FOURTH TRIAL

[splitaseam]

[To what I'm sure is everyone's joy after a sad investigation like that, after everyone reaches the Stretching Room, Oogie's voice can be heard.]

Is this haunted room actually stretching? Or is it just your imagination?

[Well at least he's honoring Ghostave's memory, except he starts laughing, almost tauntingly, after he says that.

In the very least the graveyard seems identical, with three new epitaphs for our dearly departed.

Here lies Lea
Slaying bugs he made a name
And got sent to the deadliest game

Here lies WALL-E
They were our dearest friend
But that didn’t help them in the end

Here lies Tarzan?
????
?????


... Ok then.

Oogie speaks before everyone can get to their tombstones.]

Don't keep me waiting!

Comments

[arpeggiositar]

...I dunno.

[For a moment his cold demeanor seems to vanish, he tilts his head]

I really don't know, okay? It's not like I can go to the sack of bugs and ask him anything -- uh, if I had done this. Yeah.

[There, it's back. He gets off the tombstone, and changes his answer, lacking any hint of sincerity he may have showed in his previous answer]

Yeah. I would.

[chainbroke]

I see.

[ She lets out a quiet sigh, looking down at her hands. ]

To what lengths would you have gone to make sure there was no way the Organization could have found you?

[ That is, what would you have done in order to change the moment you became a Nobody? ]

[arpeggiositar]

I'd have done anything--

[The continued pressure of Mike hassling him about his shoes and Naminé still asking questions is really getting to him. For someone supposedly lacking in emotions, he sure is showing a lot of frustration]

I don't know! I don't know what I'd have done! If I'd have asked to stay alive, or for everyone in the Organization to stay alive, or for them to never find me, or for Sora to be gone so nothing happens, or for a heart, or--I don't know what I could have asked!

Why don't I just go and ask for me to be somebody from the beginning if it means not having to decide any of that? I didn't ask for this! I just wanted to sit back and do nothing, and--what am I supposed to do?! I asked you before, what am I supposed to do?!

[Demyx had just had way too many options and no idea what to do.

It also doesn't help that without Xemnas and Xigbar's influence over him all these recent strange feelings inside him keep happening, even though he knows they must be fake]

[chainbroke]

Anything...

[ Naminé's face falls completely, and she nods. She understands the feeling of wanting to be whole. Nobodies never asked for this, did they? And Demyx had certainly never asked to be a part of something like the Organization. ]

I'm sorry. I can't tell you what to do, or even what you should do. All I could-- can offer is suggestions. I don't have any answers, Demyx, not really.

But I meant it when I said that you shouldn't do anything here. I just don't know if you listened to me, or not.

... I'm sorry. For all of this.

[arpeggiositar]

[Well, that should have been easy, right? Doing nothing. Who knows that better than him. For a long while he's silent, until he mumbles something else]

...yeah. Maybe.

I'm...I...I'm sorry? I...I am sorry? [It feels heavy for a moment, it's just for a single moment, but once it's gone he isn't sure it was there. It shouldn't have even been there. He doesn't have a heart. Well, he does, he has said it. No, he doesn't. But that heavy feeling was there for a moment.

Guilt]

I'm...I am sorry?

[...]

I think...I am? Was? I dunno...

[chainbroke]

... I know.

[ Don't worry. She gets it. ]