rakuen | Round 1 [beta characters here]

And then you woke up and it was all a dream.

Or... was it?

You don't know. The details are fading. Some of it seems as clear as if if had happened minutes ago, whilst the rest is as hazy and vague as a long-lost memory. You remember blood and screams; a girl with a bright smile. Need to get rid of you, someone said. For a little while. Sometimes you were running, fighting, facing dark shadows with red eyes and mocking smiles. Sometimes you were hunting yourself, hurting people, feeling the power of your weapon coursing through you as you headed towards your prey. Sometimes you were watching your friends die, or your family, or your enemies.

Your shadow is you, and you are your shadow, and its voice is all around you.

Free us. Free them.

Static. More images, some you will remember and some you will not.

...but, your shadow whispers, the Demon King always returned. Didn't he?

You are outside, and the sky is blood. The towers glow, humming atonally as a star lights up the sky. The campus blazes with its light; the lines of the symbol span the horizon, and a tiger smiles.

Once, the knight despaired and sought a sage...

The tiger smiles, and the world is consumed in fire. You're falling, falling, and the shadow's voice falls with you.

There is a story everybody knows.

Light streams through the windows of your room. In eight different rooms, in four different buildings, thirty-nine students wake up with a start, and find their campus as picturesque and empty as it was the day before.

The day before? What...

A cheery voice breaks through the fog of confusion, loud over the speaker system.

"Good morning, students! Please be at the lobby by midday for the week's announcements."

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Gino to the rescue, then. He nodded as well he could, "Right, Xing isn't in the Chinese Federation, but you look like you're from there... You too, Grenn. There are a ton of similarities."

"...what's China?"

Staaare.

"What? So... Gino isn't from Amestris?" And Mei couldn't even begin to fathom where Grenn might be from. Somewhere farther south than Xing, she had imagined. "And Suzaku wasn't making things up? There really is somewhere called Britannia?"

Oops. Guess she owed him an apology.

Grenn wasn't sure if she should feel offended by the connection to China or not, but she shook her head at Mei.

"No. And I don't know what you mean by me being Chinese, Gino, because I'm not. I know the Indian Confederation isn't big, but it's bigger than the Albionian Territories and---" Oops. Facepalming went here. She'd tried so hard to not reveal to much, but it probably didn't matter with Mei or Gino, because from what she'd managed to unearth, their 'realities' didn't line up in the least. So maybe she could relax a bit, at least right here.

It was probably a bigger risk that where Yuki came from could turn out to be her past. Grenn sighed.

"Um, sorry." It was a bit embarrassing, because she hadn't been aware she harboured such vehemence regarding her heritage. But....
"And well, technically, I'm not from India. I've got Indian heritage, yes, but it's hard to be from a country when you were born in space." She had to admit, that was fun to say.

"Britannia's where I'm from! Of course it's real," He got out, enthusiasm and sparkles, before Grenn spoke. He blinked. Opened his mouth to explain how large the Chinese Federation was, blinked again. His mouth snapped shut.

"Space? You weren't born on Earth?"

"Well how was I s'posed to know that! I didn't know we were from different worlds!"

Okay. Mei got the 'different but similar worlds' part. The kid has a vast imagination, so surpassing that weird is fairly simple. When Grenn brings up 'space', however, one can almost see the metaphorical question marks popping up around her head.

"Space?" She echoed Gino's question.

... Hm... Maybe that hadn't been the smartest of things to say, but... too late now.

"No... I've not seen Earth in my whole life, Gino. And I probably won't unless something extraordinary happens." Grenn shrugged. She didn't really pick up on Mei's complete confusion. She simply thought she was surprised that she'd mentioned space at all.

"Huh." He sounded far too thoughtful, "That explains why your engines don't run on sakuradite, anyway. Where are you from, if you're not on Earth?"

"Waitwaitwait. What's space?"

Mei, not getting it. Not at all.

Grenn blinked at Mei, because she'd think the concept of 'space' was a pretty universal one. Or... But Gino first.

"Space station, Gino. I've lived on one or another my whole life." That was probably detailed enough... even if they all were from different worlds/versions, she still wasn't sure how much she should say.

"Mei... Space is..." A pause. "Will it matter if I try to explain it? I mean, you sure you didn't know this before?"

Bizarre. He knew, vaguely, that occasionally some scientist or group would make a huge deal about sending up a rocket, but nothing ever came of it. Especially not when they were in a state of world war. Science projects took second place at that point.

Therefore, Gino knew nearly nothing about it. It wasn't just for Mei that he gestured for her to continue.

"It's a good distraction, right?"

Even without memory loss, the concept of 'space' had no frame of reference for her. Not for how they defined it. "It's... an... expanse in which..." No, no, they went over this back home. She knew a definition. "All objects are located aaaand all events occur?"

Yep. That was what space was. What the other two meant sounded like something completely different, though.

"But that means everyone lives in space." Which doesn't clear this up at all. Mei won't even touch the entire 'not living on Earth' or 'space station' stuff yet.

Shaking her head, Grenn Shook her head.

"The space I mean is the.... uh..." She wasn't sure what Mei knew and didn't know, even factoring in my game-related memory loss... "Right... There's lots of planets, right? Not just the one you or I or Gino counts as home, but others. They all occupy a air-less 'space', circling their suns, and so on..." Trailing off, Grenn frowned. She wasn't good at explanations, and wasn't sure that had been a good one.

"It's what's above the sky, Mei."

So helpful. He gestured upwards, towards the ceiling, then out at the window.

"...the what?" Mei would have wondered if they were just making fun of her now, but Grenn was less likely to troll than Gino. She looked over at the window. Aaagh, the blue thing out there. "Is that what that is?"

... yeah. She'd had that memory taken away from her. Grenn shook her head.

"Don't worry about it, Mei. It'll make sense when that memory is returned again." It was kinda amusing how it almost sounded like 'it'll make sense when you're older'.

Round 1 [beta characters here]

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AUGH LATE forgive me guys ; ;

neeeveeer--- okay

Re: neeeveeer--- okay