maskormenace | 07

Entry tags:

07 | video

[it's quite late at night when this video goes up. there's no thematic reason for the timing - Lapis has simply been up here alone with her thoughts for quite a while at this point, and only now collected herself enough to feel strong enough for social interaction.

when the feed clicks on to show where 'here' is, it's easy to understand the sentiment. the camera displays the dazzling expanse of the galaxy from an up close and personal angle, bobbing gently up and down to the beat of unseen wings. it's quiet for a time, in the velvety way only space can provide, before her voice cuts through it.]

We don't make patterns out of stars where I'm from - we don't even really name them. It's just sorted by cut and facet, so that you can find things as efficiently as possible.

...I guess if we had to stare up at the same sky every night for thousands of years it might've been different.

[the camera swings slightly to focus in on a cluster of stars which ought to be familiar to any resident of earth, even with the uncharacteristic closeup.]

Apparently humans call that one Scorpius? They think it used to be some kind of big monster until it got in a fight. [she pauses for a moment, a little uncertain.] I'm not really sure any of them know what stars are actually made of.

[Lapis flits the camera around to showcase a few more constellations: Libra, Centaurus, Lupus... it's difficult to tell whether she's doing it for the viewers at home or simply her own amusement, but it's beautiful all the same.]

You have to travel a lot further out than most people realize to lose shapes like that. There's nowhere in this system that you could look from and not know where you are; wherever you go, you can always find your way back.

There are places in other worlds that just don't exist here, though. Do you think there's anything left at the end of those paths?

[there's clearly something aside from galactic scenery weighing on Lapis' mind, but she keeps whatever's prompted this trip to herself. after another panoramic view of the stars, she wordlessly clicks the feed off.]

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

[Lapis is out there, anyone who has met had can attest to that. But this puts a whole new spin on that perspective.

She's really...in outer space. She really is an alien.

For a little while, Sakuma quietly observes the vacuum she's floating around in, and the constellations that are the focus of some of what she says. But there are more important things to concentrate his attention on than Scorpius, Libra, and all the rest — like the mention of the world she's from.

What does she mean by stare at the same sky...? Where gems come from, is it different? Could the planet they're from possibly move through space of its own accord, or by being controlled? Probably, for a race of space rocks, such a feat wouldn't be impossible. But it does beg the question of why...

...much the way Lapis' meandering words also beg the same question.

And then, finally, she reaches some sort of point. Sakuma doesn't know if it's what he expected, but he thinks he knows from where it stems. Speaking of other worlds so soon after people have departed...could it be that she was close to those from Aliea? It seems too big a coincidence to ignore, what with her floating around above the Earth and all.

If that's it, if that's the answer, then it means she has lost yet again. He can't help feeling a little bad for her, especially considering their last conversation.]

I think the path remains.

[From their world to this one. That's how some return. How he did when the Porter glitched after his first month of being in this world.]

They've made it back, I'm sure of it.

[Kiyama, at least, Sakuma knows goes on to keep playing soccer. He isn't returning to misfortune. Or at least...not the same sort he'd faced before. But he will have to contend with Kageyama, leaving Sakuma unable to promise that anyone has made it back safely, much as he would like.]

Is there anything to go back to, though?

[it's what has her the most thoughtful of all. Gran and Ulvida had a home, a real one - they'd told her of it, briefly, with a sort of fondness that couldn't be mistaken. it had made her happy in a way she hadn't felt for so long to know that not all of those displaced on earth were really trapped there.

was it gone now? the Homeworld of her past was no more, something which she still struggled to accept at times. but that world, the one of the present...the Porter was very powerful. even if no one remembered, it changed them. could they still go home?]

[There's home, Sakuma thinks. But the word means different things to different people, can be either a promise of refuge or threat against personal safety. Not everyone wants to return, he's well aware of that fact. But they all do. One day, eventually, they will each of them leave this world. It's just a matter of time until their number is called.

And then where will they go? Back to where they came from. Probably. That's the safe assumption, and the only answer he has based on reports he's heard here and his own experience.]

The lives left waiting for us.

[That's it, in all probability. Unless the Porter, or the AI within it, could send them someplace else, but of all the accounts Sakuma's heard about being Ported out and then back in, none mention going somewhere else instead of home in the interim. Even he'd returned to the same point, just prior to their match with Argentina, which Kageyama had moved up...]

I was Ported out for a day last month. I went home and then came back. Nothing changed.

[Nothing at all. Which felt like both a blessing and a curse all at once. He didn't have any more answers than before. But he knew, at least, that sometimes there was something to go back to. Even if...if being back there meant not being able to remember any of this.]

You might have. It happens to a lot of people.

