“It’s only fair. Alright.”
They look a bit shaky, but they push through it to explain. It’s the least ne owes to Toko.
“Everyone knows you were in a killing game, but I was in one too. I, along with 15 others, was kidnapped by Despair-followers and put into the 49th killing game. Apparently before the game, those people… they put something in my head. I don’t exactly know what, but they put something in my head so I would be just like them. They told me that it was the real me, and I believed it. So I worked with them from behind the scenes. I moved things into view, I set up scenarios to influence people’s actions, and by the end almost everyone was dead. They were dead, and I relished it. Instead of feeling nothing or at least pity, I enjoyed it— the despair of death is what they called it.”
Raules‘s breathing got shaky, but they continued.
” “In the final trial, I was revealed to be the mastermind. My eyepatch was removed to hammer the nail in the coffin (though my eyes had been like this before the game but anyway). I was going to die. They voted, I was taken, and my execution started. In it… in it I was put in a coffin and there were saws a-and it was dark. I think they were going to dismember me and then bury me alive, but I don’t know. The people in charge, the despairs, saved me before anything else could happen. The audience and the survivors were furious, of course, but they said I wasn’t allowed to die because I technically didn’t kill anyone by my own hands, which is true. I took an oath to be a mortician that prevents me from ever killing anyone. So I’m alive on a technicality. I-I’m of course guilty of everything I did or was forced to do or however you see it, but I’ve been able to continue my life somewhat. But, the fans won’t let me. After the game j got death threats and people trying to hurt me, so I had to hide and move constantly for a while. It calmed down, but sometimes I still get a brick through a window or hate mail, but the death threats are always false now.”
They look up to see how Toko is doing with al this information, then realize that one thread is still loose.
“Oh, and the day we met when I asked to be hit, it’s because the despair-brain-thing was acting up again. The only way to stop it is to hurt myself. I don’t know if it’s because it likes pain or because it shuts off when I’m hurt, but either way it usually shuts up. If I can’t get it to be quiet, it sometimes takes over and I either have to lock myself up until it passes or it makes me go to funerals and watch people die. I… I hate watching people die… I want to help, that’s why I‘m. a mortician, to help people through the pain of loss and to give them a last goodbye, but I hate watching the deaths actually happen. It makes me hate myself, because I can’t tell if it’s the brain-thing they put in me or if it’s just me now. I can’t tell anymore.”