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mental link | morning of day :039
[ The ever present mental music that plays from the bard's end of the connection grows invasively louder sometime after breakfast, and it is rather anxious. The morning has been heavy enough already with packing getting underway, but this is due to something different. While the music in him is clear as ever, his thoughts stumble across the connection sloppily and desperately. ]
( I require a detective... I think. Oh dear, this is quite dire… )
[ He knows of several, but with the situation being as dire as he claims, well... he may need as much help as possible. All hands on deck. ]
( I believe someone has discovered that I am not Carbauschian, and... has poisoned me. )
[ The pauses between coherent thought are more than a bit dramatic, but he's being quite serious. ]
( I require a detective... I think. Oh dear, this is quite dire… )
[ He knows of several, but with the situation being as dire as he claims, well... he may need as much help as possible. All hands on deck. ]
( I believe someone has discovered that I am not Carbauschian, and... has poisoned me. )
[ The pauses between coherent thought are more than a bit dramatic, but he's being quite serious. ]
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[ Another 'but...' because his logic is steadily being dismantled. It's logic built hastily on pain and panic, which is always the worst kind yet the most stubborn. Even pointing out that all the murders so far have been stabbings is a hole poked in his own reasoning. ]
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( Doesn't fit the pattern. Which doesn't mean it's impossible that the killer would change things up, but generally speaking, murders fall into a pattern for a reason. )
[ am assassin, can confirm ]
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[ Which is exactly what he asked for, but Artist help him in dealing with them while his insides recoil and rebel.
The mental music playing in the back of his mind softens, though he's hardly calmed by reassurances of the twisted ways in which murderers work. ]
( Still, I know what it feels like when I am... sick. And this isn't a normal sort of pain. )
[ "Sick" - carefully chosen to be vague, because he can still be a prideful asshole even if he's dying slowly and painfully. ]
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( ...nothing like that, sorry. )
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[ Repeated, because he's still sick and this non-detective has debunked all his
terrible and paranoidtheories as to how he became sick. Or if not debunked, pointed out theirextremeunlikeliness. ]( For all you've had to say, you've been of very little help. Who are you? )
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You know, he's just gonna glide onwards and leave that train of thought alone. ]
( Joshua Bright. I came in with the group before the last one. )
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( And if you're not a detective, then what do you do Mr. Bright? )
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[ He's pretty sure the context of "you both play music so you'd probably get along" wasn't taking into account that his answer for the next question tends to be a big off-putter and all -
But being hooked into everyone's head via alien brainslug makes lying pretty pointless, so he's adopted a much more straightforward policy than he did back home. If people are going to decide they want nothing to do with him (which is, he expects, the sensible response that any normal person ought to have), then it's better to just get it over with and not waste their time. ]
( ...I used to be an assassin. )
[ Used to! He is not so big on the killing people thing these days.
Not that he thinks it makes him any less of a garbage excuse for a human being who can never atone for his sins, but look, he's not going to try and kill anybody here right now, for what that's worth? ]
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Assassin, he hears. Used to be. At least he waits, that fraction of a second, before he makes himself known. ]
What made you stop?
[ The only reason the blurring of revulsion and distaste within him doesn't burst forth is because he's wrung out, and because he's had a row or two with Asuka -- child-pilot and killer -- long before this one came up. ]
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An ocean of blood, a crushing sense of guilt, underscored by a heavy weariness that he's never going to be anything more than a crime against existence. ]
( I failed a mission, five years ago. Worse than failed - I was seen. )
[ In a world where going undetected is everything, that made him a liability. A loose end, in need of tying up before anyone was able to track him back to Ouroboros. Only one thing happened to those who made that mistake. ]
( ...my target saved my life. His name was Cassius Bright. )
[ And, thus easily inferred, had clearly done far more than that, for Joshua to now be using the Bright name himself. ]
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More than your life, it seems.
[ "Your soul", is definitely what he infers from that. He's loud, rude. Not a fool. ]
Don't go letting him down, then.
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[ That, to him, would be worth getting his hands dirty - not out of any sense of revenge for what they did to him, though. Revenge wouldn't be worth it.
It's just about stopping them. Not that he'll have the chance now. ]
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That's not what I meant. Don't go back down that road, not for any reason.
That'd be an insult, to the one who saved you from that sort of life.
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Because it makes sense, yes. He can absolutely get the reasoning of that, it's just that - ]
( And if it would stop anyone else from starting on that road? )
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[ This is both a matter of morality and creative, flexible thinking. His own mind is strict and hyperfocused, but he's been taught to approach a problem in multiple directions at once. Observing on the fly, adapting as he goes. ]
-- I'll make sure you don't have to kill to do it. You, and that other kid. [ Asuka. ]
1/2, brief skating past some triggery shit
So, okay. Bakugo probably knows more about that particular topic.
Even so. Despite the many moral and philosophical things that Joshua's wholeheartedly rejected since he left Ouroboros (the practical skills, not so much), there's one very cold-blooded truth that he can't picture himself ever changing his mind on: some people are so evil, and cause so much suffering, that killing them is the only way to deal with them. Weissmann. The people who'd run the brothel where he found Renne (the sheer nerve of calling it Paradise, with what they put her through). Whichever Erebonian noble had been willing to order the rape and massacre of one of their own villages, for no better reason than giving them an excuse to declare war.
He'd trust nothing less than death to keep any of them from a repeat performance (and honestly, he's not sure Weissmann would stay dead even then).
So despite his own lack of expertise on the matter of protection - ]
( That's the most naive thing I've heard in weeks. )
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( But I think I'd be glad to be proven wrong. )
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Or promises I don't understand the importance of.
[ He's really not one to MAKE promises, unless it's "I'll be the best" or "I'll destroy every last one of you who gets in my way". ]
I come from a world where heroes are real, Joshua. There are terrible people out there, and there are people willing to do bad things to protect good people. That it's such a hard leap for some of this team to realize that there is a way to do good and be good, and still get results is -- it's new to me. But, it's also real to me. Not naivety.
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[ There it is. Him putting his foot in it. ]
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But he doesn't say any of that. ]
For a minute there, you made that sound really good.
[ And then, of course, he ruined it. As he does. ]
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[ HE TAKES GREAT OFFENSE TO THIS, JOSHUA. ]
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