[they would leave and come back, only to find themselves changed. Lapis herself had just suffered through such an experience - the blank, ignorant eyes of Tara staring back at her swim to the forefront of her memory once more with an accompanying sting of pain.

other people had lives worth living. she knew that, as easily as she knew that it would never be such a case for herself. but the knowledge of alteration, of her own immutable fate, made it difficult for her to completely accept such an answer as enough to relieve her troubled mind.

perhaps this was worry. it's been so long since she felt it, an emotion almost as foreign as joy.]

I haven't.

[The only things different are his powers, but those aren't changes he's willing to admit to, not publicly, and not to someone he knows too little about. Everything else really has remained just as it was. Both back home and here. Because how much can really change in the span of a day?

He is still exactly the same person...

Isn't he?

Upon his return to this world, Sakuma hadn't found that he'd forgotten anything about it or its inhabitants. He hadn't learned anything new about the world he came from, either. That meant that he was the same, right? Or...as much the same as he could be to the 'Sakuma' that hadn't been injected with nanites and given strange new powers by the AI in the Porter.

He frowns, suddenly very glad that this is text. He would hate for anyone to see the worry on his face or to be able to hear it in his next statement.]

The time line didn't, either. It was exactly the same as when I'd left. The point they'll return to is the same as the one they were pulled from.

[Is he trying to be consoling or just stating fact? He's not even sure, but he knows he wants very much to believe his own words. The future, as far as he knows, isn't bad for Kiyama or Ulvida. For them, being home is certainly better than being here. And they could play real soccer again, too.

Which meant the months they'd spent here would count for nothing. Would...vanish. One day wasn't much to account for, there didn't feel like any kind of loss at all, but months, even years...? Suddenly being unwritten. That's...

He doesn't want to think about what it is. What it could mean for the people still left here. But he knows he'll have to.]

[none of this is news to Lapis. she's been here long enough to have heard the spiel from multiple sources, many of them firsthand. the universe stood still for as long as a person was here - but this one continued revolving, whether they were present or not. all of this was just extra time.

but hadn't Sakuma told her that was wrong the last time they'd touched on that in conversation?

if people were preserved exactly as they'd been before coming into contact with the Porter, why did some of them return to this world changed? what governed that spark of recognition that ignited into full-blown recovery of memories long since discarded? what rubric was Lachesis using to decide who arrived a second time to begin with?

it's frustrating in the most painful way possible. all of these meaningless moments had somehow become more precious to her than she'd ever admit, and yet Lapis still had no control over them. she was still losing, and this time she couldn't even discern why.]

You can't be sure of that.

[of whether he'd changed, or whether things would play out the same as they'd always been meant to? Lapis isn't certain herself.]

I'm not

It's not good enough anymore.

[that answer. she can't accept that answer anymore, not when it continued to steal friends from her.]

[Of course, when they'd spoken about this before, Sakuma hadn't lost anyone to the Porter. He'd vanished himself, but for so short an amount of time that he'd felt almost as though it hadn't happened at all. The time they had didn't feel borrowed to him, not then. How could it?

He'd been too relieved to be able to return to the side of his best friends, to both Kidou and Genda, to recognize what had been right in front of him all along.

None of them can be certain of anything regarding the Porter if they can't study it. They can't even be certain of themselves.

There's nothing he can say to contest her accusation. She's right, after all. But he can't leave it like that, either. Because accepting that truth causes their disappearance to sting more than it has any right to. It means accepting that...they might be gone and not just gone home. And that's a terrifying notion that hasn't occurred to him before now.

The only testament left to their having existed here was those who remembered them.

Which makes what he types next all the more difficult to say, but all the more necessary...]

Lazuli-san. Is this regarding Gran and Ulvida?

[she's surprised to hear those names, and simultaneously grateful for this being a text conversation that fails to capture what her expression must have looked like just then.

how could she have known? neither side had ever made mention of the other. still, it feels almost as if someone has burrowed under her skin and pulled out some precious secret - or perhaps more accurately, as if they were pressing down on a fresh wound.]

They're gone. Their communicator numbers are disconnected.

[and she'd checked, and checked, and -

everywhere there'd been to look, Lapis had gone. she's lost a great number of people to the Porter, but it had been hardest to let go of those who understood so intimately her trials of being an 'other' on this planet. when she'd realized that the pair of them had been taken at the same time, for a moment she could have sworn she was in that accursed mirror all over again.]

[Sakuma isn't sure if he's relieved or not to hear of their acquaintance. Aliea befriending a space rock? It's one of those things that deserves an "of course."

He knows now, however, that Lapis is about as cruel of heart as Gran and Ulvida — which is to say she's not.

In any case, knowing what he does about those two, and considering the timing and the fact that Lapis chose space as the stage for her broadcast, there really wasn't any other possible conclusion.]

They're from an earlier point in time, but they're from the same world that I am.

