repudiate | ｏｎｅ。ａｕｄｉｏ。

[He smiles as she says that she hasn't given up yet. Honestly the "it's useless, it's all useless" bit could have fooled him, but he did expect that she wouldn't back down.]

I didn't think you would give up, if I had thought so I wouldn't have told you about it. All little sisters deserve to be able to spend time with their siblings happily. If telling you would have make you depressed and give up on the miraculous chance you've been been given, I wouldn't have said a word. But I do believe you're the type that doesn't back off when faced with obstacles, right? You're more the type to conquer them, so I hope to see you conquer this and become victorious, being able to be with your brother until you're sick of him if that's possible.

That's a good starting point. But since you're such a 'perfect gentleman' you must have quite some encounters with girls, am I right? Aren't you just a professional heart breaker at that rate?

[ Although, well, it's still not as bad as Amakusa and his lame jokes and light flirty talk. God knows how many hearts from simpler girls that guy has broken by now. ]

... Fine, Keiichi it is, then. Feel free to just call me Ange as well, I've never really been a fan of formalities unless it's necessary. I just figured it was the appropriate thing to do when suddenly appearing in a random place.

[ Besides, 'Ushiromiya-san' sort of reminds her of her time at school, of sneering faces and sly giggles, things she'd rather not think of too much given the choice. Even when she tells herself that it doesn't bother her, has never bothered her at all, she's just lying, isn't she? ]

[ Deserve to be able to spend time with their siblings happily.. Hah, was it even still a matter of deserving for her? Wasn't it just fighting, time after time, just to be able to spend a few more precious moments with her family? Even if rules were put upon her that she couldn't even tell her older brother who she was, even if in the end she was torn to pieces so he could fight on.. Those were just sacrifices she had to make to be with him.

Just like this place. ]

Yeah, it seems you have pretty good knowledge just from a first impression, Keiichi. As long as the goal in the end is worth it, I don't mind having to cross any sort of obstacle. Obviously I won't bother for some lame goal, but in this case.. I'll definitely overcome anything, no matter the odds.

So.. in that case, I guess I'll have to thank you for rooting for me. I doubt it will change anything, but the thought is appreciated. Especially considering we've only met just now, right?

[The mention about heart breaking makes Keiichi's voice do a complete turn, getting deadly serious even before he can realize it.]

I would rather tear apart my throat before breaking anyone's heart... I don't play that kind of games.

[He really doesn't, he doesn't want to play them. But every time someone makes a comment like that about him he can't help to think about Hinamizawa, about Mion and Rena. A year ago he had been pretty convinced that he had a crush on Rena, he knew that Mion liked him or at least had the feeling that she did, but he was terrified of acknowledging it so he played the role of an oblivious fool. Because Mion was his best friend, someone to whom he could tell everything and he didn't want that to change as it would if she were to become a girl, much less a girl he liked. But that would only hurt her and he was too confused and unsure to even voice it outloud properly. He wasn't even a hundred percent sure that he had a crush on Rena, though his time there made him think so.

Now, though, he knows that he loves Rena. But he wonders if it's really a romantic love or if it isn't just a deep friendship like with Mion. The way he feels himself distanced from her and the others from Hinamizawa despite his best intentions and efforts doesn't help... But he really doesn't want to ever break a girl's heart that way. He didn't want girlfriends, just friends, the dream of being an adult with a wife and children could wait until much later.]

[He forces himself to concentrate on Ange and the conversation at hand, quickly recovering his previous tone and trying to brush off the moment.]

Aah, is that so? Well, I suppose it may be appropriate but in this place there are many people who don't even have last names or never use those so it ends being more comfortable to go on a first name basis. At least for me. Besides it's not as if there's much of status around here or anything, we are at the same situation after all.

[Her comment on his knowledge from a first impression stings guilt in him.]

Ehehe, I don't think that being with your brother is a lame goal. Or spending time with him.

And don't belittle me cheering for you so quickly, it may change more than you think to have others root for you. Even people whom you have just met. That's how miracles are truly brought to live, just one person alone can't do it, despite what others may say.

[More specifically, Bernkastel, though she should know how hard it is to bring forth a miracle after all. Maybe that's why she's the way she is... Partially at least.]

