immamartillo | 5th Hat Flip [Voice/Action]

[Voice]

[It's early in the morning-after a night of much boredom and little sleep- when Firo opens his journal.]

I've been wonderin': what kinda weapons do people use back where you guys come from? Where I live, people'll fight with anything from fists to tommy guns, but I figure everywhere's gotta have somethin' different.

[Action]

[Later that morning, Firo sets off running for the Battle Dome. He hasn't been too pleased with himself lately: he failed to be effective against the droids that attacked a few weeks ago, and then he couldn't even protect his friend from being mallynapped. Actually, ever since Ennis was kidnapped before his arrival in Luceti he's felt nagging feelings of uselessness. They've only been intensified by recent events.

He has to get stronger. The capos of his Family would be disappointed if they saw him like this. In the back of his mind Firo can practically hear Yaguruma berating him.

He spends most of the day at the Battle Dome, focusing on training until he's ready to drop (though feel free to interrupt him). Maybe trying to go so long without a break isn't a good idea, but that doesn't matter to Firo at this point. When nightfall comes, he wanders outside and slumps by the door, exhausted.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

How'd that happen? In all the stories I've heard they seem pretty hard to get rid of.

Oh, it was pretty hard, believe me. Then again, it's kind of a long story. Let's just say the world just had to be fixed up a bit and then they left.

Yeah, I'd imagine...

Aw, c'mon, ya can't just leave me without the details.

... Heh. [A chuckle at that.] All right. Unfortunately, the big thing that had to be done was recreating the world. Demons kind of had a good hold on it.

How'd ya do that? It's not like you can just start from scratch on somethin' like that.

There was a force that could do that kind of thing. Make my world into anything--provided that a person's ideal was strong enough. I suppose it was something like a god.

Like a god..?

[He sounds skeptical; that's slightly more difficult for him to believe than demons. He's not sure if he's even completely sold on the demons part.]

So, this force thing just stepped in and fixed everything?

[Can't blame you, bro, it's even weird to Naoki and he lived it.]

Nah. It wasn't that nice. It had to be fought and defeated.

By who? It couldn't have been the demons, could it?

Nah. Demons weren't allowed to go up against it, supposedly. It was supposed to be the humans who had an ideal world in mind.

You make it sound like there were rules.

Of a sort. It was supposed to be only humans able to change the world to whatever they wanted.

So... Wait a minute, who decided all this stuff? If the demons couldn't do anything...

[They would've been his first guess; it was the "demon" who set the rules for the elixir of life, in his world.]

I mean, humans can't make up stuff like that, can they?

Who? Well, uh. I heard a lot of things, though never specifically the name of who. I could guess, though...

[From the half-concealed hints, frustrating in their own right.]

Humans had their part in bringing it about, but...yeah. Not for the rules of that world.

[He sighs, frustrated at his own confusion.]

...Yeah, ya know what? You were right. This does seem like a really long story.

[He chuckles, sheepish.] It is. Sorry, man.

[He laughs.]

You did try to warn me. I can't imagine what it musta' been like to actually witness that stuff.

It was...aaah. [He doesn't even have words. A chuckle.] Something else.

Name's Naoki, by the way.

I'll bet it was.

Firo Prochainezo. Nice to meet'cha, Naoki.

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