[Meaning somewhere...they still exist. They're home. It might not be the Gran and Ulvida that lived here anymore, because their memories would have been stripped away...but what made them them was still very much alive somewhere.]

Have you been there?

[to their world, she means. it's such a lonely question to ask at a time like this, but she can't help herself. Lapis wants one of them to still be able to reach the places that matter.]

[Their world...?

Sakuma hesitates to answer because there are different 'worlds' to consider. There is Earth, for starters, the planet that they're all from, and there is also the world of soccer, but perhaps the most accurate to the way Lapis undoubtedly means the word would be Aliea Gakuen itself.

Every academy had its own soccer, and Aliea's was appropriately alien. Of course, Sakuma only knew secondhand about any of that, but there was one thing he knows for certain: Aliea is gone. The players from that team wouldn't be returning to that place, but that was for the best. They'd been used as weapons and treated like they were only a means to an end.

And all because of that damn rock, the Aliea Meteorite...]

I haven't.

[He won't lie. But neither does he want to burst Lapis' bubble. Whatever bond she had with those two...well, preserving the memory of it may well be the closest thing he has to not letting either of them feel like they no longer exist.]

That place is one they moved on from. But they haven't moved on from soccer.

[Or, he's assuming that Ulvida hasn't. He doesn't know for certain, but it's difficult to imagine anyone with her talent simply quitting the sport.]

That world is one we share. Gran and I are even on the same team.

[We have to see what kind of soccer they play, right? And you too.

if someone had reached out and pierced right through her gem, it couldn't possibly inflict any more pain than Sakuma's words at this moment. she can't even pinpoint the cause immediately - and she certainly can't respond, even with text.

it's good, in every way that matters. they'd lost a world, just as much as Lapis had, but there was still another waiting for them to step into. Gran and Ulvide still had a place - still had friends - to sweep away the pangs of homesickness, and for that she is infinitely grateful.

at the same time...this was a 'world' now closed to her forever. Gran had wanted to open it for her out of the goodness of a friendship she'd never really deserved, but the Porter had snatched him away before she could ever take that outstretched hand.

she doesn't know why it hurts so terribly. the only true place for her in any world was the bottom of the sea.]

That's good. It's important to belong somewhere.

[if Lapis were a more naturally considerate person, she might worry that Sakuma's assumed this conversation closed from how long it takes her to say anything. as it is, she considers it a minor victory that she can pull her mind back enough to type out anything at all.]

[Mourning loss, the angry sting the absence of friends leaves on one's heart, these aren't things Sakuma wants to rush anyone through. But neither does he want to abandon her with the heaviness of the emotions she's feeling, not even if they aren't close. She was a friend of someone he knew, after all. And briefly, a housemate of his own. So he waits, and waiting pays off. When her answer finally comes, it hurts. Not because it's meant to, but because it resonates with him in a way he isn't comfortable describing.]

I think so, too.

[Belonging is important, and it's hard to feel like you belong when you find yourself in a foreign world and without friends...]

Lazuli-san.

Do you want to play soccer?

[It sounds like such a simple request, but there is a gravity to those written words, and a solemn promise to share something with her that is very meaningful. Soccer isn't just a sport, after all. It is their whole world.

It is also a world that they share with others. Opponents and new teammates, no one is excluded by soccer. On the field, everyone belongs. Perhaps...she can, too. And, if nothing else, maybe offering her a glimpse into the world of soccer, the world Gran and Ulvida have returned to, will help ease whatever hurt she might still be feeling. Because at least then, no matter where they are, it'll still be a world she shares with them.]

[it's a word with a strange amount of weight to it, as all terms that humans find important seem to be to her. Lapis feels as if she's being presented with a concept she only half grasps, something that she understands as important only through secondhand information. in many ways she's afraid to touch it.]

It's alright.

[she hedges her answer in order to buy herself more time to grapple with the request. the openness of some humans still put her on edge, a remnant of the changed Homeworld she'd been forced to navigate. Lapis had done nothing to earn such enthusiasm or regard, and to be given it with no ulterior motives seemed far too good to be true.

it had been easier to accept with Gran, who had been so earnest in his desire for friendship. there had been a kindred spark there, an understanding of the difficulties which came from standing apart on a planet despite one's best efforts. she could understand why he'd want to share something so meaningful with her.

Sakuma has none of that. she can't imagine what he could possibly hope to gain from stepping into Gran's place - and she isn't sure that she wants to. one of the few lights in this world has been her freedom from use as nothing more than a tool. she isn't certain she could bear to have that taken from her, especially with something that had once been precious.]

People leave all the time. I'll be fine.

[she wants to learn. she wants the soccer ball sitting in her closet to have some sort of meaning aside from memorializing another lost friend. but she doesn't know if she can trust this hand - not even enough to admit that Gran hadn't yet taught her how to play.]

