was for several minutes, Eden has made it clear she still misses Min, and Hu still defends Nico. Not to mention that Levi himself already threatened to kill Ace, and got called "a good person" by Eden just a few hours later. That means that, although admitting to murder will probably make the others more wary of him, there's precedent that Levi will still have people who stick by him after all's said and done.

Meanwhile, as far as Levi can tell, he's the only one who doesn't understand empathy in the slightest. And that means he has no way of telling how the others will feel about him if he reveals it, which is why he's more nervous about it than the murders. It plays on the themes of feeling disconnected from the rest of humanity that characters like Nico (via gender identity) and David-

Tally 5 Page: "... I wasn't capable of ever becoming human in the first place."

-have going on, which is definitely something that's cool to mull over. I hope these three get some kind of interaction about this in the future.

By the way, as always I'm just kinda guessing why Levi does the things he does and says the things he says, I could always be wrong.

Levi [continued]: It's not really that I don't care about killing people. Rather, it's more accurate to say that I don't care about people at all. No matter how much I hear about such things like empathy or compassion or love, none of those concepts resonate with me. Are those emotions really universal? The idea that people naturally "care" about others is a completely foreign concept to me. Nico: Eh? What are you saying? Levi: Judging by your reaction, I suppose that's a bad thing. But I wouldn't understand why. On the other side of this planet, there's a person who's suffering. Maybe they're even drawing their last breath. But none of you care, do you? Why would you? They're a stranger, after all. You don't know them. Their life holds no consequence for you. For me, everyone I've ever known is that distant stranger. It doesn't matter how long I've known you, how much we've done for each other, or even if you were my own father... You're still a stranger to me. And if tomorrow it turned out you all had passed away, I'd care as much as if we had never met.

So here's the big reveal, bolded text and all. Levi has extremely low empathy. I'm not gonna try to assign any specific disorder because I'd have no idea what I'd be talking about, but the empathy thing is pretty clear. I'm also no authority on whether this would be good representation for that or not, but for what it's worth, I think it's done pretty well. Levi's perspective is presented neutrally, in a way that shows his lack of empathy doesn't inherently make him a bad person, but not shying away from some of the real effects that can come from it (combined with other factors of course), such as the whole 4 murders situation.

I also like the way Levi describes it. It does a good job of getting the audience to understand his feelings, while still holding quite a bit of characterization in there. For example, the reason he gives for why the cast wouldn't care about the stranger on the other side of the world is because "their life holds no consequence to you." Even when trying to speak from the others' perspective, his understanding of why someone would care about someone else is still shaped entirely by what tangible effect that person has in the other's life, in a way sorting people by "holds consequence/holds no consequence."

Eden [continued]: But you're a good person. Why are you saying these things when it's clearly not true? You're so kind to everyone. You're always helping others out, even when it'd be easier not to. Like that time Ace almost died. You kept trying to help him, even if he always pushed you away. Isn't that what "a good person" does? Levi: In all honesty... I don't personally care what happens to Ace. Whether he lives or dies is none of my concern in the end. Ace: ...?! Levi: But it is a "good" thing to make sure someone else doesn't die, even if I personally do not care about the outcome. I truly believe that. But I adhere to that principle out of duty, not sentimentality. Does that make any sense?

So I'm gonna do a funny here and skip Ace's reaction to this, because that's more for the Ace section than this one. I also already talked about Eden's reaction to this.

Instead, I'll focus on Levi, particularly the question of "does Levi actually care about Ace?" To answer that, it'll be helpful to get the full Veronika Breakdown TM.

Veronika [continued]: Hm hm... I understand now. You're quite the interesting person, Levi. From what I've seen of you so far, your personality has been awfully inconsistent. It's like you don't know how to act. Trying to act like "a good person" without any intuitive sense of what's good or bad is hard, right? For someone like you, who lacks compassion, it must be quite difficult to pretend to be nice. You're always guessing as to what a normal human would do in your situation. You're so awkward in social settings because you can't tell what other people want. You act like a big pushover because if you go the other direction and stand up for yourself, you won't know where to stop. You offer to do things for others because you've observed that "good people" help others, and you parrot noble assurances without understanding why. Such things like that. Not only are you trying to act without a script, but you don't even understand the story. And you slip up constantly. Levi: You explained it better than I could. You really have an intuitive understanding of other people, Veronika. That's a trait I envy. The way I see it, it would be beneficial if I was "a good person." Then other people would trust me and not pick fights with me anymore, and they'd do things for me because they "liked" me. If I was a good person, then I wouldn't have to live a life full of violence anymore. I did everything so that I could have a better life.

Okay hold on there's a bunch to talk about here. Let me do that before circling back to the Ace Question.

Veronika is thankfully good enough at describing the stuff she said that I don't feel the need to elaborate on that. It's basically just a perfect read of Levi's actions so far under this new frame of someone who lacks empathy yet still is a good person. His awkwardness, his outbursts towards Ace, him being sort of a pushover, everything. I also like the little comment of Levi envying Vero's understanding of people, it's neat characterization.

Aside from that, there's also cool contrast between the way Levi sees being a good person as a sort of purely pragmatic social contract (being good leads to a peaceful life and ensures others help you) and Eden, which as referenced earlier sees friendship in a purely emotional and non-transactional way. Not exactly fully comparable, but close enough, and still worth mentioning given the chapter starts with a conversation between the two of them about how they're good people. Both of these have their merit, the point is that, in the end, no matter the reason you have for doing good things, regardless if it's out of sentimentality or just duty, doing good is enough to be a good person. While still of course keeping in mind Arei's message that no one is effortlessly good 100% of the time, and simply trying to be as good as you can be and improve on your flaws is enough.

Also, "I did everything so I could have a better life," huh?

Arturo [referring to Felicity's suicide, 2-10]: How is it possibly my fault that I wanted to live my own life!?

Get paralleled, idiot >:D

Wanting better things for yourself can end up having good effects on others (Levi being good to the cast), or negative (Felicity dying), fun contrast.

But I'm beating around the bush. The question I asked earlier, does Levi actually care about Ace?

Well, there's definitely room for interpretation, but my read is... well, not in the usual way. I mean, Levi explicitly says he doesn't particularly care if Ace lives or dies, so that's kind of a giveaway that he still very much does not feel empathy towards him. To better understand Levi's perspective, it might be helpful to analyze the previously mentioned Hu-Nico and Levi-Ace parallels.

Fandom has long since grouped together Hu and Levi as the "parental figures" of the group, and while I don't particularly enjoy applying familial relations to friendships, there's some basis for the interpretation. They both (to varying effect) commonly act as peacemakers and moderators in the context of the group, but have had this position compromised by emotional outbursts (Hu's defense of Nico and Levi's threats to Ace). Hell, there's even parallels in the way people react to some of these outbursts.

Levi [after the previously linked outburst, 1-9]: I'm terribly sorry for that, everyone. Please continue discussing as you were earlier. Ace: So scary!!

Rose [reacting to Hu's "fuck David" outburst, 2-12]: Wow. Hu can be scary.

To be fair the 2-12 outburst is far more justified than a lot of Hu's others, but you get the point.

They both act this way for similar reasons; to control the cast's perception of them. Hu wishes to be seen as reliable in order to feel useful as a way to counteract her suicidal tendencies and self-loathing, while Levi wishes to be seen as a good person for the reasons he states (to live a peaceful life where others do things for him). And in order to do this, they've both chosen to focus on one person in particular to "protect" or help in some way; Nico for Hu, Ace for Levi. The reasons for this are different mind you, but the effect is similar enough.

However, while it's still unclear why exactly Hu is so adamant about Nico in particular, we kind of know why Levi is focused on Ace. Simply put, before the second trial, Ace was sort of the only person who had legitimate reasons to dislike Levi, at least in Levi's mind. Because of the death threat in trial one of course. Most people haven't really expressed an opinion on Levi either way, but they're civil and at least neutral towards him. Hell, Eden even specifically says Levi's a good person after the death threat, and since she's a pretty rational person, it follows most of the cast would see him that way as well, given how quickly they all moved on from the death threat.

Ace was the exception, however. Ace was very explicitly (and understandably) pissed at Levi for the death threat, so he stood as somewhat of a threat to Levi's goal of being seen as a "good person." Levi trying to fix things with Ace is an extension of this goal, and I don't think there's much else to it. Even to the very end, Levi's frustration at Ace doesn't come from a sense of betrayal or sadness or remorse for not being able to stop the murder, or anything like that. Levi only gets frustrated at his inability to understand Ace, which we already knew from his envy of Veronika's psychoanalysis abilities is a point of insecurity for him.

Ace [2-16]: I just needed a reason to stay mad at you, any reason at all, goddamnit! [sic] Levi: Why? Why do you have to force yourself to be angry at me? You just said you know that you're in the wrong, so why do you still do it?! I don't understand. I can't understand you, no matter how hard I try.

Levi, under this reading, still doesn't "care" that Ace is about to die, not in the way Eden felt bad about Min's death for example. He's frustrated that he's trying to be a good person towards Ace, and it isn't working for reasons he can't grasp. More on those reasons in the Ace section.

I am very curious as to how he'll react to Ace wanting to speed up his execution to try and save his life, and I predict Levi will probably try his best to honor Ace's memory and his sacrifice, but as always, out of duty and not sentimentality. Sorry Acevi fans, hope you still find a way to make it work :/

Since we're on the topic (and Ace's section is gonna be long enough as is), I'll talk about the other side of the Hu-Nico and Levi-Ace parallels, the way the "protected" act in respects to the "protectors." The main point of contrast is that, originally, Ace specifically sought out Levi for protection, while Nico never asked Hu for it.

Teruko [1-2]: Since when were you two so friendly? I distinctly recall yesterday a certain someone being terrified whenever Levi came near him. Ace: Whaaaat? Me, scared? Are you just making things up? Teruko: ... Ace: Okay, fine. Yeah, Levi's scary as hell! But I realized that MonoTV is even scarier than Levi! At least Levi is sorta safe to be around. And I like to be safe, you know?

Nico [to Hu, 2-14]: I never asked you to defend me--

Then comes the aspect of "betrayal" in both these relationships, where the roles are flipped. It's Levi who originally "betrays" Ace by threatening him, while it's Nico who "betrays" Hu by trying to frame her with the wire. However, Ace takes this betrayal much more personally than Hu, getting mad at Levi while Hu continues to defend Nico. As a result, Ace gets a bit of a victim complex, while Nico fully acknowledges blame for the murder attempt. Etc.

Okay time to continue with 2-13 because no we're not done with it.

Levi [continued]: After listening to David, I concluded that a good person would also be honest, even if the truth makes them look bad. Ace: You're taking advice from David of all people? Look at this asshole! David: Try looking in a mirror before you talk, Ace. Levi: I thought David was a prime example of a good person. Is he not? David: Wow, you really don't understand people at all, do you. Levi: I don't want to distract you all from this case any further. So, I apologize for this tangent.

Another really cool bit of characterization here. Levi struggles so much with understanding most people's sense of morality that he still thinks David "I actively tried to kill everyone here by pretending to be the blackened" Chiem is a good person. There's also the quick implication that David doesn't see himself as a good person, but I feel we're well past the point where that's news.

We also get the reason why Levi even said all this; he thinks being honest will help him be a good person, and presumably only brought it up after the whole David thing got resolved because "good person" David was (eventually) honest with both his motive secret and the reason he tried to get voted out. Or, rather, Levi thinks David was honest on the latter. Fair ig.

Levi has a few other lines in this part, but the next most striking thing to talk about is, fittingly, not a set of words, but an image.

Levi's protective streak has always been a big part of his character, and now he's literally taken a bullet (or 5) for Teruko. Just for the record, I imagine he'll survive, because there'd be no real point to most of the end of 2-16 if he didn't.

The big question around this is, naturally, why did Levi jump in? Obviously, it's not that he particularly cares if Teruko lives or dies, not from an emotional standpoint anyways. It could also just be Teruko's luck somehow manipulating him the way it seems to have influenced Min somewhat, but I can't see that as the only reason this happened. So, like most people, I believe he feels he owes Teruko.

Teruko [1-2]: No... I should be the one apologizing. It's my fault you got hurt. Levi: What do you mean? Without your warning, I could have gotten fatally injured. I should thank you that my wound is not more severe.

Teruko warning him in the prologue is the most obvious case where Teruko saved Levi, especially since it parallels this scene. Teruko saves Levi from execution, so he returns the favor. However, we also need to keep in mind that, without Teruko carrying, these people would not have made it through the trials, so Levi might feel he owes her for that too. And "good people" repay their debts, don't they?

Very interested in seeing where Levi's character goes from here!

Teruko Tawaki

You know a series is doing something right when the protag has so much shit going on in a trial where she didn't even have strong relationships with either the victim or the killer. Now, a big chunk of her screen time was devoted to crime solving, so her section might end up smaller than Levi's even though I consider her more important, but the order of this analysis is kinda all over the place anyways :v

I'll go in the order of Teruko moments as they appeared, though I'll skip the whole "fix my mistake" thing since I already mentioned it in the Min section.

David [2-12]: Xander is a good person. He's the only good person I've ever known. I swear, I'll follow in his footsteps and-- Teruko: And get everyone killed in the class trial? Xander is a good person? Are you hearing yourself right now? What virtuous reason could he possibly have for trying to kill me and everyone else here? David: I'm sure he had a good reason. I believe that he did. Xander is not the kind of person to do anything for frivolous purposes. Teruko: You *believe* that he had a good reason!? Hah! Based on what? The 3 days you spent with a fan who was too infatuated with the ideal of you to treat you like an actual human-- David: SHUT UP!

She says all this like she wasn't play-acting her Xanruko fix-it AU with cacti, like, two days ago lol.

Teruko Cactus [2-3]: That's right. Give up now, and surrender. Then I'll consider letting you live. Xander Plant: Teruko... I've changed my mind. I promise, I will turn my back on whoever made me do this and stay by your side from now on. Do you forgive me?

I don't actually have much to say about this. Teruko's complicated feelings about Xander aren't exactly news; genuinely angry at him for attempting to murder her, also genuinely upset that things didn't go better. No wonder David's uncritical view of the guy ticked her off.

2-13 had a lot of murder solving from Teruko, which is cool but not crucial for character analysis. Meanwhile, 2-14 had quite a bit more going on.

Rose [2-14]: I... I'm sorry for being useless. Maybe if I tried harder, if I just got over myself-- Teruko: Rose. Don't blame yourself anymore. You are helpful. It's because of you that I can solve this murder. Besides... I'm as much to blame as you. Maybe more, even. If only I listened to you when you said the tape was missing, then maybe I would have realized the truth of this case much earlier. Once again, I've made a stupid mistake. I simply wanted to believe that I could make it through this killing game without relying on anyone else. That I could be dismissive of everyone around me without consequences. So I refused to listen to anyone other than myself. I thought that if I did that, then I could avoid a repeat of the last trial, where I had made the mistake of trusting people too much. But now I'm making different mistakes instead. Again and again, I keep messing up this class trial with hasty assumptions and overlooked evidence. So... Rose: ... Teruko: ... Thank you, Rose.

Yuri stays winning.

Again, it's hard for me to add any commentary when Teruko's just... explaining all the themes out loud. We go back to the idea of Teruko fixing mistakes that she seems to have taken to heart from Min's CH1 breakdown (YURI STAYS WINNING), which ties into the idea of self-betterment that Arei's scene conveyed; and we basically have Teruko stating a reworded version of her secret quote, "It is an equal failing to trust everybody, and to trust no one at all." It makes me wonder how Teruko will behave moving forward. Will she trust a few select people? Will she continue to keep other's at arm's length, but being slightly more open? Well, based on what she does with Eden, it seems Teruko is willing to trust select people until the situation merits distrust, which is a pretty solid way of looking at things.

Speaking of that.

Eden [2-14]: I just wanted to help Arei... I didn't kill her... Teruko: You know I can't just take your words at face value, Eden. Eden: Please, Teruko... You're my friend, aren't you? Friends help each other... So please, help me... [...] Teruko: Eden. Eden: *sniffing* Teruko: Eden. Pick up your head. Look at me. At this point in the trial, since I've narrowed Arei's killer down to just two suspects, I'm going to pursue each suspect individually under the assumption that they're the killer. That way, I can see if any evidence matches up to them only. [...] So for now, I'm going to assume you're innocent. Eden: W-What? Really? Thank you so much, Teruko... Teruko: Don't... get me wrong. This isn't out of kindness or pity or anything else. This is only because you helped me in the last trial. I'm repaying your favor, and nothing else. That's why I'll trust you, just this once. Eden: Teruko... T... Thank you, Teruko... Teruko: ... Let go of me.

YURI STAYS WINNING!!!

That's what I was talking about. Choosing to trust Eden over Ace, but being willing to turn suspicion on the Clockmaker if Ace turns out innocent. A very reasonable approach! We love character development in this house.

That said, Teruko is still being a bit of a tsundere, with the whole "repaying a favor" thing. Levi parallels anyone? Well, not exactly, since Teruko does feel empathy towards Eden, but close enough. What's more interesting is that Teruko is using the exact transactional logic that Eden warned her against, which is intriguing setup for the future when it becomes more undeniable that Teruko is definitely not doing this just to repay a favor.

Also, the Trauma remains. Teruko telling Eden to let go fully completes the parallel to the Min scene, where she says the same thing (among others). I imagine our girl won't be too receptive of hugs for a while.

Before we get to the next big moment, real quick, we gotta fulfill our "Teruko's life is miserable" quota.

Teruko [to Ace, 2-15]: And three. You took the tape for first aid. Arturo: That's ridiculous. Who uses non-medical tape for first aid? That's sickening. Teruko: It's not that weird. I do it all the time.

Alright quota fulfilled. Let's move on. In this case, I'll skip to when Teruko gives up on the "show me your injuries Ace" line of reasoning.

Teruko [2-15]: No. It's fine. That's not a very fair line of logic, so forget it. You were almost murdered, after all. I should have understood that.

I don't know why Teruko really thought this line of logic was even worth following in the first place, but it makes sense for her character to ignore Ace's possible emotions in favor of the trial. But it's also cool to see her backing down when she realizes the harm she may be causing, especially as someone who has very notably hid how much her own murder attempt affected her, and in particular the wound that came from it.

Teruko [2-15]: The point of this trial is to determine who the killer is, not to determine every single little detail of what happened. It doesn't matter that you're not convinced. It's not going to help you, nor change your fate. No matter how you feel or what you think, nothing will change. [...] I've been fighting this entire trial to find the truth using real evidence. And when I make mistakes, I own up to them. What have you contributed? Show me some concrete proof of your innocence. Otherwise, shut up and stop wasting everyone's time. Ace: ... Teruko: Are you silent now? What happened to all those things you were shouting earlier? Don't you have anything to say for yourself? Ace: ... Teruko: Any evidence, any deductions to show that you're innocent? Come on, Ace! Don't you want to live?! Defend yourself!

So, a few things. First, regarding that second paragraph. "It's not going to change your fate"? "Nothing will change"? We'll circle back to it, but it seems Teruko is projecting how she feels about her own fate (before the Levi incident at least) on Ace. You could even say-

Literature Girl Insane: Even if we cry make noise shout go mad - this world won't change!

The foils ever.

Anyways, I assume that's why Teruko gets so worked up over Ace remaining silent. She sees a bit of her situation in trial 1 (almost murdered, suspected as the killer) in Ace, so her emotions run high with both the frustration of a long trial and the bad memories this is probably bringing up. At least, that's how I interpret it.

Also another mention of correcting mistakes, which shows up one more time before the episode ends, which I already mentioned as being tied back to Min and Arei; alongside with another "fate" drop. "Fate" is becoming the new "good person" isn't it :p

Teruko [2-15]: Confront the mistakes you've made. Then accept death. That's the fate of everyone who choose [sic] to participate in this killing game.

Also I find it endlessly funny that Teruko's reasoning for the Closing Argument being necessary reads a lot like "this is a DR trial we gotta do this, it's in the contract." Consider me amused.

But I've beaten around the fate bush enough. Let's get all of that over with in one fell swoop.

Teruko [2-16]: It's just... misfortune. That's why Ace killed. That's all.

Teruko [regarding her execution, 2-16]: What's the point [of running]? I should have known this would happen. [...] Even if I shield myself behind others, even if I search for an escape, it always comes down to this. I have to face the consequences of my actions. There's no escaping that. [...] Arturo: What are you talking about?? You're going to be killed!! Teruko: Killed? I doubt it. As if something so kind could happen to me. [...] I won't die, even if MonoTV puts a hundred bullets in my body. I'll only be badly injured. Possibly lose a body part. Maybe I'll even end up in a coma for months. [...] But I won't die. I never will. There's nothing I can do but accept my fate. It's what I deserve, after all. [...] I was perfectly willing to get shot. I thought I didn't have to care about what happened to other people, and especially not about what happened to me. I thought that if I lived alone and died alone, nothing would stain my conscience. Even if that was a selfish way to live. But even so...

Teruko [to MonoTV, 2-16]: Can you really say it's fate's fault for everything you've done, and pretend that you hold no blame in the matter? I have always said that my misfortune, my personality, the choices I make, everything was all a product of a bad luck that I can't control. That I grew up in such terrible circumstances, so I was destined to grow up to be a terrible person. That everyone else abandoned me, so it's not my fault that I'm alone. I want to say it's fate's fault, and that I had no choice in the matter. But, even so... Even so... Everyone. Xander, Min, Arei, Ace. Maybe even Levi. Is it my fault that they died? [...] MonoTV: You have to decide the answer for yourself. Teruko: Whether it was the fault of fate, or my fault... I already knew the answer. I had known what the answer was since a long, long time ago.

Alright I made myself sad, so something's been achieved, I guess. Poor Teruko :(

Just to start somewhere, we get confirmation of Teruko's suicidal tendencies in the present, which was already implied strongly enough, but now she straight up says she considers death something "kind to her." Just sad in general, but I wonder if there will be some discussions of it with the fellow suicidal characters like Hu. In fact, I wonder if that's the reason that Hu was the one to see the scar on Teruko's back during 2-2; so she'd have a vague idea of Teruko's backstory for some interaction in the future.

But the main point of these scenes is Teruko's relationship with the concept of fate. She basically goes through an entire character arc from the moment she says Ace's murder was just misfortune to right after Levi jumps in to save her. Basically, she used to blame fate (or "bad luck") for everything she did and what happened to her, thinking that just accepting this fate would allow her to live more easily. Especially noticeable because part of her "bad luck" is being betrayed, which gives way to her trust issues.

Teruko [2-2]: If I get in a car, it'll crash. If I stand in a construction site, it'll crumble to dust. If I trust others, they'll turn their back on me.

Hence her internal monologue about "living so nothing stains my conscience." If everything that happens to her is fate's fault, then she doesn't have to change, she doesn't have to confront her faults. Even when she talked about accepting the consequences for her actions, it was always in the context of accepting her fate. If she just accepts whatever consequences her actions bring, then she can excuse herself from fighting back against that, which is an easier way to live, but as she says, could be considered selfish. What's easier for Teruko is not always best for others, exemplified perfectly by Levi protecting her; Teruko chose not to fight her fate, and it got Levi hurt. Funnily enough, this somewhat parallels Hu feeling selfish for not sharing her secret, which is fun contrast. Hu is more justified in not sharing her secret, so it shows that feeling selfish for doing things that are good for you can be pretty bad. Meanwhile, Teruko shows that not taking others into account can also end up hurting people.

Of course, the whole "not fighting fate" thing also obviously parallels Mr Literature Boy Insane's feelings on the whole thing, to the point where they have practically the same character flaw. Believing themselves and others unable to change as a result of fate is the way they try living with themselves, because of the whole self-loathing thing, but that means they're resistant to changing their flaws. MonoTV says similar things, but it's a machine so it's not so much a flaw as just the nature of its character. It was a flaw Arei had, though, but she grew out of it through Character Development, similarly to the way it's implied Teruko is growing out of the "all fate's fault" mindset in the last inner monologue. You might also notice that tying fate into self-betterment allows you to draw a connection to the theme of admitting mistakes and fixing them, tying to Min who is also connected to the concept of fate through her entire backstory of being "destined" to be the Ultimate Student from the moment her family accepted XF-Ture's Tech contract, and obviously Min contrasts Xander who is all about fighting fate as the Ultimate Rebel, and that's without mentioning all the other "fate" bullshit going on and-

Yeah you get the idea. Too much peak for me to write it all out.

Very excited to see where Teruko's character goes now that she's not going to blame her bad luck for everything now. I worry she'll swing too hard the other way and end up blaming herself for things she shouldn't, but oh well, that's just more character development to be had.

That was the biggest Teruko thing, but there's still more to cover.

Teruko [to Ace, 2-16]: If you can't [attack MonoTV]... If you can't do that, then tell me, why did Arei have to die?! Ace: ... Teruko: It's because unlike Arei, *you* couldn't make amends with the people you made enemies out of. *You* were too scared to confront the people you hurt, say you're sorry, and promise to be a better person. So instead you took out your own personal problems on other people by murdering someone who had nothing to do with you! Arei died because you're a coward, Ace!

Uh... someone's projecting~

Teruko [already linked, 2-2]: But if you start talking about me and saying that I could be a good person if only I make an attempt to change, then I'm going to stop you right there. Don't say that I could be a good person, because all it'll do is make me feel bad that I'm not.

Damn it's almost like she hates herself because she already knows deep down that her mindset is flawed and so when she sees someone else behaving like she does/did she gets upset at them that's crazy :O

(I mean it's not 1:1 because Teruko never did anything as bad as Ace, but the point stands :v)

Final note, as always, voice acting was peak, just that there's too many good examples to point them all out one by one. Same with Levi btw, I think I forgot to mention it in his section.

Teruko continues to be probably my favorite protag of any DR or DR inspired story, though as always I'm working on a small sample size. Really excited to see her development in the future!

Ace Markey

Well if it isn't the man of the hour! It's only natural the blackened gets to close things out. Let's do the same thing as we did with Teruko and go by (mostly) chronological order.

That includes the quick, retrospective observation that a lot of Ace's behavior in the trial and investigation now needs to be re-analyzed with the understanding he's the blackened. It mostly just adds an extra layer to Ace's constant accusations towards Nico, though, since Ace didn't really do much most of the trial. The only other notable thing he did was revealing David's secret, and even then, nothing too big. I know it's a bit silly to go so hard on Nico when David is almost easier to frame, but this is Ace we're talking about. He's emotional and not quite the most strategic, so nothing weird there.

Although, speaking of Ace knowing about David's secret, why did he not hear the end of the Arei-David conversation? I doubt he's hiding it, because he doesn't really have a reason to, so apparently he just, like, left. I guess he just didn't care enough :p

Finally getting to PT 2 itself, we have a 2-13 speech we skipped earlier, don't we?

Levi [2-13]: I don't personally care what happens to Ace. Whether he lives or dies is none of my concern in the end. Ace: ...?! Levi: But it is a "good" thing to make sure someone else doesn't die, even if I personally do not care about the outcome. I truly believe that. But I adhere to that principle out of duty, not sentimentality. Does that make any sense? Ace: You... Hah. Hahaha. You-- You fucking piece of shit. Levi: ... Ace: I was right all along. That you felt bad for me... That you actually wanted to help me... That even if everyone here treated me like shit, there was at least one person who still cared about me... That shit's too good to be true, isn't it? Yeah, good thing I didn't fall for that in the slightest. Not one bit. I was totally right all along to burn our friendship-- No, I can't even call it "friendship." There's only one person in my whole life who I've ever been able to call my friend. That I ever thought, even for just a short time, that you and I were "friends" is an insult to his memory. I probably sound real pathetic admitting that. But I'm not nearly as pathetic as you. After all, you're a piece of trash who probably has never had a single friend in your life. Levi: ... Ace: Got nothing to say to me now? That's fine. Hey, Levi. I really hope you fucking die.

Okay there is... so much to unpack there. Let's... start by the smaller thing, which is the Taylor Riley drop in "there's only one person in my whole life who I've ever been able to call my friend." This guy's name was revealed in a now deleted CH2 PT1 QnA answer, alongside with the name of a friend of Veronika's who gave her her green triangle earring, Alyssa Belyaeva. We got main series confirmation of the name in one of the graves of Thanatophobia, alongside the names of Elliot Cuevas and Felicity Giles.

We know... zero about Taylor, apart from the fact that he was Ace's friend and is now very evidently dead. Thankfully, we get a bit more context on his death by one of Ace's comments:

Ace [2-16]: Execute me right now, you hear me, MonoTV? MonoTV: ... Ace: Because... Because Levi is gonna fucking die, and I'm going to have a third goddamn death on my hands!

Third, huh? Arei, the hypothetical Levi death, and presumably Taylor. Sure, the third could be Ace himself, but I feel the line makes a bit more sense with Taylor.

So, Ace blames himself for the death of Taylor. Given he liked the guy, probably not intentional murder, but who knows what the hell he did. At this point, we really have no way to deduce the way Taylor died or how Ace could have caused it somehow, though. Maybe we'll get some answers in the Bonus Episode? Hopefully :p

But that's the easy part. The hard part is Ace's feelings towards Levi. Immediately, we can tell the whole "I never thought you cared about me, not one bit" thing is a complete lie, not just because the line itself is extremely unconvincing, but because of something Ace says later in this episode.

Ace [to Levi, 2-13]: You piece of shit. I can't believe there used to be a time I actually liked you.

So, yeah. Similarly, based on the fact that Ace wanted MonoTV to speed up the execution to try and save Levi's life despite his fear of death, we can infer that Ace is also lying when he tells Levi "I really hope you fucking die."

No, Ace really does care about Levi. For the reason stated at... some point in this analysis; Ace feels safer around Levi. And that creates a bit of a problem for him, because if he wants to escape the killing game, he's gonna have to kill Levi to do it. It's unclear if that's the reason he originally pushed Levi away, "burning their friendship to the ground" in his words, or if he just didn't want to trust him after the death threat in trial 1. However, guilt over trying to get Levi killed is definitely part of why he says this:

Ace [2-16]: I knew... I knew that I wasn't allowed to call [Levi] a murderer. I had no right to act betrayed, because I was the one who betrayed everyone. But still, I...! Levi: Why-- Ace: But still, I--! I don't care what it was! I don't care if it made me a hypocrite! Even if I was completely in the wrong, and even if it made my life worse! I just needed a reason to stay mad at you, any reason at all, goddamnit! Levi: Why? Why do you have to force yourself to be angry at me? You just said you know that you're in the wrong, so why do you still do it?! I don't understand. I can't understand you, no matter how hard I try. Ace: Good! Stay that way! I hope you never understand me, even after I'm buried a billion miles deep in the ground and you're weeping at my grave, you piece of shit!

Ace tries very hard to find reasons to hate Levi because he's afraid of growing close to anyone in the killing game, mostly because he thinks he'll be betrayed, but by the point he starts plotting murder, also because he's trying to kill them all. Being close to them is a good way to feel more horrible about himself than he already does.

To be clear, the reason I say the first reason is more important is because I think I can more or less pinpoint the moment Ace starts thinking about murder, and by that point he's already trying to cut Levi off.

Ace [2-2]: In this killing game, everyone is out to get me. Especially people who love picking fights with me, people like you [Teruko] and Levi. I can't believe I wasted my time with all that dumb shit like arm wrestling and running around screaming at meaningless stuff. I was fucking stupid to not take this killing game seriously from the start. I'm done with being everyone's kickable scaredy cat. The only thing I should do is look out for myself and myself alone.

Well he sure did take the killing game seriously after this point now didn't he?

Obviously, this is a pretty direct parallel to the way Teruko tried pushing everyone away in this chapter, and the way David pretends not to care about Arei after the magical girl transformation. More on this whole thing in a bit.

The relationship between Levi and Ace is one of contrast. Levi, who doesn't actually care about Ace the "usual way", chooses to try to get closer to him. Meanwhile, Ace cares about Levi maybe too much, and his fear of this attachment drives him to push Levi away. The yaoi truly is doomed with this one. Moving on.

Ace [to Nico and Hu, 2-14]: You two are a real fucking joke. It would have been one thing if Nico gets away scot-free with trying to kill me, but now they apparently also have a fucking defense brigade to shield them from even having to think about the fact that they're a murderer. Who's gonna stick up for me, huh? No one. Because I have a spine and I don't need other people to lie to me constantly to keep me happy.

Ace [to Nico, 2-14]: You tried to murder me. You fucking tried to murder me! And after all's said and done, you can't even say something as simple as "sorry"?!

Ace [to Teruko, 2-15]: Were you convinced by Eden because she had a little sob story ready? Should I start crying and wailing too to change your mind? Teruko-- No, everyone here. You're always attacking me for stupid reasons. Everyone always has it out for me. That pisses me off. All of you piss me off.

Ace [2-15]: You all actually think I'm too goddamn stupid to accomplish anything? Do you really think I'm 2 seconds away from choking on my own spit and passing out?

This is where we start to see Ace's persecution complex on this part, which was already alluded to in the previously linked 2-2 Ace quote. He thinks everyone is out to get him, and to an extent, he's not horribly wrong. Very few people in the cast have favorable opinions on Ace, and he knows that if he gets revealed as a murderer, that "few people" will likely turn to "no one." I mean, not even Levi wants to defend him.

Ace [2-15]: Hah... I expected everyone else to get on my ass, but for you of all people to think I'm the murderer... What happened to ever wanting to make things up, huh? Besides, between you and me, we both know who's really a murderer.

And hell, Nico's already tried to kill him! Ace is the victim in that situation, even if he did "start it."

Which gets us to one of the most interesting moral quandaries this trial presents us with, Milgram style. Because the thing is, Ace has given the cast reasons to dislike him. Ever since the start, he's been confrontational, insulting, and just generally not the most delightful person to be around. Especially to Nico, who he specifically targeted to bully. Obviously it doesn't justify being horrible to him back, including things like Hu's slap and Levi's death threat, and especially Nico's murder attempt, but... well, if people don't feel about Ace the same way they feel about some of the calmer cast members, there's a reason for it.

How justified is the cast in the things they say about Ace? How much of it is Ace's responsibility, and how much is it the cast's? How much responsibility do they hold for creating the hostile environment that pushed Ace into murder? How does the mastermind and the killing game itself factor into this valuation? These are all interesting questions the series asks us to ponder on, and by their nature don't have any one right answer. Especially because "blame for a thing that happened" isn't a number that can be evenly divided by percentage, it's a very complicated and subjective thing. J puts it pretty well in her speech to Ace in 2-15, giving her perspective as well.

J [2-15]: Maybe I was too harsh on you. Me and everyone else here, I don't think a single one of us stopped to think where the breaking point is. ...But. Murder is unacceptable, no matter what. Your problems might be awful, and they might be the worst in the world, but they're still not so bad that killing 13 people is acceptable. You can't be forgiven as a murderer just because your life sucks.

My personal opinions on this are probably best saved for when we get the full picture in just a moment.

And speaking of the full picture, since Ace's persecution complex feeds into his fear of death, why don't we skip right into the big speech?

Ace [already linked in the Hu section, 2-15]: ...... God damn it. I'm such a piece of shit. [...] You're right. I'm screwed. There's no way I'm making it out of this trial alive. I just... wanted to stall for time. I'm scared of dying, I really am. [...] I killed Arei. That's exactly right. Shit, it sounds really bad when I say it out loud. [...] Hu: Did you kill Arei because of MonoTV's motive? Because you wanted to keep your 'secret' hidden-- Ace: Hell no! I don't give a damn about that motive, or my dumb little secret, you idiot fuckwad! Who do you think I am, you?! *sigh* That wasn't why I killed her. I was scared of dying, that's all. [...]

Quick thing, but I think it's cool that the motive really had jack shit to do with the murder. Hate to bring the guy up so much, but it helps make David's "plan" of revealing all the secrets unequivocally wrong, which I feel is important for some of the themes of the chapter. In particular, the idea that gets pushed that everyone should be allowed to reveal their secrets at their own time, aka privacy is important. Nico's public secret reveal happened before they were ready to share, and that was a bad thing, after all. And a lot of the conflict in this chapter came from MonoTV giving the motives in general.

Ace [continued]: I'm definitely going to die in this killing game if I don't escape. Everyone hates me, right? Because I'm a volatile asshole who can't help but pick fights and make people mad at me. Veronika was right. If pushed to kill, everyone would feel the least guilt if they killed me. They might even have some sort of grudge. I wouldn't be surprised. When Nico tried to kill me, that just confirmed it. There's a part of me that's a little pissed that Nico didn't succeed back then, because that would have saved me the trouble of having to go through this stupid-ass farce. Although I'd be real fuckin' pissed if they *did* successfully kill me. I'm kind of pissed at Nico for trying to kill me, either way. Nico: ...

Interesting to hear part of Ace wanted Nico to succeed. It certainly speaks to a great level of defeatism, where everything is horrible and death would be preferable, which parallels Teruko nicely. That defeatism for Ace comes partly from the persecution complex discussed earlier, and some other stuff we'll talk about in a moment.

Ace [continued]: But still! If I didn't kill someone and escape... then I was going to die. I'm fucking terrified of dying! I can't sleep at night because I keep thinking about how I'm going to die young in this goddamn killing game! I didn't want to die! I want to live. Just like everyone else. Live, and escape this killing game, and go back to my shitty life where I can't do anything on my own because I can't control myself. Back to that life where I can't do anything but a sport that I hate because I suck shit at everything else. I was forced into that fate, to kill someone because I'm scared. It was either that, or I would be killed first. There were no other options for me, because I'm a coward who can't fight my own fate. [...]

I think an underrated part of Ace's character is just how much damn symbolism is hidden in his talent.

The first connection is the more or less obvious "if I didn't kill someone, I would be killed first" mentality, where Ace literally views the killing game as a race to be the first blackened to get away with it. But that's almost an extension of the other connection.

You hear it from him here; he feels he completely lacks control of his life, that it's all decided by a fate he can't control, the same way that a jockey doesn't walk on their own, but rather is carried by a horse to their destination. And it's no wonder that this feeling of lacking control is referenced in his secret quote, "I don’t know what to do with myself anymore." After all, it's this feeling of lacking control of himself and his situation that causes him to seek control of anything he can, be it bullying Nico because he sees them as an easy target, distancing himself from others because it's easier to control his feelings that way, killing someone because it's the only way he can control his place in the killing game, or anything else I might be forgetting.

And this fear of lacking control is probably part of his fear of death, isn't it? Because no one can control what happens after death. Maybe yes, maybe not, but regardless, Ace's thanatophobia is pretty evident. I mean, it's the name of his execution, and it's a fitting one. Ultimately, Ace's fear of death is what gets him killed, both metaphorically because it's the reason he became a blackened, and literally because he dies of a fear-induced cardiac arrest. That, alongside with the incredible art and banger music, is why I consider Thanatophobia one of, if not the single best DR style execution I've ever seen. Simply peak.

Ace [continued]: Do you think I give a crap about you all? Why would that matter to me? No one gives a crap about me either! None of you even respect me enough to think I was capable of killing Arei! In fact, that made me feel way less guilty about killing-- [J makes her anti-murder speech] Ace: ... I know that [I can't be forgiven]. I'm the one who murdered Arei, so of course I know that. Arei... She was a piece of shit too. Just like me. Even if she said all that nice bullshit to Eden, there was no guarantee that she really was going to change and become a good person. Maybe if she lived, then by tomorrow she'd be right back to her annoying bitchy self. ... But at least she was trying. And I can't even change one thing about myself. Not my shitty job, not my shitty personality, nor my shitty life. I really am a piece of shit, huh?

At the end of the day, Ace is his own worst enemy. What really gets Ace killed (apart from the already mentioned fear of death) is the inability to change, to see the flaws in the way he behaves himself and try to better himself. Or, rather, he does see the flaws, he knows he's a target of the killing game because of his aggressiveness and that he drove himself into a corner out of fear, but he considers himself incapable of changing that. Changing is difficult, and Ace is scared to even try. Like he says, maybe Arei couldn't have managed it either, but she was trying. And that's what ultimately separates the two.

In case it isn't obvious, my take on who's to blame for everything that happened is pretty much squarely on Ace. Sure, there were things the others did to Ace which aren't justified, but you can't blame people for disliking someone that knows he's unlikable and cannot find it in himself to try to change that. Arei tried to change; she died a good person. Levi tried to make amends for trial 1; he's a good person too. The tragedy of the situation is that Ace himself could have been a good person too, because everyone can be, but it's a decision that must be made, as Eden put it earlier in the chapter. And it's a difficult one, too difficult for Ace.

Teruko, David, all these people... they can also be "good people," in the sense of always trying to be "less shitty together" in Arei's words. Ace is a cautionary tale of how not doing so can end up really, really badly.

Which is the setup for Teruko and David's continued foiling, isn't it? Teruko will presumably look at all of Ace's flaws (lack of trust, unwillingness to change, accepting fate without fighting it) as pitfalls to avoid, because of how similar the two of them acted in CH2. Meanwhile, David, since he heard Arei's speech and knows just how hard she tried to change, will see those same flaws as strengths. In his eyes, Arei died because she trusted the note, because she tried to change, because she tried to defy her nature. At least, that's my prediction. Where all of that will go is anyone's guess.

But, how do we know that Ace could have been a good person? How do we know that it isn't David who is right, that neither Ace nor Arei could have ever gotten better, had they simply tried? Well, simply put, because in the end, Ace does start changing. As a final, tragic note, Ace's ability to confront fate and try to correct his flaws only surfaces when it's far too late. And not only when he punches MonoTV, though that also is a good example of it, but also when he chooses to face execution quicker in an attempt to save Levi.

Ace [already linked, 2-16]: Execute me right now, you hear me, MonoTV? MonoTV: ... Ace: Because... Because Levi is gonna fucking die, and I'm going to have a third goddamn death on my hands! Arturo: E-Even then, there's no guarantee that he'll live--- Ace: Shut up! What the hell are you talking about? Aren't you a surgeon? Can't you fix him? Arturo: I--! I'm not that kind of surgeon! I've told you, over and over, I have no experience with saving lives! Something like this! There's no way I can do it-- Ah! Ace: SHUT UP! Shut up, Arturo! You *can* save his life! Shut the fuck up! Stop saying you can't do it, because you can! Don't you understand? I'm going to die right now, and you're going to live! So decide whether you want to at least *try* and put in some fucking effort for once, or keep making excuses for yourself like a sniveling coward for the rest of your life. I don't even get to make that decision anymore! Stop complaining, you whiny little shit! Grow some fucking balls and save someone's goddamn life, asshole! Because you can!

There's layers to Ace's shouting barrage at Arturo. Obviously part of it is just Ace trying to convince himself that Arturo can save Levi so he can die with a relatively clearer conscience, but there's also a sort of self-awareness of Ace's faults in the things he says. Try swapping "save Levi's life" for "be a better person," and pretend it's being said to Ace by someone else who is about to die.

You *can* [be a good person]! Shut the fuck up! Stop saying you can't do it, because you can! Don't you understand? I'm going to die right now, and you're going to live! So decide whether you want to at least *try* and put in some fucking effort for once, or keep making excuses for yourself like a sniveling coward for the rest of your life. I don't even get to make that decision anymore! Stop complaining, you whiny little shit! Grow some fucking balls and [be a better person], asshole! Because you can!

Because moments ago, it was Ace who was making excuses like a coward for why he felt he would never be a good person, and why he had no control over his shitty personality that made everyone hate him and made him a target of the killing game, etc. He never put in the effort to change because he thought it was pointless, that he was unable to, and didn't realize the falseness of that preconception until he was faced with death. Seems I was on the right track when I connected his thanatophobia to his issues with control; death robs him of the decision to try and be a good person ("I don't even get to make that decision anymore!"), which he hadn't even realized he had until that moment.

It's no wonder Ace was a popular survivor guess; he could have changed, could have been a good person. And despite the harm he's caused, the way he robbed Arei of the opportunity to do what he couldn't and attempt to change, the intention he had of killing everyone in the trial, his death remains a tragedy for the hypothetical of what could have been. Maybe if Levi had managed to properly reach him the way Eden reached Arei, this could have all been avoided. But alas, Ace didn't accept the hand strectched out to him, and now it's too late to fix things.

I said during my reactions that I felt just as emotional during Ace's execution as I did with Min's, which was certainly true and very impressive given my massive bias towards the Ultimate Student. And while I can't say that I'll miss Ace as much as I miss Min (because come on), I'll certainly hold him close to my heart for as long as I live regardless.

As a final note, holy shit the voice acting. If I pointed out every line where the acting for Ace was spectacular, I would be here all day. I doubt I need to elaborate on this; the sheer perfection of the performance should be obvious to anyone who can hear it. Godspeed Seth Raffield, you truly were incredible. Can't wait to hear what you do in the Bonus Episode, provided there is one.

---

I am free! Holy shit that took way too fucking long. I need to figure out a better way to do this shit for later chapters, because geez. You have no idea how much Tumblr's drafts lagged because of this shit, I had to write the final sections in different drafts and copy paste them over because it was unbearable. Not to mention hitting the goddamn link limit which is just clinically insane from me. Anyways, if you somehow managed to read all of that, I feel genuinely sorry for you. You know you can be a good person if you try, right? There's no need to punish yourself like this.

I'm being silly, of course. Thanks for reading, hope you enjoyed!

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lizslibrary · 10 months ago

Text

Facade

Summary: Bucky x Reader fic where Reader is sick but decides to go on a mission anyway.

A/N: This is my first fanfiction, please comment or critique it; I am always open to suggestions. I also struggled on finding a good ending, so I just decided to leave the rest of the story up to the imagination of the reader. 🥰

Warnings: assassin!reader, Sickness; flu, overexertion, guns, fighting, fainting, Slowburn (Picks up in the end,) angst, fluff, guilt, angry Bucky

Word count: 2,007

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I lean my back against the side of the jet, trying to appear as normal as possible. We were going on a HYDRA intel mission and I was sick. I knew going on this mission was a bad decision, but I couldn’t let my team down.

As I took a deep breath, I could feel a pair of eyes watching me; I didn’t even have to look over to know it was Bucky. He stared at me with his arms crossed over his chest and his head tilted slightly backward. I could tell he knew something was wrong, but I didn’t bother meeting his gaze.

A few minutes later, the plane landed in a remote location, and slowly, the back door dropped with a soft hiss. I unstrapped my seatbelt and hoisted my gun over my shoulder walking down the ramp and into a thick layer of snow. The cold air felt nice against my flushed cheeks, and I sighed as I watched the rest of the team trail out of the jet.

Steve stood confidently as he began giving orders, “Sam and Natasha, patrol the outside; make notes of everyone entering and exiting the compound.” “y/n, Bucky and I will take the inside, working on containing and evacuating evidence that may be crucial to Hydra’s destruction.” Steve stood silent for a moment. “Does everyone understand?”

Everyone nodded and stood next to their partners. I notice Bucky watching me from behind Steve. I turned my head away from him so I wouldn’t give myself away. I knew that if he found out I was sick, he would stop the mission and make us turn around.

“The snow is thick, walk slow and conserve energy…we have the whole day ahead of us,” Steve says, beginning to walk forward.

Everyone trudges behind Steve in silence, our footsteps making quiet crunching sounds through the snow. I follow closely behind Steve, while Bucky trails closely behind me. I make sure to place my feet in Steve's already deep footprints, the last thing I wanted was to be drained of my energy before we'd even reach the compound.

I look up at the dark gray sky; we must be high up in the mountains, looking down on what seems like endless miles of nothingness. It wasn't surprising that HYDRA would be located here, being a rather isolated organization.

A little while later I began to make out the rectangular shape of the compound through the dense snow that was falling from the sky. My hands were getting numb from holding onto the straps on my gun holster and my legs ached from walking through the snow. Steve looked over at me, I saw concern but I just gave him a reassuring nod and pushed forward.

As we got closer, I noticed that the base was a massive, grey complex. The building was made of concrete and had no windows, just little square holes that littered the walls...it reminded me of a prison.

Steve came to a stop and crouched behind a concrete barrier, he motioned for us to do the same. The team huddled beside Steve and watched the camp, it was only a few yards away allowing us to see movement from behind the large, barbed fence.

"Send Redwing out, we need to see the safest route for entry," Steve ordered. Sam was quick to oblige, sending the drone into the snowfall.

It hovered above the entrance to the complex, giving us an accurate view of how many guards there were. There were three men posted around the entrance, all wearing black helmets. One of them remained stationed by the gate while the other two patrolled around the gate.

Sam watched the feed from the drone, scanning the screen for any more guards, "Seems like there are only three near the entrance...if you can take them out you have a clear path to a set of double doors." Sam said looking at Steve out of the corner of his eye "The problem is...how are you gonna get in?"

"Tony said that there should be a keypad on the outside, luckily for us he managed to find the code," Steve said with a small grin on his face, I could hear a small chuckle come from Bucky.

Natasha shook her head "I wouldn't expect anything less from that man."

"Sam, keep a watch on Redwing and head to the left side of the building. Natasha, you take right." Steve says "Bucky y/n, follow me...be aware of your surroundings."

As soon as the plan is said, we jump into action. Steve begins creeping towards the front of the complex, with the sound of our footsteps ringing in the snow-covered ground, while Bucky and I cover him. Steve slams his shield into the neck of one of the guards while I wrestle another to the ground and knock him unconscious. My head is spinning as I stand up but I help Bucky take care of the last guy.

With the first threat taken care of, we hurry over to where Steve is standing, "This way," Steve points at a door on the side of the building. We follow closely behind him and watch his back as he types in the code on the keypad.

He grabs the handle and turns it. The door creaks open slowly, revealing a very dimly lit hallway. Steve leads the way down the hall. The smell of damp stone fills the air, with the faint scent of blood and gunpowder lingering in the air. We follow silently behind Steve until we get to the end of the hallway, where it opens up into two different hallways.

“I’ll take the right side, y/n Bucky go left,” Steve says

Bucky and I walk down the left hallway and I can feel my palms getting sweaty with each step. Something felt wrong, where was everyone? Why were there no HYDRA agents? I glance over at Bucky and see that he has a crease in his eyebrows, I could tell he was wondering the same thing. I grip my gun closer to my chest, it was eerily quiet and something felt off…very off.

As we near the end of the hallway we enter a large room. It was filled with old dusty computers and lots of filing cabinets. I approach one of the computers and take out the hard drive making sure to put it in my pocket in hopes that it will be important intell. I watch Bucky enter a side room and suddenly the lights turn off and I jolt when I hear the loud slam of a door shutting.

It’s pitch black and I can hear footsteps circling me in the room “Y/N!? Y/N!” Bucky is pounding his fist on the other side of the door.

I feel disoriented and dizzy as I try and move around the room “Bucky!? Where-?” I am cut off by a gloved hand covering my mouth; I scream and slam my elbow into the person behind me.

My breathing becomes more labored as I try and fight off the people attacking me. I feel myself on the verge of passing out.

I grab my knife out of my pocket and slam it blindly into someone's torso. I lose my balance and I fall backward, causing my head to slam against the corner of the table. I let out a yell of pain and felt a warm liquid running down my neck.

I scramble back into a wall and feel someone else's hands on me, I try and fight back but my movements are disoriented; I am helpless.

As soon as I feel all hope is lost, the door bursts open filling the room with light. Before I know what’s happening gunshots ring out and silence fills the room. My vision is swimming and I see a familiar, blurry silhouette approaching me; guilt fills my stomach.

“M-..sorry Bucky…” I slur as fight from blacking out.

Bucky scoops me up in his arms, and before I know it he is sprinting out of the compound and into the snow. My body is limp in his arms and I can hear him murmuring incoherent prayers as he runs.

Soon, we reach the jet, and he quickly puts me on the medical table. Everything around me is blurry and I don’t know what is happening.

I am so tired. Maybe I should sleep. Bucky wouldn’t be mad if I just slept for a minute…

--------------------------------------------------

My mind is pulled into the dark, tempting world of sleep.

A bright light fills my vision as I wake up. I blink a couple of times in an attempt to get my eyes to adjust to the light. What happened? Where am I? Several thoughts plagued my mind all at once and my body flings itself into an upright position.

Bucky stands up as soon as he sees me awake "Hey, hey! You're okay, you are safe.." Bucky says, gently trying to get me to lay back down.

The memories of last night flood my mind and I feel an intense wave of guilt in the pit of my stomach. I take a small glance at Bucky and notice the relief in his eyes quickly turn to that of hurt, maybe even anger. The look in his eyes pained me to see, I knew he felt upset about my actions.

"Bucky...I-"

"Why?" he says suddenly, staring me straight in my eyes.

"I'm sorry..."

Bucky closes his eyes in an attempt to calm himself "Sorry doesn't cut it." He says sharply "You almost died y/n."

I look away from him and shake my head "I know...but if I hadn't gone someone could have gotten hurt."

I watch anger form in his expression "Liz." His serious tone forces me to look at him "Are you not listening to me? You almost died!" His tone gets louder as he talks, "When I brought you back on the jet you were burning up and sweating...did you know that your fever almost reached 103."

Bucky takes a step backward and faces the wall, he rakes his fingers through his hair. "Do you understand that had I not been there and broken through a metal wall, you would be dead." He turns to face me again "Do you not understand that if you had died in that room; I would have blamed myself?" He looked me in the eyes "Do you not understand that if you died, I would have nothing else to live for?"

"Better me dead than you," I say quietly.

Bucky clenches his fist and inhales a sharp breath "Never, and I mean never, say that shit to me ever again." He grabs my hands and stands silently. "y/n, you give me a reason to wake up in the morning; the feeling I get when I see your gorgeous, happy face in the morning makes me feel alive."

I stare at him speechlessly and he continues "I know this is a terrible place, and a terrible time but I have to tell you..." The look he gives me makes my body tingle "I love you. I love you too much to the point where it hurts...and when we were in that compound I watched as the life drained from your eyes, and I felt more scared in that moment than I have ever had in my entire life...because I knew that If you were to die, I would have nothing left to get me out of bed in the morning, I would have nothing left to get me home safe from missions, I would have no more life because without you; I have none."

Bucky's words make it feel like the world has stopped, like it's just me and him and nothing can stop us from being together. I stare at Bucky's beautiful eyes, and he stares at mine; they tell me that I am here, that I am alive, and that I'm next to the person I love and care about most in this world.

#bucky fluff #bucky barnes x reader #soft bucky #bucky x reader #bucky barnes #bucky x y/n #bucky x female reader

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lilacmingi · 4 months ago

Text

TOWARDS THE LIGHT

My works are 14+ ONLY. If you’re under 14 DO NOT interact with me or any of my works. NO SPAM-LIKING PLEASE

Pairing: Sith!Seonghwa x Jedi!fem reader

Word count: 16,450

Note: So I didn’t think I’d ever write anything longer than Hongjoong’s D&D AU “A Quest For Love” but here we are lol so strap in because this is a big one

The sizzling sound of clashing lightsabers filled the air in the training room, blue and green beams of light swinging around and colliding with one another with a resounding spark.

Seonghwa's saber was swung towards you, which you blocked, pushing back with your own weapon and successfully deflecting his attack. He let out a huff, a small smirk playing at the corner of his mouth at the challenge. He always liked battling with you, though you bested him most of the time, he took it as a chance to improve.

The blue beam of light Seonghwa wielded was spun around in a showy manner as he lunged forward, raising the saber. Your eyes stayed trained on him as he approached with an aggressive attack, holding out your green lightsaber in preparation before swinging it at his and successfully knocking it from his hand.

Seonghwa grunted in mild agitation as he landed on the ground, having lost his footing when he landed. His arm shot out and brought the weapon back to his hand by using the Force. He was always good at that.

Getting to his feet, he wasted no time coming at you again, this time with a determined gleam in his eye. His burst of energy took you by surprise and you found yourself scrambling to do something before his blazing beam of light came swinging at you. With only a few seconds to react, your lightsaber came up to halt his attack, the beams making a sizzling sound when touching.

The weapons were pulled away from one another before clashing once more, and again, and again. Each time, neither of you were able to strike the other.

This was a familiar scene. Being in this gray training room with walls made of metal. You and Seonghwa had spent almost your whole lives training to be Jedi. You were Luke's only apprentices. You were the best of friends—inseparable some might say.

After continuing to block attacks, you saw a moment of opportunity and leapt into the air, attempting to use the Force to assist you in going high enough to jump right over Seonghwa. You just barely missed his head as you moved through the air, landing on the ground with a soft huff. Now standing just behind Seonghwa, you held the tip of your lightsaber to the back of his head, making him freeze.

"I win."

"Not bad." He commented with a chuckle, raising his hands in surrender before turning to face you. "That Force jump was a little rusty though."

"I thought I'd try something new." You shrugged, deactivating your weapon.

"You could still use some practice." He remarked, doing the same with his saber.

"I'm impressed." A voice full of wisdom spoke from one end of the training room.

You and Seonghwa turned your heads towards the utterance, finding Luke standing in the doorway with a fond expression on his face. He had been watching.

"Y/n, that's the first time I've seen you successfully execute a Force jump. You need a little more practice, but I think you'll have it down in no time."

"Thank you, Master Luke." You bowed at his praises, always honored to receive them from such a well-known Jedi.

"Seonghwa, you have this fire in your eyes when engaged in a fight. You've got determination, but your attacks were a little aggressive. When in battle it's good to be strong and vigorous, but you also need to be fluid and focused. Sometimes hostility isn't the best course of action."

Seonghwa nodded, taking in the information he was being given. He wanted to be a good Jedi, as good as Master Luke, and he would do anything to work towards that goal.

"I'll try and tone it down." He nodded, showing that he understood the critiques he was given.

"Good." Luke smoothed out his gray robes, giving the both of you a once over before speaking again. "You two had better go eat. I'm sure you're exhausted from training. You kids have been in here for hours."

With that, he exited the training room.

Glancing over at your battle partner, you could see his round coffee-colored eyes shine with interest at the mention of food—Seonghwa was always a big eater.

"Let's go." You linked arms with him, tugging him out of the room and into the corridor of the ship you often trained in.

Hurrying down the loading ramp of the spacecraft that was parked amongst the lush greenery, you and Seonghwa hastened across the base past other Resistance members, heading directly for the canteen which was really just a large tent set up for people to eat in.

Seonghwa pushed past the beige canvas flaps and entered the area where a handful of people were eating. His eyes locked on the bar situated at the back of the tent where a droid was busying itself by stacking clean bowls. Plopping down on two of the six vacant barstools, you and Seonghwa rested your elbows on the countertop, the droid rolling over to take your orders. A wooden board with a small selection of dishes carved into it hung from a structural beam above the bar. Seonghwa's index finger hovered in the air as he read over the items as if he hadn't done so the last thousand times you two had been in there. While he decided what he wanted, you waved the droid over and ordered a vitajuice and a warm stew, hoping for something filling after a strenuous practice battle.

"Me too." Seonghwa piped up before the droid rolled away, settling on getting the same as you.

"Copycat."

He snorted-slash-scoffed in response to your playful name-calling. "It sounded good when you ordered it. Also, a vitajuice is what I need right now after all that practice." As if to emphasize his words, he stretched out his back and jerked his head a bit, cracking his neck in the process.

"Sure." You responded with an eye roll.

The low murmur of patrons in the mess tent and the distant sound of clanking dishes in the back floated through the air, filling the comfortable silence between you and Seonghwa as you waited for your meals.

The bar droid rolled out from the kitchen area with two glasses clutched in each of its pincers, placing them in front of you and Seonghwa. After thanking the droid, it got back to work behind the counter stacking dishes, picking up right where it left off.

Taking the straw between your index finger and thumb, you took a sip of the refreshing juice, sighing in satisfaction as the cool liquid coated your mouth.

"Ahh. That hits the spot." You hummed.

"Sure does." Seonghwa agreed, sipping so hard on the straw that his cheeks sucked in.

You cackled in response to the ridiculous sight next to you.

"Easy there, bud. It's not going anywhere." You managed to speak through laughter, giving him a reassuring pat on the shoulder.

He pulled away with a drawn-out exhale, the drink having obviously refreshed him.

"I could've chugged the whole thing if I really wanted to."

"I don't doubt it."

Seonghwa's large eyes grew in size when a droid from the kitchen rounded the corner with two bowls of piping hot stew a few minutes later, his hungry gaze following the dishes until they were set down before you. Spoons were given to each of you and you wasted no time getting a sizable spoonful of the stew, Seonghwa following suit. Hums made in unison reverberated in both your throats when you took your first bites, the meal warming you from the inside.

"Is it just me or does food taste better after you've been practicing?" You asked.

"It definitely tastes better." Seonghwa nodded in agreement.

After a filling and satisfactory meal, you took a stroll around camp while your food settled. People bustled about, carrying equipment and crates across the way, some taking them into a nearby cave which doubled as a makeshift hangar for one of the many spaceships.

There was a nice breeze jostling the baby hairs that framed your face and fluttering the leaves of nearby trees. The gray fabric of your pants brushed against the tall grass that covered every inch of the area and beyond. Ajan Kloss, the jungle moon where the Resistance base resided, was where you and Seonghwa had been living your whole lives. You were both moved here as kids, probably no older than ten, by your resistance member parents and when your shared force-sensitivity was discovered by Luke, he started training you. It's all either of you had ever known. There were only fleeting glimpses of your old home planet.

A year later, you found yourself sitting on the Millennium Falcon with Seonghwa, seated on the curved bench of the holographic game table in the lounge area watching him play a round of dejarik with Chewbacca. The ship, piloted by Luke and his closest companion, Han Solo, was headed straight to the planet of Ilum to find kyber crystals for yours and Seonghwa's very own lightsabers. It was tradition for younglings to build their lightsaber before moving up to padawan status, but Luke was different. He had his own ways of training that contrasted from how it used to be before the Great Jedi Purge took place and wiped out almost all the Jedi. Thus why you and Seonghwa were just now getting lightsabers. To say you were excited was an understatement.

Chewbacca raised his furry arms up in victory, having beat Seonghwa in yet another round of dejarik.

"Man." Sighed your friend as he leaned back against the bench with a small smirk tugging up at the corner of his mouth.

"Don't feel bad." You gave him a supportive pat on the shoulder. "Chewie has been playing this game for years. He's a dejarik pro. It's nearly impossible to beat him."

"One day." Seonghwa pointed at the undefeated Wookie who waved off his promise dismissively.

"Hey, kids." Han's approaching voice, followed by the man himself, grabbed your attention. "We're on autopilot right now, but we should be to Ilum soon." He then turned to Chewie. "I hope you're going easy on him." He nodded towards Seonghwa.

The Wookie shook his head before throwing his head back to laugh heartily. Han gave a small chuckle and a head shake of his own before leaning to rest against the nearest wall.

"So, lightsabers." He began.

"Yeah." You nodded with a grin. "I'm really excited. This is a special day."

"Very special." Seonghwa agreed. "It's the most significant day for us as padawans."

"Oh, yes." Han nodded. "I know all about it." He paused to look at the both of you. "Y'know, Luke is really proud of you both. I'm sure he's told you that in some way or another, but I figured I'd say something anyway."

You and Seonghwa shared a gentle look with one another, touched by Han's words.

"Alright, well," He cleared his throat and pushed off the wall he was leaned against, heading out of the room. "gotta get back to the cockpit. Chewie, try to let Seonghwa win a round, will ya?"

A year after you and Seonghwa crafted your lightsabers, Master Luke passed away. It was sudden and almost decisive, like Luke knew it was his time to go and so he went to be one with the Force. Things changed after that.

Your training came to a temporary halt and you were left without a Jedi Master. For a week you didn't leave your sleeping quarters. Meals were brought to you via Leia. Chewie even stopped by once. He was good company and his hugs were always healing in a way. You heard Seonghwa was about the same, staying cooped up in his room just like you.

After that first week, you tried to return to normal and Seonghwa started spending time in the training room swinging his lightsaber and screaming until his lungs burned. You only knew that because you saw him once when passing by. That was the only time you saw him, as he stayed locked in his room majority of the time, isolating himself.

A week and four days after Luke's passing, Seonghwa disappeared. You two were both so wrapped up in mourning that you kept to yourselves. Once your mind had cleared enough, you wanted to check on your friend and see how he was holding up. When the door to his sleeping quarters slid open, you were alarmed to find it completely bare. His bed was made and every piece of furniture was cleared off.

The color drained from your face and every part of your body went cold, your heart plummeting to your feet.

"No." You murmured, spinning around and rushing down the corridors of the ship, stopping at the training room only to find it empty.

Stumbling through the halls, you called out Seonghwa's name, the desperation and panic becoming more apparent in your tone.

"Y/n. What's wrong?"

Whirling around on your heel, you spotted Leia standing at the entrance hall of the spaceship.

"Seonghwa's gone." The words left your lips shakily, fading out weakly at the end. "His room is bare. Cleaned out."

Leia hurried over to take you in her arms just as your knees buckled. With Luke's passing still fresh, Seonghwa disappearing suddenly was like rubbing salt in a wound that hadn't even begun to heal.

"It's alright." Leia cooed, placing a gentle hand on the back of your head. "He could've needed some time alone... away from here."

"Why would he just leave without saying anything?"

"It's possible he's dealing with lots of emotions right now. Maybe he was overwhelmed."

The next words you uttered were muffled due to your face being buried in Leia's shoulder. "Do you think he'll come back?"

"He will. Just give him time."

You sat inside your sleeping quarters of a ship parked at the Resistance base, staring fondly at the lightsaber in your hands. Your fingertips glided reverently over the silvery metal of the hilt, admiring the intricate designs that were etched into them—a personal touch. Though you'd possessed the saber for three years, you still admired it.

"Y/n?"

At the sound of your name being called, you lifted your gaze to find General Leia standing in the doorway of your room.

"Come in."

She entered, a solemn expression etched on her aged yet elegant face as she moved to take a seat beside you on the bed.

"You look concerned." Shifting to face Leia, your brows pulled together. "What's wrong?"

"They're after us again."

"They? The First Order?"

She nodded. "They already destroyed our last base and now they're trying to find this one."

"What do we do? Do we move?"

Leia shook her head. "No. We're not giving up. Besides, they haven't found us yet."

"Then, why'd you come to me?"

She pressed her lips together and stood up, smoothing out her attire. "Let's walk."

You stood up immediately and followed her down the corridor of the ship and off the loading ramp.

Although you tried to be patient, you were itching to know why Leia had come to you with this urgent information. However, instead of forcing her to speak, you waited for her to do it on her own accord.

Your gaze moved to the ships parked about the area as you approached, your fingers fiddling anxiously with the hem of your gray tunic. Whatever it was she needed to say, it wasn't good.

"We need you, Y/n." She finally spoke. "You were trained by my brother and then by me for the last three years."

You blinked incredulously, wondering where she was going with this.

"We don't know what the First Order knows about our location or if they even know it at all. So I need you to sneak onto their ship and plant a listening device."

"You need me to do... what?"

"If we could listen in on what they're talking about, we could collect intel, find out what they know, and use it to our advantage."

"Leia I..." You trailed off, reeling from this being dropped on you so suddenly. "I'm sorry. I have to decline. I-I'm not ready."

"You are. You've been ready."

"There has to be someone else."

She came to a stop, turning to face you fully, her expression serious. "There isn't. You're our only hope."

You shook your head. "What if—"

"No." She stopped you. "No what if's. Y/n, if I didn't think you were capable, I wouldn't be sending you on this mission."

You hardly even ventured off Ajan Kloss. How were you expected to carry out this mission?

"I just..." Your mind was a swirling supercell storm of emotions.

There were so many things to consider, like your lack of expertise in other areas besides battle and having no experience in real missions.

"I can't fly a spaceship, let alone sneak into enemy territory with one. How would I even manage to get by their sensors? They'd pick me up in their airspace right away."

"I can do it." Poe piped up as he happened to be passing by. "I've got a First Order ship in the cave over there." He jerked a thumb somewhere behind him towards a cluster of rocks.

"How did you even get one of those?"

He shrugged in response. "Connections."

Just then, Finn passed by, giving you both a friendly smile and a small wave, oblivious to your conversation. You nodded knowingly in immediate understanding.

"Ah. I see."

"So, will you do it?" Leia asked you, bringing the focus back to the issue at hand.

Taking in a deep breath, you let the possible outcomes flicker in your mind like a slideshow. This could all go terribly wrong—or perhaps it could go incredibly well. Leia believed in you and being the only Jedi on the base, you felt obligated to help, not that you could ever say no anyway.

"Yes."

Walking down the familiar corridors of the ship you called home, you tried to process the fact that you'd be going on your first mission very soon. It was a heavy weight to bear and an even bigger responsibility. Lost in thought, you passed by a room that carried bitter emotions, your footsteps coming to a stop beside it without really thinking. Pressing a button, the door slid open and your eyes landed on the space that was untouched for three years.

Seonghwa's room.

Passing the threshold, you stepped inside and glanced around, your fingers caressing the comforter.

"I sure wish you were here right now." You sighed, speaking aloud to the memories of Seonghwa that remained stagnant in the space. "Could really use your help on this one."

A lump formed in your throat and you swallowed it down, blinking back tears that started to prick your eyes. At first you were sad and confused about Seonghwa leaving all of a sudden—you still were. Then you got angry, feeling like he walked out on you. Now you were just numb.

"This should've been our mission, not mine."

Dropping down to sit on the edge of his bed, you let out another heavy sigh. Your fingers traced absentmindedly over the sleek nightstand, trailing across the handle of a drawer. Without thinking, you tugged on it, something jostling inside as you did so.

With furrowed brows, you peered into the drawer, your eyes slowly widening when you spotted Seonghwa's lightsaber lying inside. With a shaky hand, you reached in and took hold of the hilt, retrieving it from where it sat for three long years.

He left his lightsaber.

This only raised more questions. Did he just give up? Decide he didn't want to be a Jedi anymore since Luke passed?

An image of Seonghwa living on some run-down planet, isolated and alone, flashed in your mind and you hated it.

Shaking away those thoughts, you stood up, your friend's lightsaber in hand, and left. Seonghwa's abandoned weapon was placed on a shelf in your room for safe keeping in case he returned one day.

The following evening, you gathered in the meeting hall with other Resistance members where a plan was made for how you'd infiltrate the First Order's ship and where to plant listening devices. A layout of the enemy ship was projected into the air showing all the different areas.

"A meeting room would be ideal. As would the main control room of the ship. That is where talks between the generals and captains take place." C-3PO spoke in his posh robotic voice while R2-D2 beeped in response. "You could collect lots of intel there."

You nodded, taking it all in, determined to do your absolute best on this mission.

Staring down the entry point on the First Order ship, you clenched your hands at your sides, anxiety plaguing every inch of your body.

"You got this." Poe's voice came from the cockpit of the ship. "I'll be waiting here for you when you're done. You can communicate through your earpiece and I'll be keeping an eye on you through the tracking device inside of it."

"What if I mess up?"

"You won't. I'll tell you where to go."

"What if I get captured?"

"Then we're coming for you."

With that reassurance, you gave a nod and hopped off the spacecraft and into the hangar, sticking close to the wall. You came equipped with three listening devices to plant and your lightsaber which was strapped to your waist in its holster. Your vigilant eyes stayed trained on the stormtroopers marching about the hangar as you slinked along, sneaking behind large First Order spacecrafts parked about the area and using them for coverage until you got to the doors that led to the inside of the ship.

Letting out a shaky exhale, you waited for an opportunity to slip inside when no one was looking. Your hands trembled as you felt the slightest bit of relief that one hurdle had been conquered. Now it was time for the real mission—planting listening devices and not getting caught.

"Poe? I'm in." You whispered.

"Good. You're doing well." He responded through your earpiece. "Go straight and then take a left."

Taking in a deep breath, you proceeded down the empty and darkened corridor of the ship, peering around the corner before taking a turn. There was no time to waste, so you kept moving while waiting for more instructions.

"There you go. Keep going. The meeting room is on your right. Put a listening device under the table in there if the coast is clear."

"Is this it?" You asked once you arrived at a large set of dark gray doors.

"Yes."

Pressing your ear against the cool metal, you listened for voices on the other side, receiving silence in response. Your trembling finger pressed the button to open the doors, a breath of relief leaving your dry lips when you were greeted with the sight of an empty room. Digging out a listening device, you stuck it under the edge of the table, poking your head out to check the halls before swiftly moving out.

"I got it."

"Alright. Proceed down the hall."

Your feet moved quickly, your boots making little noise in the process.

With Poe's direction, you were able to successfully place the second device without issue.

As you fled the area, the sound of stormtroopers talking made you freeze up. Being on a First Order ship, the structure of it was unique with protruding pillars that made for the perfect hiding spot. That, paired with the dim lighting was ideal for your situation, making it easy for you to slip through the shadowy areas. As the voices got closer, you darted to hide yourself behind one of the blocky pillars that jutted out from the wall, pressing yourself against the chilly metal and hoping you wouldn't get caught. The beating of your racing heart thudding in your ears almost completely masked the footfalls of the stormtroopers, your hand hovering over your lightsaber as you watched the two pass by. Your eyes stayed locked on them, following the white-armored figures who didn't notice your presence.

The hand that lingered over your weapon dropped back to your side once the threat was gone and you were on your way.

One more listening device to place.

The intense anxiety you felt before the mission began was not nearly as bad as it was. Having been roaming the corridors of the spaceship for the last ten minutes or so, you managed to get used to the task you were carrying out. That being said, there was still the anxiety of everything going wrong, however, you tried to keep your hopes up.

"Y/n? You still there?"

"Yeah." You let out an exhale. "Stormtroopers passed by. I was hiding."

"Good call. Your last destination is the control room. That'll be difficult because it'll be full of ship staff I'm sure."

Poe could hear your sigh through the earpiece.

"Hey, you got this." He encouraged.

"I know."

"You don't sound very confident."

"I'm not." You murmured, peering around a corner before rounding it. "But I'm gonna pretend to be."

"There you go. Fake it 'til you make it."

A mix between a scoff and a chuckle left you.

"Control room is up the way. Keep an eye out though, there might be some unsavory individuals in there."

That made your heart jump with dread. Unsavory individuals?

"Like who?"

"Ones in higher ranks, like generals."

"I see."

You proceeded down the corridor, pressing yourself behind another metal pillar to hide from more approaching stormtroopers. As soon as they passed, you got back to the mission.

"The doorway should be directly ahead of you." Poe informed.

"I see it."

A few feet in front of you was an open doorway, multiple uniformed people sitting in front of large control panels. Holding your breath, you drew closer to the doorway, daring to peer inside. Standing at the forefront of the room in front of a massive window and more controls was a man in a black uniform, probably a general, discussing something with another crew member.

"Just stick the tracker in a corner or something. Don't stay too long." Poe's voice spoke into your ear.

With the last listening device in hand, you scanned your surroundings and took a step into the control room, spotting one of those structural pillars. The little device was placed into the junction between the wall and the column, unable to be spotted unless someone was really looking for it.

Back on the ship, Poe watched the red dot on his little handheld tracker screen as it moved along the halls of the First Order ship.

"You got it?" He asked.

"Yeah."

"Nice work." He grinned. "I knew you could do it. Now get back here and let's split."

"Copy that."

His eyes stayed locked on the red dot traversing the map as he gave you directions. Every few feet, you'd stop, assumably to hide from passerby in the ship, before resuming.

"Almost there." He said.

You were approaching the hangar, only one turn down the hall and you'd be home free.

The dot stopped moving.

A gasp sounded from your end and Poe's heart sank.

"Y/n?"

"Well, well, well. What's this?" A male voice spoke, sounding close to you.

More panicked noises came through, getting quieter before Poe heard a distant "No!" from you before the feed got staticky, a crunch, and then silence.

"Y/n?" The panic in the pilot's voice rose. "Are you there? Do you copy?"

Nothing.

Poe looked out the windshield of the First Order ship he used to sneak in, peering down at the stormtroopers lingering about. Some of them had their hands held to the side of their helmets before turning to look directly at the spacecraft Poe was occupying.

"Blast!" He hissed through his teeth.

Not only had he lost contact with you, but it seems whoever caught you had notified everyone on board. He had no choice but to hightail it out of there, lest he get captured as well.

"Sorry, Y/n." He murmured, sitting upright in his seat and starting up the ship. "New plan."

The stormtroopers below started shooting at the spacecraft as it lifted off the floor, the hangar door beginning to close. Poe pushed the handles on the control panel forward and the ship plowed down the troopers close by.

"C'mon. C'mon." He spoke through clenched teeth, directing the spacecraft towards the exit, picking up speed.

The gap was slowly closing and it seemed Poe wasn't gonna make it. He winced as the top of the ship scraped against the closing hangar door, not doubt denting and scratching the exterior, as it slipped out into the open space.

A sigh of relief left the pilot as he made his escape, silently vowing to come back with a whole team of Resistance fighters to bring you home just as he promised.

You'd been listening to instructions from Poe, coming to a stop to peer around the corner when he told you to take a turn. That's when someone grabbed you from behind, making you gasp. You couldn't see who it was as you struggled in their grip.

"Y/n?" Poe asked.

"Well, well, well. What's this?" A male voice spoke, a gloved hand moving into your peripherals as your earpiece was pulled out and dropped to the floor.

"No!" You exclaimed.

You could barely hear Poe's panicked voice from the device as it fell, clattering to the metal flooring, your captor swiftly crushing it under his chunky black boot.

You writhed in his hold, somehow managing to slip out, stumbling forward and reaching for your lightsaber which you withdrew from its holster and activated it, the green beam humming as it extended from the hilt.

Your enemy, who donned an all-black outfit and a hood that concealed his face, activated his own saber, a blazing red beam lengthening at his side.

With hardly any time to react, you held your lightsaber up, blocking an aggressive attack from the Sith in front of you. Any anxiety you felt was numbed by your survival instincts and the desire to make it back home—if that was even an option anymore. For all you knew, Poe could've abandoned the mission for the sake of safety.

Clenching your teeth, you pushed back against the red beam with all the power you could muster, getting the Sith away just long enough to scramble backwards down the corridor. It didn't take long before he was back on you again, swinging left and right while you blocked and dodged his attempted attacks. Your back hit a door and your free hand felt for a button, pressing it. A hissing sound came from the hatch as the doors slid open and you staggered backwards inside. The area had electrical panels on the wall and was more spacious than the ship's corridor, giving you more room to fight and move around.

The Sith strode into the room with you and swiped at your side, which you barely evaded. In turn, you let out a grunt and swung your weapon at his chest, which he leaned back and avoided with ease.

Straightening his posture, he brandished his lightsaber in preparation, his boots thumping heavily against the floors as he approached. A shout left the hooded man as he swung at you, the saber making a resounding voosh as the blade was forced through the air.

Your eyes widened as his saber collided with yours harshly, the force behind the action making you stumble back slightly, your arms trembling as you tried to push back against it.

You weren't prepared for this.

All that training and you weren't prepared.

With a jerk of his lightsaber, The Sith knocked your weapon right out of your hand, causing it to deactivate and skid across the room.

The cloaked figure held his weapon above his head, spinning while thrusting the blade in your direction, the force of the showy action causing his hood to fly off just as you fell to the ground trying to back away.

"Ugh!" A grunt was forced out of your body as you collided with the floor, your eyes staring down the humming red beam pointed directly at your throat.

Your chest moved up and down rapidly with each shallow breath, looking up at your attacker with wide, horrified eyes as you realized his hood had flown off. Every limb in your body went cold, the blood draining from your face in an instant.

"Seonghwa?"

His hair was longer, reaching just above his shoulders, some of the long strands stuck to his forehead from the intense fight. His eyes, which you remembered being round and full of warmth, were now sharp and cold as ice. Your best friend had fallen victim to the Dark Side.

His eyes widened for just a millisecond at the sound of his name before narrowing, his gaze hardened and full of contempt as if just seeing you brought back unwanted memories.

"What did they do to you?" Your voice came out in a faint whisper of shock and horror.

"They didn't do anything to me."

His tone was harsh and calloused, no sign of the once upbeat and soft-spoken Seonghwa you knew three years ago.

The severity of the situation hit you and you began scrambling back away from the deadly red beam of light in your face, your arm reaching out to bring your own saber back to you. It slowly started rolling towards you only for Seonghwa to stretch an open hand out towards it, intercepting it and throwing the weapon across the room by an invisible force.

"You may have been a better fighter, but you always were a horrible user of the Force." He spat.

The doors to the room hissed and two stormtroopers walked in.

"Take her away." Seonghwa ordered sternly watching you with an unchanging and stoic expression as you were roughly tugged to your feet and dragged out of the room. "Detention cell 1117." He specified.

There were so many things you wanted to say, yet nothing came from your lips. All you could do was stare at Seonghwa with an expression full of confusion and hurt as you were hauled out of the room.

The cell you were placed in was nothing like you expected; it was clean and equipped with a small, but cushioned cot. The stormtroopers shoved you into the room, slamming the door shut, giving you one glance through the gated window before marching away.

You dropped down onto the cot, your trembling knees no longer able to support you, letting you collapse.

Seonghwa.

He didn't run away, he became a Sith. All these years worrying and wondering where he was, if he was okay, asking yourself why he left... and he was here.

How did this happen?

It was the question that kept spinning in your mind, echoing repeatedly.

How did this happen?

There was no way Seonghwa, your best friend, the man you secretly liked, had turned to the Dark Side. It didn't make sense. He never showed any desire to cross over, not that you could recall, anyway.

The dull ache in your heart grew in intensity the longer you thought about what your best friend had turned into.

The heavy thump of approaching footsteps made you lift your head, your eyes locking with those of the man you once knew. The door to your cell swung open and he stepped inside, his presence alone shifting the air in the room.

No words were exchanged at first. All you could do was stare at him, taking in the angry lines etched on his otherwise flawless face. His intense eyes stared you down, the scowl on his face not budging. This new version of Seonghwa was jarring to say the least, but he was still someone you used to know.

"So this is where you ran off to." You murmured.

He didn't speak, staring you down in silence. His lack of response was both perplexing and agitating. Did he have nothing to say?

You scoffed, shaking your head as a spark of anger ignited. "I can't believe you." Your expression was full of emotion, rage fueled by sadness and betrayal. It felt like you'd been punched directly in the heart.

Seeing Seonghwa again wasn't the joyous reunion you imagined it would be—it was much worse. Instead of embracing him in a tearful hug, you had been blocking his aggressive attacks and trying to make it out of the battle unscathed.

As Seonghwa stood just inside the cell, the emotions you felt rapidly turned into fiery anger that unfortunately reared it's ugly head.

"You got weak." You spoke through gritted teeth, your fists clenching.

In a fit of sudden rage, you stood up from the cot and charged at Seonghwa with a shout.

Your breath hitched when you felt a pressure around your throat, your wide eyes staring at the man you called your best friend with a gloved hand outstretched and fingers partially curled. A strained noise left your dry mouth as you clawed at your throat futilely, desperate to get rid of the invisible force that constricted your windpipe.

"You're the weak one." Seonghwa spoke, his voice low and threatening as his extended arm lifted higher, his gaze boring holes into you.

"Pl-please." You choked out, your legs kicking as your feet left the floor, black spots dotting your vision.

His hand squeezed more, curling in just another inch or so and applying more crushing pressure to your windpipe.

"Hwa." You whimpered, your voice nothing but a hoarse and whispered plea.

"Don't call me that." He hissed through clenched teeth. "That name died when Luke did. It's Mars now."

That's the last thing you heard before the black creeping in your peripherals took over.

"Do you ever feel like you have a weight to carry?" You asked Seonghwa, gazing up at the star-dotted galaxy above, seated in a cross-legged position on top of the Millennium Falcon. "Like a burden?"

"A burden?" Seonghwa echoed. "You mean like with glorious purpose?"

You sat there for a moment before shaking your head. "No. That's not it. That's someone else." You paused, reconsidering. "Though maybe it is glorious purpose in a way." You murmured mostly to yourself. "Being Luke's only two apprentices is a huge honor, especially since there aren't many Jedi being trained anymore, but do you ever feel you're expected to be this outstanding prodigy? Like you have all these expectations to live up to?"

Seonghwa hummed thoughtfully. "No. I see it more as a goal to reach."

"But do you think it's attainable? Don't you ever worry you won't be good enough?"

"Of course I worry. Everyone does, but I don't think Luke would've chosen us if he didn't think we were capable." Seonghwa turned to you, his hand sliding over to take hold of yours and give it a squeeze. His touch was warm and brought comfort to you almost immediately, chasing away your worries. "Let's switch to a brighter subject, like lightsabers."

You raised your brows, shooting Seonghwa an unimpressed look at his pun.

"That was completely unintentional."

"Whatever you say." You teased.

"Back on the subject, when do you think Luke will let us build our lightsabers?"

"When he thinks we've earned it, I guess."

"I hope it's soon."

You nodded in agreement, turning back to the stars above, your gaze drifting to look at the distant planets surrounding Ajan Kloss.

"You know, one day we're going to be real Jedi." Seonghwa's voice broke you from your daze.

"I know. Despite the lingering worries, I'm looking forward to the day when our training is complete."

"Can you imagine? The two of us going on missions together, tag-teaming the First Order, taking down the Sith." He held his hands out in front of him, holding an imaginary lightsaber as he mimicked its noises, swinging it left and right.

His little performance made you giggle, his laid back and silly personality always bringing a smile to your face.

"Then maybe I'd do one of these." He held his hand out towards the ground below, a small rock lifting from the grass as it was flung off into the night by an invisible force.

You chuckled amusedly. "Always trying to show off those abilities, huh?"

"No." He grinned softly. "But if you and I are ever in battle and someone gets too close to you, I won't hesitate to Force choke them."

His comment jarred you a bit and you shook your head. "We don't do that."

"I know... but I'd do anything to protect you."

A small noise left the back of your throat when your eyes cracked open, your mind fuzzy as you slowly came to. Your eyelids fluttered, blurred by tears which you blinked away, eyes adjusting to the dim holding cell you'd been tossed into earlier. Bringing a hand up, you wiped the small amount of wetness away from your eyes and propped yourself up on your elbow, wincing when you felt a soreness in your neck. Your hand moved down to your throat, gingerly touching the tender skin, hissing softly at the sensation that followed.

You swallowed back tears that threatened to well up, realizing just how much Seonghwa had changed. He physically hurt you.

Not once did it occur to you that Seonghwa had crossed over to the Dark Side. There wasn't an ounce of evil in him, so it was never a possibility. You just assumed he had given up being a Jedi and went off to another planet to live a life away from the Resistance. Luke's passing hurt both of you and you wouldn't have blamed Seonghwa if he refused to be taught by anyone else.

But that's not what happened.

The Dark Side got to him... or someone.

Seonghwa's eyes watched his superior intently as he paced about the control room, his cape billowing dramatically behind him.

"Why was she here?" The maroon-haired Sith hissed angrily. "How did a Jedi sneak in here?"

"The troopers told me she arrived with someone else on a First Order ship." Seonghwa responded, his hands resting behind his back.

"They have one of our ships?" He spoke through gritted teeth, jaw tightening.

"It appears so."

"Go talk to her. Ask her what she was doing here. Do whatever it takes to get the information if she refuses to talk."

"We have people for that." Seonghwa mentioned, feeling his gut twist uncomfortably at the thought of facing you again.

"I want you to interrogate her. Do you have a problem with that, Mars?"

"No."

"Then do as I say. Interrogate her."

"Yes, Hongjoong."

You sat upright when the door to your cell groaned open, your eyes landing on Seonghwa. Your body moved on its own, scooting back on the cot to put more distance between you both. Perhaps you subconsciously feared him a little now after what he did to you.

He noticed the way you cowered a bit, but his expression remained the same, unchanging and giving away no indications of how it made him feel.

"Why are you here?" He inquired firmly, his voice carrying authority.

His question was met with complete silence. This agitated him, his jaw ticking with annoyance. "Answer me."

"I won't." The words were uttered quietly.

"Why are you here?" He asked again.

You shook your head. "I won't tell you."

Seonghwa lifted his hand and you flinched, waiting for the pressure on your throat. Instead, he lowered his arm, dropping it at his side.

"I know the Resistance sent you." He almost spat the name out in distaste. "Why?"

"You know I'm not gonna tell you."

He let out a small growl, his top lip twitching.

"You're in no position to withhold information from me."

That sparked a bit of annoyance, your almost cowardly behavior changing as you sat up straighter on the cot. "Oh yeah? What about how you withheld information from me?"

Seonghwa's brow twitched at your harsh and sharply-spoken words.

"You didn't think to tell me you were considering running away?"

"Why would I have told you?" His eyes narrowed. "It wasn't your business."

"Because I'm your friend... or at least I was. If something was bothering you, you should've told me."

"Friend?" He scoffed. "You were teacher's pet."

"What's that supposed to mean?"

"Don't play dumb. You were Luke's favorite. He always praised your fighting style and nitpicked mine, said I was too showy and aggressive. Well, I found a place that accepted my fighting style—accepted me."

"Luke accepted you, Seonghwa."

"Don't call me that."

"It's your name."

"Not anymore."

There was a long and heavy silence that followed and it almost felt like, in that time, you were mourning the loss of a friend.

"She what?" General Leia stared wide eyed at Poe who'd just relayed to her that you had been captured.

"They got her."

Leia sighed, lowering her head.

"She planted all the devices though." He added. "So we can listen in and see what they're up to."

She nodded. "We need to start getting a rescue team together for Y/n as soon as possible. Until we're able to bring her back, we see what information we can get from the devices she planted. Pull up the audio." She gestured towards Han Solo, who stood beside her.

He messed with the control panel in front of him, pressing buttons until voices came through.

"What do you mean she won't talk?" An angry male voice questioned.

"She won't tell me why she's here." A second male voice spoke, this one deeper than the first. "She refused."

Leia's brows twitched as she and Han shared a look, both of them finding the voice familiar.

"I told you do whatever it takes to get her to talk." The first male continued, sounding more vexed than a few moments prior.

"I—"

"Does this Jedi girl mean something to you, Mars? Are you going soft?"

"No." The response was firm and clipped.

Han reached up to rub at his scruff contemplatively, his mouth downturned in a deep frown. "I know that voice."

Leia turned to him in silent question. She also recognized the voice but couldn't quite place it.

Han sighed, dropping his hand. "It's Seonghwa."

Three days passed, or what you assumed was days. It was hard to tell. Seonghwa continuously came back to question you, sometimes multiple times a day. You refused every time, not daring to give away any information. He often became irate at your refusal and stubbornness, but he never harmed you again.

Seonghwa stood on the opposite side of your small cell, arms crossed and thick brows tugged together, that same scowl on his face.

"You were sent here by the Resistance. Why?"

"You're the one giving them information on our base, aren't you?" You responded to his question with one of your own.

Being locked away, you had time to think. And now that you knew Seonghwa was a Sith and the First Order was working on finding the Resistance base, it only made sense that your old pal was helping and possibly feeding them information.

"No." He denied firmly, his reaction almost coming across as offended that you'd assume such a thing.

"What do you mean no?"

"I haven't told them anything." He hissed through gritted teeth.

That made you pause, whatever response you had prepared died in your throat the second that sentence left his mouth.

"Why?" Was the only word uttered.

"I'm asking the questions here. Why were you sent here? Did Leia send you?"

Your expression hardened, but Seonghwa saw right through it.

He scoffed. "I knew it."

A sharp puff of air expelled from your nostrils as you mentally cursed yourself for not denying it right away. Though there's no telling if he would've believed you or not, especially if he claimed to already know.

"Why did she send you? Why were you lurking the halls?"

"I won't tell you. I'm loyal to the Resistance and I won't do anything to put them in danger."

"Of course you won't." Scoffed Seonghwa again, your answer not surprising. "How loyal of you." His words were laced with venom and mockery as he spat them out.

It made an uncomfortable knot form in your stomach, wondering what lies they fed your friend to make him so full of loathing.

Every interrogation ended with Seonghwa storming out of your cell in a fit of rage, reporting back to Hongjoong with no new information and receiving a harsh verbal assault in return. It was a repetitive pattern and one the former Jedi was growing tired of.

"It's been a week." Hongjoong hissed out, pacing the control room. "And you still have no information for me."

"She refuses to speak."

"Perhaps she needs someone more forceful."

"No!" Seonghwa took a step towards Hongjoong to block him as he attempted to exit the room. He then cleared his throat before repeating in a more stern and confident manner, "No. I have it under control."

"If you had it under control you would've tortured her until she spilled. Then I wouldn't be waiting for intel. I'll interrogate her."

Seonghwa side stepped again. "I said I have it under control." He doubled down on his words.

Hongjoong's expression hardened, his intense gaze searching Seonghwa's face for what felt like an eternity before speaking.

"Three days. If you haven't given me any useful information by then, I'm stepping in."

"Yes, Hongjoong."

The following day, Seonghwa was back in your cell, staring at you with the same stony expression. "When will you give up?"

"Never."

"Tch." He scoffed at your never-ending defiance.

"Why do you keep grilling me?"

"Because you're the prisoner here and my superior wants to know why you were sneaking around the ship like a little womp rat."

Your features twitched in mild agitation at his slightly stinging words. "How do you feel knowing your buddies are trying to track down the location of our home?"

Seonghwa scowled and crossed his arms. "It's not our home."

"It is. You still have a place there, Seonghwa."

"Quit calling me that." He hissed out through gritted teeth.

The room grew quiet and you were left to sit in complete silence for a few moments until you spoke up again with another query.

"You know where the Resistance base is. Why haven't you told them?" You asked, knowing that if he relayed that information to his superiors, the First Order would've already attacked Ajan Kloss by now.

Seonghwa stiffened almost imperceptibly and you wouldn't have noticed if you weren't focused on his body language.

"That's not my business."

"Oh but it is. It's your former home, as you claim, so wether you're willing to accept it or not, you have ties to it. If you despise the Jedi so much why haven't you exposed us?" You questioned pointedly. "Why haven't you given away our whereabouts and watched our planet get destroyed?"

It was clear he was growing indignant, his sharp brows tugging closer together, forming eleven lines between them—a sign he was provoked by your words.

"I'll be back to question you again tomorrow. You'd better be ready to give me what I want or it won't end well for you, Y/n." There was an undertone of foreboding in his words as he turned on the heel of his boot and exited the cell, his black cape billowing behind him.

He paused just outside the room, his dark eyes turning to stare at you through the gated window for a moment before he walked away.

Seonghwa paced around his room, tugging frustratingly at his hair while having an internal battle with himself. Why? Why hadn't he told Hongjoong or anyone on the ship about the Resistance base when he'd been actively watching them follow leads and attempting to track down the group? He knows the location. Not only that, but he's had multiple opportunities to divulge that he knows who you are, yet he's kept his mouth shut. He could've easily said something, so why hadn't he?

His ambivalence on the matter was making his head ache. On one hand, he had grown to loathe the Resistance with every fiber of his being and would do anything to destroy them, but on the other... no.

Seonghwa shook his head, gripping at his hair out of agitation while dropping down to sit on the edge of his bed.

"Don't be weak." He gritted out.

There is no "on the other hand". He despised the Resistance. He didn't care about anyone there.

A ghostly giggle echoed in his mind, your giggle, one he remembered from the past. Along with it came a flash of you sitting across from him with a bright smile on your face, then a fleeting image of Master Luke.

Seonghwa gave an angry shout, standing up and withdrawing his lightsaber, activating the red beam that hummed when extended fully. His shoulders heaved up and down with each labored breath while his eyes scanned the empty bedroom.

His weapon lowered. No one was there. What was he trying to fight? His past?

The lightsaber was deactivated and Seonghwa slowly sat back down on his bed, the mattress sinking under his weight. His grip on the hilt of his saber tightened as his mind wandered back to you. He had to get information out of you or Hongjoong would step in and he didn't want that.

As soon as the revelation passed his conscious mind, Seonghwa froze. Why did he care wether or not Hongjoong interrogated you? He shook his head as if to push away any notions that he still cared for you. He didn't—did he?

"Why did you have to show up, huh?" Seonghwa asked pointedly the next day while trying to interrogate you once again. It was the first question he asked when he entered your prison cell.

"I'm sorry?"

"You've just made everything more complicated!" He spat, letting his emotions run rampant.

Perplexed, baffled, caught off guard—any one of those words or phrases could've described how you felt in that moment. What did he mean?

"I was doing just fine without you." He added, the harshness in his tone unwavering.

You recoiled at his words, murmuring, "I don't understand."

"Of course you wouldn't."

"What are you talking about?"

"This is your fault!" He pointed an accusatory finger at you.

Your wide eyes locked on the tip of his index finger that was directed at you.

"What's my fault? Seonghwa, I—"

He let out a raging shout that reverberated on the metal walls. "There you go again! Just stop!" He dropped his head, gripping handfuls of inky hair, letting out strained sounds through his teeth. His inner turmoil was showing through his aggressive responses and bouts of fury.

"Talk to me." Your gentle words reached Seonghwa's ears, striking him directly in the chest.

Instead of being snippy with your words, you toned it down, especially after witnessing his display of stress. It didn't matter if he was a Sith. That fact didn't erase any of the memories you shared together and you still thought of him as a friend—or at the very least, a friend that could be redeemed.

The kindness in your voice touched Seonghwa, but at the same time it was making things worse for him, leaving him torn between two opposing emotions.

"I left that life behind." He said, his head still buried in his hands. "Seeing you just... stirred things up."

Ever so slowly, you got up off the cot and took a few tentative steps towards him. He didn't realize you were approaching, too caught up in his own emotions. It was only when he felt your hand gently touch his shoulder that he flinched, raising his head.

"Why'd you leave? What happened?" You asked.

"I was upset." He sighed. "I tried to get my anger out by blowing off steam in the training room but that wasn't enough. So I stole a junky ship and took it out to a nearby planet just to get away from everything for a bit." His eyes showed just how much he was struggling as he spoke.

"Go on." You urged him. "I know you might not think so, but you're still my friend."

His eyes met yours, a flicker of warmth growing in his chest and giving him that little push to continue. "I was walking through a little town trying to clear my head when Hongjoong approached me."

"Who's Hongjoong?"

"My superior." He ran a hand through his long messy hair. "He knew right away that I was a Jedi. He took me into a nearby tavern and bought me a drink. We talked. I told him about Master Luke and how it was frustrating sometimes because I felt as if I wasn't enough. He was so... sympathetic. He made me feel important and told me he would be a better teacher than Luke and that I had untapped potential—that I had purpose Luke didn't see."

"He got to you while you were vulnerable." You stated, shaking your head. "He got into your head, Seonghwa."

"No." His brows creased, eyes narrowing as he responded in a stern manner, jerking away from your hand on his shoulder. "He didn't. When he took me in I was able to fight the way I wanted. I got stronger when Hongjoong trained me."

You shook your head. "He manipulated you."

"He didn't." Seonghwa denied firmly. "Because of him, I realized my purpose."

Your expression fell into one of pity and sorrow as you shook your head, realizing just how badly this Hongjoong guy had warped your old friend's way of thinking.

"I shouldn't expect you to understand." Seonghwa remarked bitterly. "You're a narrow-minded Jedi."

His words hurt, punching you directly in the chest. You really thought you were getting somewhere with him.

"This was a mistake." He grumbled, turning to leave. He let himself get too vulnerable.

"Seong—" The cell door slammed shut, making you wince. "...hwa."

Heaving a sigh, you slumped back against the wall in defeat. You almost caught a glimpse of the old Seonghwa. He was opening up, but he still believed Hongjoong was the good guy in this situation. The hold he had on Seonghwa was too strong and you needed to break it.

The Sith's footsteps were heavy, each thump from his boots echoing down the corridor while a violent storm of thoughts swirled around his head. You were so sweet and genuine, it almost reminded him of how things used to be. And that gentle touch of your hand on his shoulder sparked something.

You're getting weak. He could practically hear Hongjoong. Are you really going to let her get to you with all that mushy stuff?

"No."

Seems that way.

Seonghwa's jaw tightened as if this were all happening in real life.

"I said no."

You're still in love with her, Mars.

"I'm not."

He passed by a couple stormtroopers standing guard on that particular cell block, their heads following the Sith as he passed, muttering to himself.

"What are you looking at?" He snarled at the staring pair, his hand raising as a threat to use his Force abilities on them.

"Nothing." They shook their heads frantically.

"Thought so." He spat, continuing down the corridor.

That night was a sleepless one for Seonghwa. He tossed and turned for what was probably hours, unable to even doze off. Tossing back his black sheets, he swung his legs off the bed, letting out a forceful sigh. You really messed with his head... and his heart. He could still feel the way you laid your hand so gingerly upon his shoulder.

He got to his feet and shuffled over to a wooden chest at the foot of his bed, opening the lid and reaching inside, producing your lightsaber from it. After he had you taken away, he picked up the saber and had been keeping it in his bedroom, unable to hand it over to the seized weapons department for some reason. He gazed down almost wistfully at the silver hilt adorned with unique engravings. His thumb absentmindedly traced over the patterns engrained into the metal while his mind wandered back to a memory that had long been locked away.

"Place the energy core near the kyber crystal." Luke instructed, watching you and Seonghwa.

The components of your lightsabers were scattered along the work table as each of you focused on building your respective weapons, listening to each step you were given.

"Next is the focusing ring. Make sure it's calibrated just right or—"

"Or the kyber crysal will crack." You and Seonghwa finished in unison, chuckling in amusement at the situation.

"Yes, or your sabers could explode when you activate them." Luke added.

The pieces were put into place and you moved on to the next step, adding each component until the assembly was complete. Next came the cosmetic aspects of the process, the step that would give your lightsabers their unique appearances.

The both of you were taught how to customize your weapons with Luke by your side to assist when needed. This ritual of sorts meant a lot to you and Seonghwa, as it was a rite of passage, a symbol that you had grown as Jedi.

"I hope my lightsaber is blue." Seonghwa murmured once the assembly was complete, always having favored that color.

"There's only one way to find out." You placed your thumb on the power button of your saber and counted down before activating your respective weapons.

Just as Seonghwa had hoped, a blue beam extended from his hilt and his eyes went wide with excitement. He then turned to look at your humming blade that glowed a unique purple.

"Not many people have that color." He gaped.

Your round eyes stared at the stunning beam in awe, unable to believe that the weapon you wielded was yours.

Seonghwa felt the same, gaping at his own lightsaber, feeling it's weight and ogling at the shiny chrome silver metal of the hilt.

"I'm glad I got to do this with you." You turned and smiled fondly at Seonghwa, your eyes glimmering with unadulterated joy.

He returned that warm grin. "Me too."

A single tear dropped onto the handle of your lightsaber, stirring Seonghwa from his nostalgic daze. He blinked away some of the moisture in his eyes before wiping them, not realizing he had started crying.

He still cared for you.

He still loved you.

Today. Seonghwa had to get answers today or Hongjoong would step in and take matters into his own hands. He decided last night when he couldn't sleep that he didn't want that to happen and he would do whatever it took to get the necessary information out of you.

"How many days has it been?" You asked when you heard the door groan open, your back facing it.

"Ten." Seonghwa responded, standing just inside the room as he'd been doing since day one. "I'm asking again, why were you on the ship? Why were you sent here?"

You rolled over, your expression weary. "So we're back to this?"

Seonghwa didn't answer, his expression showing hardly any emotion. He was there with a task to complete.

"Tell me." He wasn't demanding or hateful, but there was a tinge of urgency in his tone.

You sat up, pushing back your hair with a sigh. "Can we just drop this for a second?"

He appeared unsure, but let out a reluctant exhale and moved across the small space to sit beside you on the bed. It was the first time he'd done so since you were locked away.

"I missed you, y'know." You didn't care if he believed you or not. You had to let him know.

His gaze lifted to meet yours, his eyes becoming round just like your memories recalled.

"It hurt me when you disappeared. I had just lost Master Luke and then I lost you not long after. It crushed me." Your voice was thick with emotion as you spoke. "I always wondered where you were. I worried about you. I lost sleep over you. I never once thought you'd turn to the Dark Side."

"Neither did I, but I fit well here."

"No you don't. That Hongjoong guy got to you while you were vulnerable and took advantage of your weak state. He got in your head and made you feel special. He doesn't care about you like he says he does."

"And how would you know?"

"Because he's a Sith and they're known for being conniving and manipulative."

Seonghwa became quiet, not fully believing your words about Hongjoong being disingenuous, but feeling as if he shouldn't carelessly disregard them either. Despite that, a sense of urgency to defend his superior rose up within him. "Hongjoong was there for me and picked me up when I was at my lowest."

"I could have done that. I would have done that if you hadn't left."

Seonghwa's jaw tightened as an uncomfortable ache became present in his chest. Perhaps guilt?

"I loved you, Seonghwa."

Those next words were a punch directly to the gut, the breath feeling like it was knocked out of him. You loved him? For how long?

He swallowed thickly, his breathing shaky. "Why did Leia send you here? To collect information? To spy?" Again, his tone wasn't demanding, but it was stern.

It hurt not having him respond to your admission, but instead of letting it get to you, you pushed aside your feelings and looked him in the eye. "I won't betray the Resistance. You can keep me here as long as you see fit, but I won't say a word."

It was obvious you didn't realize the magnitude of the situation, but Seonghwa remained somewhat calm, hoping a more gentle approach would coax it out of you.

"You don't trust me anymore?"

"No." Your response was swift. "I don't. You're the enemy now."

"But you said you still saw me as a friend."

"There's exceptions to that statement."

He was getting nowhere with you yet again. However, you did open up about how you felt when he ran away so perhaps there was hope.

"Fine." He stood up and left without another word, hoping to get more time to interrogate.

Hongjoong was discussing something with one of the navigators on the ship when Seonghwa approached. "Ah, Mars." He strode towards his apprentice. "I hope you have good news for me."

"I'm getting through to her."

The redhead's expression fell into one of disappointment and annoyance. "So you haven't got any information out of her?"

"I'm trying to. I've taken a different approach and she's coming around."

"But you still haven't got any information out of her." He stated factually.

"No, not yet. I just need one more d—"

Hongjoong's jaw tightened and he held his hand up, Seonghwa's breath hitching as he was forced aside, the invisible pressure around his throat increasing.

"Three days, I said."

"I... know." Seonghwa choked out.

"I gave you three days and you still have absolutely nothing. You're useless, Mars." He spat out.

Seonghwa gasped for air, his booted feet slipping along the flooring while he was being held slightly off the ground.

Hongjoong released his invisible grip on Seonghwa who fell to his knees, leaned over his hands which were planted on the floor as he took in ragged breaths.

Looking around, he saw some of the control room staff turned in their seats staring at him as he lie crumpled and weak on the floor. Meanwhile, Hongjoong was talking to a stormtrooper as if he hadn't Force strangled his apprentice. In that moment, as he was struggling to bring air back into his lungs he realized you were right. Hongjoong didn't care about him.

You're useless, Mars. The words echoed in his mind on repeat.

"Take me to her cell." Hongjoong's voice reached Seonghwa's ears, causing him to lift his head. "If you want things to get done you have to do them yourself." He complained to the trooper, taking a glance back at Seonghwa with a demeaning expression.

"Wait!" He coughed.

The maroon-haired Sith paused and turned to look down at Seonghwa who was just managing to get to his feet.

"You said three days. The day isn't over yet." He spoke hoarsely, but kept a steady tone so as not to give away how his lungs burned.

"Alright. I want results by the end of the day."

The door to your cell opened up and to your surprise, it was Seonghwa again. He sometimes showed up multiple times a day to interrogate you, but never this quickly. It had only been about ten minutes since he left.

He was rubbing at his throat with a gloved hand, his eyes looking frantic.

Something was wrong.

"Seonghwa?"

"Look, I need you to give me a reason as to why you were sent." There was that sense of urgency in his tone again, more obvious than earlier. And he didn't even snap at you for calling him by his real name.

"What happened?"

"Things won't be good for you if you don't cooperate." He ignored your question and you noticed how scratchy his voice sounded.

It wasn't hard to put two and two together.

"He hurt you."

Seonghwa stiffened and you knew your assumption was correct.

"You have to tell me, Y/n." His gaze turned serious and the desperation in his tone rose. "If you don't..." He hesitated to continue, but did so anyway. "Hongjoong is going to interrogate you instead and he won't be gentle or kind."

You'd known Seonghwa since you were kids and could tell when he was worried, but this wasn't worry—this was fear. All this time you'd refused to speak and all it took for you to crack was for Seonghwa to be in distress.

"I was planting listening devices." You caved, spilling almost immediately.

"Where?"

"In the West corridor near the hangar, in a meeting room, and in the control room where the ship is piloted."

His eyes met yours, turmoil and concern swirling around his brown irises. "I'm sorry it had to be like this."

And that was the last thing he said before turning away and leaving.

"I have news." Seonghwa announced, entering the control room.

Hongjoong turned towards him, an expectant look on his face.

"She cracked."

"It's about time."

"The Resistance base is on Takodana."

"Takodana?" Hongjoong repeated, raising a brow. "She told you that?"

"Yes."

"It's not the information I asked for."

"But it's helpful to us. It's what we've been working towards for weeks." Seonghwa mentioned.

"That's true." Hongjoong gazed out at the vast galaxy.

"Who cares why she was on the ship? We have their location."

Hongjoong nodded, murmuring, "Takodana, huh? Why didn't I think of that? It's a forest planet; the perfect place to go off the grid."

"Exactly."

Hongjoong snapped his fingers, beckoning the First Order's battle coordinator over. "I want you to send a fleet to Takadona right away." He ordered.

"Yes, sir." The man nodded before marching off.

Hongjoong passed Seonghwa, stopping long enough to say, "Maybe you can be useful after all."

His watchful eyes followed the redhead until he left the room before he made any moves of his own, exiting the control area and heading directly for the meeting room.

There was only one room on the ship used for meetings and Seonghwa knew exactly where it was.

Slipping into the empty meeting room, he surveyed the area, checking in crevices and corners before peeking underneath the large circular table in the middle of the area. Sure enough, there was a small device no bigger than the tip of his finger under the edge of the table. Stepping away, he began pacing around, mulling over the gravity of what he was about to do. Taking in a deep breath, Seonghwa prepared himself for what he was about to say, knowing it would change everything.

"I don't know who's listening to this but I need your help. It's me..." He hesitated. "Seonghwa. I don't have time to explain everything but I've just told my superior the Resistance base is on Takodana. They're sending a fleet of troopers that way immediately. Reinforcements here will be low. I need you guys to come and get Y/n out of here." He paused before adding. "Get us out of here. I'm ready to come home."

With a call for help sent out and no time to waste, he could only hope someone was listening as he left the room and put his plan into motion.

He didn't greet you or say a single word when he stepped back into your cell, grabbing your hands and holding them behind your back.

"Come here."

You yelped as you were jerked to your feet.

"Seonghwa? What's going on?" You panicked, wiggling in his hold.

"Be quiet." He hissed, shoving you out the door and down the cell block corridor, stormtroopers watching as he passed.

One of them blocked the way. "What are you doing with her?"

"We've obtained the information we need. She's of no use to us anymore." He responded coldly to the trooper's inquiry.

Every part of your body ran cold upon hearing that and you started writhing even more.

"No! No! Please don't do this!" You cried out.

"I said be quiet!" Seonghwa jerked you harshly before pushing you down the halls once more.

Your breathing was erratic, your hands cold and clammy. Were you really going to die by the hands of your old friend?

Not a single word was spoken while you were guided through the maze that was the First Order ship, awaiting your demise. You were brought to a room and shoved inside, Seonghwa releasing your wrists and caging you against the wall before you could even process it.

"You don't know what you're doing." You spoke shakily. "Please don't kill me. I—"

Seonghwa's lips pressed firmly against yours, effectively cutting off your sentence. A small noise left the back of your throat, your hands pressing against his chest as you fought to keep your eyes from fluttering shut.

He pulled away shortly with a heavy exhale and half-lidded eyes that gazed at you with longing.

"I love you too, Y/n."

Your heart leapt into your throat as he verbally returned your feelings.

"You're... you're not gonna kill me?"

"What? No." He shook his head. "That was just so I didn't raise any suspicions. We're getting out of here."

"We are?" You uttered so quietly you barely heard yourself.

"Yes. This isn't the life for me, Y/n. I miss the Resistance. I miss you. Maybe I was a weak Sith—or maybe my love for you was stronger than the hold of the Dark Side."

"Seonghwa." Taking the sides of his face, you pulled him to your lips, kissing him deeply, this time letting your eyelids slide shut while relishing in the warmth of his mouth.

When you pulled away, he had to blink himself out of the little daze he was in.

"Wow."

"We'd better get out of here alive." You said.

"We will. Just play along."

You nodded. "Got it."

He took your wrists and held them behind your back again to keep up the facade and led you out of the room, back into the ship's corridor. He didn't know how quickly a rescue team could get out there, but if no one had arrived by the time he made it to the hangar, Seonghwa would hijack a ship and get you both out himself.

Your eyes scanned the halls, attempting to look pitiful and helpless when passing stormtroopers or staff. On the inside, however, you were elated that Seonghwa returned your feelings and decided to return to Ajan Kloss with you. Though there was the lingering anxiety of needing to get out safely first. You were still in enemy territory—you both were.

The two of you rounded a corner, nearly running into a man with maroon hair that you didn't recognize, you and Seonghwa taking a few steps back. There was an intimidating aura about the stranger that made you nervous just by looking at him. His eyes narrowed and he turned to your partner.

"This is the Jedi that snuck onto the ship. Why is she out of her cell, Mars? I didn't approve of this."

"We've got the information we need. I'm disposing of her."

You assumed this was the Hongjoong guy you'd been told about and was quick to lower your gaze to the floor, trying to appear non-threatening.

"And why would you dispose of her?"

As they exchanged words, Seonghwa could tell he wouldn't be able to pull this one off. Hongjoong was asking too many questions and wondering why Seonghwa was making decisions on his own without consulting him first.

You too were feeling as if things were about to go south and began worrying about how to defend yourself. It was at that moment you felt something cool being pressed into your palm that was behind your back. Your fingers curled around the object and realized it was a lightsaber—your lightsaber.

"What's really going on here?" Hongjoong inquired. "You've been odd since this little Jedi showed up." He regarded you with a curt jerk of his head, not bothering to look your way.

"I already told you, I'm disposing of her."

"See..." Hongjoong's hand imperceptibly inched towards his lightsaber at his hip. "I just don't think I believe you."

Your eyes widened and you were quick to reveal your lightsaber, activating the purple beam that hummed to life just as Hongjoong withdrew his own weapon. Seonghwa was holding out his lightsaber as well, ready to fight by your side.

"Ah." Sardonic amusement flickered across Hongjoong's features at the sight of his apprentice. "I see. You've switched sides."

Seonghwa's expression hardened and he pointed the end of his red lightsaber at the man. "I'm not afraid to fight you."

"Well you should be." Hongjoong spoke roughly before stepping forward and taking a swipe at both of you.

Leaping back, you two dodged his attack, retaliating with some of your own, both of you swinging your weapons at the Sith who was able to block every single one. You attempted to take a jab at him, but his red beam came up underneath your purple one and pushed it away, making you stumble at the physical force behind the action. He twisted his upper body and held his saber up to block an attack from Seonghwa that followed after yours.

It was clear this man was well-trained and even though he was outnumbered, he was managing to fight both you and Seonghwa without much of a struggle. Taking a step back to put some space between you and the enemy, you continued fighting back.

As soon as he saw an opening, Seonghwa took hold of your wrist. "Come on." He hissed urgently and tugged you down the ship's dim corridors in the opposite direction, fleeing the area.

"You're running away like a coward, Mars!" Hongjoong shouted after him.

"Where are we going?" You asked, pushing past a stormtrooper that stood in the way.

"Get them!" Hongjoong roared in the distance.

"Somewhere away from him." Seonghwa responded, keeping a tight hold on your wrist while guiding you through the steel and metal maze.

While your first priority was to survive, questions started piling up. Questions like: Would you survive? Would you even make it off the ship? Would you ever get back home?

"Here." You were snapped out of your daze by Seonghwa's voice as you were pulled into an open space, a grated walkway stretching across an endless canyon.

Unable to see the bottom of the foggy abyss below, your heart rate spiked.

"Hey, it's alright. Just stay close." Seonghwa gave your hand a reassuring squeeze, hurrying across the bridge. "We can still make it to the hangar from here."

"There you are."

You both froze at the sound of Hongjoong's voice, spinning around to face him as he approached with an intense and almost psychotic look in his sharp eyes.

"Stay back." Seonghwa was quick to push you behind him and rush forward to engage in battle with his ex mentor. You leaned against the railing of the grated walkway, looking on with wide eyes.

Seonghwa let out a grunt when Hongjoong's saber clashed with his, pushing against it. With clenched teeth and trembling hands, he shoved back and managed to get Hongjoong off of him. The Sith let out a low sound of disproval and swung once more, relentlessly attacking Seonghwa and giving him no time to fight back. All he could do was block and guard himself from the onslaught. You couldn't stand watching the battle persist without you. There was no telling how long Seonghwa could maintain his defenses until he was worn out. With no one to watch his back or help take the pressure off, you feared he wouldn't make it out of the fight unscathed.

"What happened? You used to beat me all the time during our practice battles." Hongjoong talked down to Seonghwa in a derisive tone.

The ex Sith let out a low noise from the back of his throat while taking a swing at the redhead who merely leaned back to avoid the humming beam of light.

"You're weakened already." He remarked snidely. "Do you really want to go back to being a spineless Jedi?"

Instead of responding, Seonghwa narrowed his eyes and took another swing at Hongjoong only for him to dodge again.

"You belong here."

"I don't!" He snapped. "I never did."

"I took you in."

"You took advantage of me!"

"And you became a powerful Sith because of it. So you should be thanking me."

"Thanking you?" Scoffed Seonghwa. "For what? Turning me into an evil monster?"

Hongjoong let out a huff of amusement. "For showing you your true potential, Mars. So tell me, are you with me or against me?"

"My name is Seonghwa." He grit out through his teeth.

"Very well. Chitchat is over." Hongjoong used his foot to kick Seonghwa back, his body colliding with the steel flooring of the bridge. A grunt was forced out of him, his deactivated lightsaber now lying by Hongjoong's foot.

"You don't need this anymore." He said, kicking the weapon off the side of the walkway and into the abyss below.

"No. Stop!" You shouted, rushing towards the two, unable to stand by any longer. You didn't care if Seonghwa told you to stay back, he needed your help.

Hongjoong held up his free hand, a powerful force pushing you back so vigorously you were sent through the air. You yelped, landing roughly on the grates as your lightsaber skidded across the platform. The breath was knocked out of you during impact, your throat and lungs attempting to work correctly again while you gasped for air.

"This is what happens when you betray me, Mars." Hongjoong spoke in an eery singsong voice.

Your eyes widened as he moved to stand over Seonghwa, lightsaber positioned and ready to strike. A sudden burst of energy and determination hit you as well as a wave of burning hatred towards the maroon-haired Sith, fueling your need to protect Seonghwa.

Your hand shot out towards your deactivated weapon, wheezing and coughing as you focused your energy. The saber shot from its position at the edge of the bridge and straight into your palm. Gripping the hilt of the lightsaber, you got to your feet and rushed over.

"This is the end for you." Hongjoong reared back and went to swing his glowing blade down on Seonghwa. As he did so, your purple beam was thrust forward, blocking his before it could even get close to doing any damage.

"What?" Hongjoong hissed out, his eyes drifting up to meet yours that burned with rage.

"I don't think so." You spoke lowly, pushing upwards and using your lightsaber to shove his away.

Seonghwa stared up at you in both shock and awe, using the opportunity to scramble back out of the crossfire as you went after Hongjoong with vigor.

"Do. Not. Come. Near. Him." You spat out between attacks, punctuating your words with each clash of your blades.

"Oh. Well, this is certainly interesting." Hongjoong chuckled over the sounds of battle.

Your lightsabers made that familiar electric sound as they collided, swinging in every direction possible. Any time you saw an opening, you went for it, even if Hongjoong blocked. There was no pattern to your attacks, just endless swipes and vicious swings.

"You took him away from me!" You raged, slinging your lightsaber at him while he struggled to fight back. "Three years!"

He stumbled while trying to back away, blocking your relentless hits.

A flicker of panic flashed across Hongjoong's face as you continued to shout at him and deliver swing after swing. Up until that point, he had defended himself and didn't show an ounce of fear. Clearly, he wasn't expecting you to go into a blind rage, but seeing him preparing to end Seonghwa's life kicked you into gear.

Your saber came at him from the side, which he deflected, but you didn't care, redirecting and taking a different approach. He hissed when you managed to swipe at his arm, tearing the fabric of his sleeve and slicing his skin underneath.

"Look at you trying to defend your boyfriend. Such mindless violence. You would've made a good Sith." Hongjoong grunted out while trying to provoke you despite the fact that you clearly had the upper hand.

"Shut up." You grit out, slinging the purple beam you wielded at his leg, causing him to yelp in pain, pressing his free hand to his calf where the fresh cut was.

"I'm impressed." He panted heavily, looking up at you. "You're putting up quite the fight."

He tightened his hold on his lightsaber as your eyes narrowed. The humming beam in his grip came barreling towards you, making you jump back. He gave you no time to retaliate, coming at you again. At the last second, you held your hand out, fingers outstretched as his weapon came to a stop in midair just a few inches from you. The heat radiating from the blazing light brushed your palm, but it wasn't enough to deter you. Hongjoong's cocky expression fell, his eyes darting between you and your hand which was keeping his lightsaber in place. He pushed down, trying to complete his action, his brows pulling together at the effort and exertion. Your hardened gaze stayed locked on the Sith as you moved your open hand forward, forcing the beam further away until you pushed it aside. He stumbled back, releasing a low guttural sound from the back of his throat.

"Not bad... for a Jedi."

Your jaw tightened at his backhanded comment. "You talk too much."

Blinded by anger, your free hand shot out, using the Force to launch him backwards across the bridge and all the way into the halls of the ship where he landed harshly against a wall. He winced upon impact, sliding down and crumpling on the floor in a heap.

The adrenaline coursing through you slowly started to wear off, your shoulders heaving up and down with each breath.

"I thought Jedi didn't Force choke?" Seonghwa asked amusedly from behind you while getting to his feet, referring back to something you said to him years ago.

"That was a Force push. There's a difference." You remarked with a small grin, deactivating your lightsaber and sliding it into its holster.

"That was... kinda hot."

You turned to him as he came to stand by your side, a hint of a smirk playing at your lips. "Was it?"

"It was." He confirmed, taking your hand. "Now let's get out of here."

The both of you hurried across the grated walkway and past Hongjoong's unconscious form, heading back the way you came, your footsteps thumping against the metal floors.

"Hongjoong ordered a fleet of ships to Takodana." Seonghwa mentioned while you moved down the halls. "There won't be as many reinforcements here, so we should be able to make it to the hangar without too much trouble."

"Takodana?" You echoed confusedly.

"I told him that's where the Resistance base was."

A fluttery feeling blossomed in your chest. He lied to his mentor to protect the Resistance members.

"Thank you."

He gave you a small smile, squeezing your hand. "You're welcome."

After turning a corner, you were met with a cluster of stormtroopers that jumped into action and began blasting at both of you the moment you were spotted.

Seonghwa grabbed you, tugging you around the corner and out of the line of fire.

"Well, this is a problem." You breathed out heavily. "We're outnumbered and you don't have a weapon."

"Yeah. Though we might be able to make it if we make a run for it and do our best to dodge. Their aim is horrible anyway."

"Not if we're close enough to shoot." You pointed out.

While you and Seonghwa were strategizing, the thud of something heavy falling to the floor came from where the stormtroopers were, followed by another thud and another. Preceding each thump was the sound of a blaster of some sort, but it was different than that of a trooper. The rap of footsteps heading your way made you both tense up and prepare to defend yourselves until a familiar face rounded the corner.

"Someone call a rescue team?" Han Solo asked with a grin.

"Han." You let out a mix between a laugh and a sigh of relief. "How did you know we needed help?"

"Seonghwa told us using one of the listening devices you planted."

"You heard me?" He asked, relieved that his call for help didn't fall on deaf ears.

"We were listening the whole time. We had a team of Resistance members monitoring the audio at all times." Han responded. "Now let's get you two outta here."

He beckoned you both forward, bringing you around the corner to find stormtroopers scattered about on the floor, each of them sporting one or more holes in their chests, their armor marred by burn marks.

"You took them all out by yourself?" You asked, stepping over one of the bodies.

"I've had lots of practice, kid." Han responded, moving on down the corridor.

The three of you jogged through the halls, proceeding quickly while sweeping the area. Your escape wasn't an easy one as more stormtroopers came up from the opposite direction, blocking the way.

"Stop right there!" One of them shouted, holding his blaster.

Han Solo pointed his own gun at the group of armor-clad troopers while you activated your lightsaber again. When they saw you were going to put up a fight, an onslaught of red plasma blasts blurred past. You moved in, ducking and dodging shots while taking a swing at the nearest stormtrooper's legs. He shouted in pain and fell to the ground, giving Han an opportunity to take him down while he was vulnerable.

Seonghwa, weaponless, used his Force abilities to push away the troopers that got too close, shoving them into one another. Unfortunately, it wasn't enough to stop them.

"Hey, kid!" Han Solo called out to Seonghwa. "Thought you might need this so I brought it just in case." His glossy chrome lightsaber was tossed over. "Found it in Y/n's room."

Seonghwa's eyes widened, looking at you with surprise. You were about to ask Han why he was even in your room to start with, but Seonghwa spoke before you could.

"You kept my lightsaber in your room?"

Your cheeks were set aflame at his question before you shot one back at him without thinking. "Where were you keeping mine, huh?"

Now it was Seonghwa's turn to become flustered, his ears turning red.

Oh.

"Now's not the time for all this." Han spoke gruffly, using his blaster to hit a stormtrooper.

"Sorry." You and Seonghwa spoke in unison, his blue lightsaber activating.

A smile that couldn't be suppressed no matter how hard you tried spread across your face, a wave of nostalgia and joy filling you at the sight of him. It was just like old times.

Seonghwa lunged forward with a shout, you following behind with renewed vigor as you both went at the stormtroopers, knocking their blasters out of their hands and swinging your sabers, slicing through their armor easily. Any troopers you or Seonghwa didn't get were swiftly shot down by Han.

"I think that's all of them." You huffed out.

"Well then let's get out of here before more show up." Han Solo nodded with his head, urging you and Seonghwa forward.

Much to your relief, the three of you made it to the hangar where thankfully no stormtroopers were lingering about. Your feet moved faster, following behind Han to the opening of the hangar, looking around for his ship.

"Where's—"

His loud whistling cut you off as he waved his arm in the air, signaling something out in space. Seconds later, the Millennium Falcon came flying around the back of the First Order vessel.

"Step back." Han ordered as the Falcon eased into the hangar, the loading ramp extending from the bottom. "Come on, come on." He ushered you and Seonghwa up into the ship where you both followed him to the cockpit where Chewie was manning the controls.

Chewbacca stood up so Han could take his place, a joyous noise leaving him when he saw Seonghwa standing there beside you. He was immediately pulled into a big hug by the Wookie who was elated at the long-awaited reunion.

"I missed you too." Seonghwa chuckled, patting Chewbacca's back.

You too were pulled into a tight embrace, laughter bubbling up out of you.

"It's good to see you, big guy." You told Chewie, pulling away.

"Alright everyone, buckle up and hold tight. We're getting the heck outta here." Han Solo said.

Seonghwa's return to Ajan Kloss was a momentous occasion; he was welcomed back with open arms and firm handshakes, but not from Leia. From Leia, he received a suffocatingly tight hug.

"We're happy to have you back." She murmured tearfully, smiling up at Seonghwa. "And thank you for your distress call. Han insisted on being the one to bring you two back."

"Really?" You asked.

"Yes. We were getting a rescue plan together but it wasn't ready to be executed. As soon as we heard the call for help, Han started prepping to leave right away."

"Y/n, you're alive!"

You turned to see Poe walking over with Finn following behind.

"No thanks to you." You teased, giving him a hug.

"Hey now, I came right back here and told everyone you'd been captured." He defended lightheartedly, his eyes drifting to your friend standing beside you. "Ah. You must be Seonghwa! This girl right here talks about you nonstop. I wish I knew where Seonghwa was. I hope Seonghwa comes back. You would've liked Seonghwa. I hope we find—"

"Okay." Finn came up, chuckling awkwardly and grabbing Poe by the shoulders, slowly pulling him away. "That's enough out of you."

To celebrate your rescue and Seonghwa's return, the droids and cooks prepared a massive meal for the camp. The both of you stuck around the tent for a while to chat with Resistance members before deciding to go off somewhere for a little privacy. And that place was atop the Millennium Falcon.

"I missed the food here." You sighed fondly, rubbing your stomach. "The meals I was given on the First Order ship weren't great... no offense."

"None taken." Chuckled Seonghwa. "It was subpar at best. Even when I was a Sith I missed the food here."

You laughed softly, gazing up at the stars like you'd done years ago, seated with your legs crossed. When you turned back, Seonghwa was looking at you and had leaned in closer.

"This is nice." He murmured softly.

"What is?"

"Being up here with you."

Fighting back a smile, you responded. "And why's that?"

"Because I can finally give you a proper kiss."

He leaned in and placed his lips gently on yours, tentatively at first. Your eyelids fluttered shut and you allowed yourself to get lost in the moment now that you were both home and safe. His hand slid around to cup the nape of your neck, guiding you to lie back while his lips slowly danced over yours, making you melt. Once you laid down, he leaned over you and depended the kiss by tilting his head and picking up the pace. A mix between a soft sigh and a hum left you, your hands moving up to run through his long locks.

"I love your hair like this." You murmured against his lips.

"Yeah? You like it longer?"

"I do." You brushed your digits through it, making his eyelids flutter, a low noise leaving him before he dove back in for a passionate kiss that took your breath away. His hand that wasn't cradling the nape of your neck slid down your side to feel your curves through the fabric of your gray tunic.

Your fingers gripped at his inky hair, making him groan against your mouth, sending a flurry of butterflies to your stomach. His pillowy lips captured your bottom one, surrounding it in warmth before he encompassed your mouth wholly with his and making your head spin in the process.

When he pulled away, you were both panting shallowly, looking at each other with half-lidded eyes that were glazed over with adoration and longing for one another. It was a picture perfect moment; you and the man you loved lying under the stars together, reunited at last.

"I love you." Seonghwa murmured reverently, caressing your cheek tenderly with his thumb as you both gazed at one another lovingly.

You smiled softly at him before responding, "I know."

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