That's a good thing. [ Oh, because Ange has seen how terrible love can be, the sort of things it can do when it goes wrong. And yet they all keep repeating 'without love, it can't be seen'... Of course Ange understands what it means by now, but it still doesn't mean she just fully believes in love and how it could suddenly make everything right. ]

Some women can be pretty scary once someone tramples on their heart, after all. I'm sure you wouldn't want to meet some untimely end because of that kind of circumstances.

[ Either way, she just brushes off Keiichi's pause. ]

It's just a matter of old habits die hard. My aunt and the people at my school were rather uptight about formalities. I guess a difference like that illustrates enough why I didn't get along too well with any of them.

Edited 2011-05-13 20:00 (UTC)

[ ... A miracle. Yeah, those words still hit her in the gut. Because the miracle of her parents, her big brother, her whole family returning to her was something that was promised to her, but.. it wasn't possible. Even though at first she had thought it might have been possible for some other 'Ushiromiya Ange', even that wasn't the case.

There's no such thing.. as a miracle. ]

A miracle? People seem to like to talk about that sort of thing a lot around me lately. I'm pretty picky about calling things miracles though. What sort of thing would you consider to be a miracle in this case?

Certainly, that's something I wouldn't want to experience. Killed by a woman whose heart has been hurt, that's one of the main ways of dying that I try my best to avoid. The other one is having a building falling on me.

[Technically he's being honest here. The sight of Mion... Laughing madly, her distorted face, covered in blood while he lays on the ground, stabbed, trying to keep the doll he had finally gotten for her clean... It's just a vague idea, like many others, he didn't consider her a girl, he didn't think of her feelings and in his selfish attempt to keep their relationship as it was he hurt her, all because of a doll, people suffered, Mion suffered, just because he failed to keep her heart treasured over anything else.]

Geez, it must have been a pain to be with them then. Formalities aren't bad and all but being so uptight about them is... I don't know but it just seems stupid to me. In this age and era when everyone can be on the same standing as the rest if they work hard enough and get lucky, those things just have no value. I get having to be respectful and all but, you can be respectful by using a first name too for example, I mean, western people do it constantly.

Well, miracles are things that rarely happen. Like there's one chance in a thousand times to get it to happen. And they are very picky as to when and how to happen. Only one person working for them and believing on them won't make them happen, it has to be many people believing and working together for them to happen. And of course, when I say miracle I don't mean things like making a dead person stand up and walk, a miracle may seem like magic but it's not so magical in reality.

In this case, here in Luceti, from my own experience I think that a miracle would be... It would be us being victorious, free of the prison we are in, without being used as lab rats by anyone and with the capacity to come here and return to our worlds as we please. So everyone could still meet with the friends from other worlds that they made. I know it sounds very fictional and what else, but it can be possible, the question is when.

... How specific. Some other people might say they just try their best to avoid dying in any sort of way, but you have those two things foremost, huh?

[ Ange sort of figures it might have something to do with bad experiences in the past or something, so she doesn't exactly want to question it - just like she tries to keep people out of her own backstory or motivations for now she isn't going to question people on areas where it's irrelevant. ]

Ah, but western people might use < mister > or < miss > instead, right? Just like we'd call someone 'san'. Either way.. you think my family would be less uptight on that sort of stuff since my grandfather was.. quite the fan, to still have an understatement, of western things like that. But I guess in the end none of our parents really liked him enough either way to care for something like that.

[ There's a slight pause where she overthinks his words.. but then she just lets out a very tiny amused sound. ]

Ambitious, right? [ Of course, the miracle she wants isn't a miracle in that sense of the word. For her family to return.. she would have to be able to resurrect the dead or change the past. Both aren't able to happen with just regular effort. ] Then, Keiichi, could you answer a question?

A person falling from a high skyscraper and surviving.. Would you call something like that a miracle or not?

Well, one never knows when they have to be specific, better be prepared. Of course "not dying" would be the best option, but it's pointless. People die, some people have to die so others can live on, even. So working to avoid "dying" just like that is useless. But to work so at least you don't endure a death you find particularly bad? That much is possible.

[Even if it may not work after all. But still it's within the realms of what's possible.]

If your grandfather was such a fan then it's actually logic to think that his children would be opposite from that standing. The more one generation is bended in one direction, the more the following generations will be bended in the opposite direction. Leaving aside personal feelings, if one is fed something specific since they are babies, no matter how good that thing may be for them or whatever, by the time they can make their own decisions they will probably never again touch that kind of food.

There's also the fact that many places and people in Japan are just terribly old fashioned. They let ideas and thoughts from the past live on until the present and try to make them live on even further, no matter how wrong they are. And for them to accept a wind of change is hard, they are almost like mountains so it takes a long time for that to happen or a great strength, otherwise they will just block everything. In that aspect maybe your parents decided that instead of fighting those mountains it was better to be part of them, if only because it's always easier to think that just one person or one family can't change the ways of a whole country.

Then again I don't know your parents so those are mostly pointless theories.

[A small laugh.]

Ah, yeah, well, one has to be a bit ambitious to get things. If we aren't we will end being satisfied with what we have and never bother to try to conquer obstacles around us.

Edited 2011-05-14 20:47 (UTC)

[The question makes him pause for a moment as he thinks. It's a bit of a long pause, he does give it a good deep though after all, even if they are working on the hypothesis scenario, it doesn't mean he wouldn't think seriously about it.]

Well... Certainly for many that would be what they would call a miracle. But I don't think I would, at least not with just that much information. I mean, you can fall from a high skyscraper, but falling doesn't mean you ever get to reach the ground, and so long as you haven't crashed yet it's possible for you to survive as the fall is stopped somehow.

Not only that, but even if you reach the ground, what kills people from falling from high places is the abrupt end of the high speed fall, which their bodies can't withstand. If your body could endure it, you could survive, if you fell in a certain manner you could even avoid serious injuries. There have been cases of people falling from a height and just ending injured, to various degrees of severity, and people who have just tripped as they walked and died from just that fall. Either way, surviving that would be mostly impossible, or almost impossible, but not absolutely impossible using humans' usual perception, so I wouldn't call it a miracle. Besides as I said, a true miracle is something attained by several people working together, one person alone can't produce a miracle.

[A pause as he remembers something. "Magician of words" had Mion said, not just her, hadn't he heard it other times? People saying that his way with words was almost magical or something like that. Of course that alone didn't bring forth a miracle, but it served to give a push for it to happen.]

Though I suppose that one person alone is capable of producing a magic that could be used to later bring forth a miracle when combined with others.

There are plenty of deaths that most people would rather avoid though. You don't want to know how creative murderers or even circumstances can get at times. [ This is what happens when you're a When They Cry character and see six games' worth of deaths. ] I doubt most people would like to be beheaded or have their intestines pulled out.. In that case you'd have to start paying attention to not dying in a lot of ways, right? And it's hardly like you can stop such a thing from happening in the first place.

I see.. Keiichi, you're the sort of person who can just ramble on about such a thing for no reason, right? Not that I particularly care or mind. For me it's just enough to know the fact they didn't quite share grandfather's hobbies on all fronts, I hardly care for the reason. Although all of us still have ridiculous western names, so I guess in the end it wasn't a complete seperation.

... Either way, it's hardly something that concerns me.

... Heh, I like the way you think though. Aside from that last notion, I pretty much agree with you. Falling from a skyscraper and surviving is hardly something I would call a miracle. It doesn't even take conscious effort to fall from a skyscraper and survive, it just depends on the circumstances, right? If there happens to be something to catch you halfway or break your fall, you would already survive the fall.

That's right, in that case you might as well call it nothing more than opportunism. You're just taking advantage of the circumstances for your own gain, in a way.. something like that is hardly a miracle at all.

But.. reaching a miracle through combined effort isn't really something I can believe in. [ Says the girl who has always been working on her own, who even denied the people who were supposed to be her allies at one point. ] Besides.. some miracles can't be achieved, even with a whole group working for it.

True but there are certain things that are relatively easy to avoid to try to ensure that. It's just a matter of being careful after all, even if despite that you still die a horrible death... Well, shit happens, but so long as you did your best to try to avoid it maybe it wouldn't be such a bad death.

Ne, I wouldn't say that Ange is a ridiculous name. I like it quite a bit, makes me think of "angles" and how everything has a different look depending on which angle you look at it from. Pretty inspiring.

[Shrugs, but yeah, he won't deny that he can ramble on about something for no reason. He can keep a conversation without rambling on and on, but if he has something in his mind he will voice it most of the time. Not saying what was on his mind has brought him too many problems for it to be worth of.]

Humanity has always moved on due opportunism. Taking advantage of circumstances is a legal and respectable way to live on. And of course if you don't look out for your own gain you can't expect others to look out for it in your place. I don't mind helping a friend, but if they don't want to even help themselves in the first place it would be pretty much wasted effort.

[But he's the type that would still try and charge head on until the other gives in or it gets too late for it.]

I know what you mean, honestly I didn't think miracles of any kind were possible, by lone or combined effort. I didn't think miracles existed, period. But I've seen them, though in perspective and for most of the people those miracles are small and wouldn't really affect them or matter them. They were still miracles either way.

But it's also true what you said, some miracles can't be achieved. You can't turn back time, you can't go back and avoid the mistakes you made, you can go back and help the people you failed to help before... But you can avoid mistakes before they happen, you can help people before it's too late. If somehow you were capable of it, even if there was no way for you to have you avoid those mistakes, or rather, no way for you to realize that those were mistakes you had to avoid, if despite that you still manage to do it. That would be a miracle. But not from your perspective or from most of the people's perspective.

Did you know that there are even people who say there's no such thing as a horrible death? They say that death is the only thing that's equal and fair for all, but.. I can't really agree with such a thing. Some people had much more time left after they die than for example old people who die, not to mention that there's also the difference between a slow and a quick death.

That's one way of thinking about it. It's apparently also the French word for angel. Not that that particularly suits me. ... In that regard, my brother has it worse. Nobody can even read his name right most of the time.

[ There's a moment of silence after that - perhaps by now she's realising just how much she's talking about all of this. Before she knows she'll start accidentally blabbing things she doesn't want to talk about to people she doesn't even know yet - or at the very least barely knows. She knows to be more cautious than that.

And so, rather than replying to the whole story, she just goes back to deadpanning. ]

... That's pretty philosophic.

If you think about it objectively and from an emotionless point of view, death truly is fair and equal for everyone, it's an absolute end, in fact it's the only thing absolute in life. Not even the start of life itself is so absolute. But we aren't objective neither emotionless, so of course we can't agree with that, so i go on based on that there are horrible deaths that I would like to avoid.

... You know, I could be pretty awful and make a lame and corny about all women being angels. But I think I'll do a twist and go for the option to say that there are many types of angels and not all of them have to be cheerful balls of joy and smiles.

[Don't worry Ange, lately Keiichi seems to have the effect of making people be comfortable with him after just meeting him for a few minutes. He's not even trying to be so, though of course he wants them to be comfortable in Luceti but not specifically with him.

Anyway he doesn't want to go deeper into this subject either, just because you know Bernkastel it doesn't mean you hold the same level of knowledge than she does. In fact it's pretty clear by now that it's not the case, even if Ange may know about boards and pieces, that's yet to be determined, she knows nothing about Keiichi or hides it well. Thus there's no reason to go further in that path as things are now.]

It really sounds like that, right? I suppose everyone has a philosophic moment at least once in their lives, don't you?

Yeah, you made the right choice there. Such a lame and corny joke would have immediately placed you in the category of that sort of people. My bodyguard back home was rather fond of that sort of stuff too, it gets pretty annoying after a while.

[ That being said, when she thinks about it it's pretty strange that she was sitting next to him in the car only a little while ago and now suddenly found herself here. Here, a place that seemed so infinitely far away from her own world.

And.. well, it's pretty easy to talk to Keiichi. So far Ange doesn't find him having quite the same obnoxious sense of jokes as Amakusa or even her older brother tend to have, plus he's able to carry a decent conversation. Maybe it's why she started rambling so much. ]

I've had enough philosophic moments in the past few-- [ She pauses. How much time had passed anyway since she met Bernkastel on that rooftop? Days, weeks, months? She wasn't able to tell. ] -- in the past while to last me a lifetime, to be honest. I'd be happy if I could finally stop about it for once.

Besides it's not true, I know some women whom I wouldn't call angels no matter what. Not even fallen angels. Ah, but still a good corny joke from time to time does good to lighten the mood, don't you think? Of course, one has to know when the mood needs to be lightened and when there's no need and it would be more annoying than helpful.

[He tries to know when to do it, but he still fails at times. He can't help it, a hundred of gameboards aren't enough to change the instinctive fail inside of him.]

Well, there's a lot of philosophy going around in Luceti, but I like to think that you can still keep yourself apart from it, so you should be able to get a rest of it for a while. For example, the school doesn't have a philosophy class, though I don't know if it's because how the school is structured or because no one has bothered to try to teach it.

Sometimes it's pretty much the worst method to lighten up the mood though. When a guy tells lame things to a girl like 'were your parents thieves? I was just wondering that since they must have stolen all the stars in the sky and put them in your eyes' the mood isn't lightened, but more like completely broken. And that's just one out of many lame sentences like that.

... School? [ There's a 'heh', but it sounds more.. bitter than actually amused. ] I was glad I was finally able to get out of school back home. It's another thing that's on my list of 'things I've had enough of for a lifetime'. St. Lucia's wasn't exactly welcoming.

[Silence.]

Okay, I know I can get pretty lame but I think that one is too much. Not to mention that it's a bad scenery to bring out. In that aspect I would prefer the one that goes 'Were your parents pastry cooks? Because a bonbon like you must have been made by professionals'. I mean, thieves against pasty cooks? I find the later a much better job to be attributed to a girl's parents.

[Keiichi smiles a bit at her reaction, it's a sympathetic smile though.]

I think I know how you feel. My first school wasn't bad per say, but it coupled with cram schools and all felt very pressuring and bad. I left it thinking I had had enough for the rest of my life and didn't care if I ended being considered an illiterate. But the school here is totally different from whatever you're used to, I swear it. To begin with you can just attend to the lessons you want to, the professors just ask you to say which classes you will attend to keep a bit of order with lists and people coming and going, but nothing else. And there are lessons that aren't in the schools back at our worlds, like 'World Sharing' or 'Filial Magic'.

You should give it a chance later on once you're all settled in and bored by the lack of things to do.

Oh, so you're pretty familiar with that sort of lines too, Keiichi? And you've even actually put a few thoughts into it.. I see, so you're that sort of guy. Thanks for telling me so early on so I can make a few notes about it for future reference.

[ She might actually be slightly teasing on that one, for once.. just covered with a few sprinkles of deadpan. ]

I might give it a chance somewhere along the road, but right now I doubt it. There are still plenty of things I want to see in this place and perhaps gather some more useful knowledge as well, so boredom probably won't be a big deal. If anything, I can go and play poker or whatever with my older brother if it comes down to the worst case scenario.

... Besides, I'm not really interested in learning most things unless they are useful for what I'm working towards.

Right, you don't know because you're a girl, but actually there's a secret society where all boys are sent when we're little and where we are taught those lines. Some of us have enough brains to think a bit more about them, but, you won't find any guy who doesn't know them. The most you can find are guys who won't feed you them every five minutes, sorry.

[Deadpan or not, Keiichi isn't one to be offended easily like that. Besides even if she's serious, she has yet to close the journal on him so it can't be that bad if she's willing to keep talking with him, right?]

If it's knowledge that you want, World Sharing may still be a good lesson to attend. People talk about their worlds, some aren't very special but others have quite interesting things. Then again you probably can gather that information if you just ask people directly.

[And there are a lot of things people don't share in that class after all, but may be more willing to share privately if given enough time.]

The library here is pretty decent either way, it has books from every world represented in this place, so you can get tons of information there. And if it's games that you want you can give me a call, I know many games that would kill boredom easily that us three could play. But don't call me unless you're willing to play as if your life was in the stake, I don't play easy games.

[He could ask about what she's working towards, but he won't. Not today at least.]

Really? Geez, what a bother. All of you could have just made it easier on us girls and cut out the whole deal with the lines in the first places. Everyone knows that nowadays not a single girl falls for those either way. The only thing it usually earns you is a rejection at best and a punch in the face at the worst.

... Huh. Sounds like there are quite some options here.. Class was never really my thing though, so I might just hit up the library eventually instead and see what I can find there. It sounds like we're in for quite a stay here either way, right?

You're that serious about games? I don't particularly mind, but you might want to go easy on my older brother. He might cry if you make him lose too many times. [ SHE CAN MAKE FUN OF BATTLER AT TIMES TOO OKAY.. ]

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