[I'll be fine.

It's a lie. Sakuma doesn't need his power or soccer to be able to see through it. Those words were all too often used by Teikoku's players when the trials they faced came barreling down upon them with crushing force. It was a mantra, spoken in times of despair, words repeated over and over aloud and to themselves in order to keep from giving up. Because, back then, losing was considered to be unsightly. They didn't have any other alternative.

So they were fine. Because they had to be. Because there was nothing else, not when admitting they might not be okay could mean having soccer taken away, their friends taken away, and the very world where they felt they belonged ripped out from under their feet.

Who could survive that? So it had been easier to pretend. To lie until it felt real. Or at least, until they no longer felt the pain, or had learned to endure through it.

Lapis isn't fine...

But what can he do with his offer refused? He can't force her to take his hand, nor does he want to. The only way for someone to get back up after they've fallen is to want it themselves. Sakuma doesn't know how to discern what Lapis really wants. He doesn't know her well enough, hasn't spent enough time around her to be confident. The only thing he's certain of is that she doesn't want to be here, but what can he possibly do with that information? He can't send her home, and offering to share Gran and Ulvida's world with her seems to have gone over her head like so many things...

He sighs. Those two...especially Gran. They wouldn't have wanted to see Lapis like this.]

If you change your mind...

It would be nice to play with someone who knew them here.

I don't think that I could play anyway.

[it's as close as she can get to admitting that she has no idea how one plays soccer aside from the fact that it involves a brightly patterned ball.

normally Lapis has no trouble acknowledging her complete ignorance of (and often, apathy towards) the ways of earth, but in a moment like this she senses that may be close to blasphemy. there was something very important here, important to people who'd mattered, and she was hesitant to knock it over with her existence.

it had been fine to pretend she knew what Gran was talking about when he'd made the first offer. there had been time then, as false a belief as it turned out to be. here...Lapis can't stand as their representative, even to Sakuma. it would be a gross disrespect of the happiness they'd brought her.]

Of course you can.

[Not to imply she'll be any good at it, of course. Because, let's face it, not everyone has the same potential. But that's a thought he'll keep to himself because the point isn't to scare her away from trying, it's to facilitate any desire she might have.

And besides, not being great at something isn't any reason to quit. Soccer is about having fun. That was something he'd learned the hard way, but not a lesson he would ever forget. And he has Raimon and Kidou both to thank for that...not unlike those two from Aliea.]

Soccer is for everyone. You only have to want to play.

No, I mean

[she can feel a little angry frustration creeping in, at both herself and Sakuma. she hadn't wanted to spell it out like this - but it was so typical of the world. it wouldn't even allow Lapis to preserve the best of her friends' memory in the eyes of others.]

Gran left before he taught me how.

[So it wasn't that Gran and Ulvida hadn't thought to share their world with Lapis, but that they'd been sent back home before they could. No wonder she had said no when he'd offered to play with her. Sakuma would have been just as reluctant to let anyone fill the shoes of his closest friends. Even angry with anyone who dared to try.]

Gran was a beginner once. So was I. Everyone starts at the beginning, Lazuli-san.

[Which is to say, there isn't any shame in that. But he suspects that isn't the problem here, that she'd wanted to learn from her friend — from someone she felt a kinship with.]

What did he tell you about soccer?

He said that the sea lions could probably play it.

[well, they'd both sort of puzzled that out together, but the point remained. it seems almost like a non sequitur of an answer given the rest of the conversation, but the textual format hides the utter seriousness with which Lapis has typed this out. to her, it's just as important as her previous replies.]

[Okay, that's probably true, but Kiyama, please...]

Anything else?

He brought some balls to the aquarium for them and one for me.

[this is going to be a really uphill battle, Sakuma.]

[So she most likely has her own soccer ball. That's good.

What's not so good is the fact the communication barrier seems to breaking down already...but he supposes that was only a matter of time.]

I mean, did Gran tell you anything else about soccer?

He said that everyone played it a little differently. But I guess that's kind of a given.

[Lapis and Gran's conversations involved a lot more abstract discussion than anything concrete. while it was wonderful for the pair of them, it didn't lend itself well to actual framework for another to take upon themselves - most of the details of things like soccer had been assumed to be discussed later.]

It seems like he taught you something about soccer after all.

[Whether or not it's a given, what matters is that Gran spoke to Lapis about more than sea lions playing soccer. Sakuma can work with that.]

In fact, that's actually a more important lesson than you might think. You have to find your own soccer, Lazuli-san. And you can only do that by trying.

[Which, considering her very nature, might be hard for her, but not impossible. After all, not everyone's idea of soccer was purely individualistic. For example, despite their individual strengths and weaknesses, Teikoku's soccer was based on perfect synchronicity and teamwork.]

text

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject