[CLOSED] The Hunt

[vessel_ken_amada]

[Locked to Ken and Falcon. May be opened to intervention of others depending on how it goes.]

Immediately after receiving Raven's message, Ken left his home to search for Falcon. This madness needed to stop. Clearly hoping others would sort things out was a mistake.

He does not know where Falcon is, but he does remember from their last fight that a small part of him felt like Nyx's power. He can latch on that to track him. He'll look everywhere, spending the whole night if he has to, starting with Inaba.

The more he searches, the more his emotions melt into this weird state he gets into when he is truly upset. This is getting dangerous...

Comments

[gorobo]

And if Ken pays attention, he may feel that spark of Nyx coming to a stop at Yasogami High.

Falcon's been out wandering for... the past couple of hours. Being angry, guilty, then angry again, fury, guilt. He tried to text Raven, but he didn't respond to his message, and, well-

Fuck, he's right not to, isn't he? Falcon blew up at him, yelled in his face at him.

Again.

And then he heard every nitty gritty detail Falcon thought about the people he loves. It's not fair. He didn't want to make it a problem, why does everyone have to act like it's such a problem? He was fine just keeping it to himself and letting everyone live in blissful fucking ignorance, but no! No!

With more force than he needs to, he shoves open a classroom on the third floor of the building, grabs a chair, and throws it into another one with a yell. Both splinter into flinters of wood at the sheer force, and Falcon-

He sinks down onto the ground, pulling at his own hair. Why is he the way he is? Why couldn't he have just told Raven he didn't want to talk about it? Why the fuck did Crow- did everyone have to push the issue?

He hates everyone. He's a monster. He's a failure. What would mom think?

Mom's fucking dead, thanks the very guy that made him into the monster he is today.

And yet, here he is, forced to deal with all this bullshit instead of doing something about that. God. Fuck.

He's so caught up in his own emotions that he doesn't notice the presence approaching the classroom he's in.

[vessel_ken_amada]

By the time Ken's reached Falcon's location, his mood has dramatically shifted, the emotions he had been simmering in having crystallized and let place to something else. His mind is both extremely focused and floating, disconnected. But no matter how his mental state had shifted, his original goal remained clear: do something to protect Raven when those who were supposed to do it clearly were doing a poor job.

After searching the high school, he finally finds the classroom where Falcon has been hiding. He doesn't seem to have noticed him, which is not very conducing to a conversation. So Ken announces his presence.

"Falcon-san," he says, in an almost monotonous voice. If Falcon takes a look at him, he can see that Ken is disheveled, has clothes a little messed up, is shaking slightly, and already feels somewhat like death.

[gorobo]

Falcon startles, just a little, when he's called out, head twisting to look at the intruder. What now- who now-?

Oh, it's...

"You're... Raven's friend," he says, somewhat warily, "Amada-kun."

The kid who clearly had no control over his Persona, back then. Who still bears the scars of it today, clearly. Anger at Crow for letting a kid like that join surges, before his sensors ping something weird.

Amada... feels weird. Like death, actually, and Falcon doesn't know what to make of it.

"Why are you here?" he asks, pushing himself up fully, making at least an attempt to look composed. "Look- I know I messed up. If you're here to hear it from the horse's mouth, there you have it. I shouldn't have taken my frustrations with Crow out on Raven."

Were he in a better state emotionally, he might've noticed just how disheveled Amada looks. As it stands, all he can interpret it as is anger on his friend's behalf.

[vessel_ken_amada]

"You hurt Raven." It's not a question, it's a statement of fact.

But then the anger finally surfaces again, and the monotone is replaced by restrained rage.

"You hurt Raven again. You saw the scars you left the last times and chose to hit right back at them. Do you want him to break? Is that it?"

[gorobo]

"I did." He withers, guilt cropping up his throat. Fuck, he fucked up so bad. "I know. I know. Do you have to come rub it in?"

Instinctive anger wells up in retaliation to Amada's own- who does this kid think he is? Why the hell does he think he can just talk to Falcon this way? His own eyes narrow, but-

Focus. Focus. He's upset you hurt his friend. He's just a kid, he doesn't know what else to do. Crow told him he'd come, he doesn't know why he's even surprised.

Fucking Crow.

"I don't-" he says, struggling to find the right words. "Of course not. I didn't mean to hurt him, but I still did. Listen- I'm sure you mean well, but he doesn't need you to fight his battles for him, least of all with me."

The silence of his phone has been deafening, to say the least.

"Go home."

[vessel_ken_amada]

"I'm not here to seek revenge or fight a battle. What's done is done. But I thought after last time everyone would be careful. Clearly I was wrong. How to ensure you won't do it again?"

[gorobo]

Falcon stares at Amada, weary.

"I don't know."

... But, he does know, doesn't he? By the very nature of his existence...

Haha. Hahaha.

Fuck.

[vessel_ken_amada]

"I'm not..."

He's destabilized by that answer, and is silenced for a few seconds, lacking words.

"That's not something I can work with, and you know that."

[gorobo]

"Yes," he says, voice tight. "I don't know what you want me to say."

He does, he does. But he won't. Can't.

[vessel_ken_amada]

Falcon's answer provokes dead silence. It seems to stretch for an eternity, but it only lasts a few seconds. Ken clenches his fists.

"I see," he finally says in a low, menacing voice. "So that's the kind of person you really are. You keep messing up and messing up and you're not even trying to do better. Instead you just lash out and blame others. Even when they help you, even when they save you, they are to blame. Seriously, it's been months, and you don't even have an ounce of gratitude for the people who rescued you from eternal servitude under Shido?"

[gorobo]

And that- that has Falcon fuming.

"Don't you dare speak of that shit as if you know what it's like," he hisses. "Do you think I wanted to be brainwashed while fully aware it was happening?"

Shit, no- he needs to calm down, but this- how fucking dare he speak like that?

"Of course I'm glad to not be under Shido's thumb anymore," he tries to say calmly, but it comes out strained. "Need I remind you that all the times I hurt Raven before, it was because of his bug in my brain? You act like I'm doing this on purpose, or that I should be grateful that even more people rummaged through my brain."

Fuck, this is escalating, he needs to stop this- now.

"As I said before- go home. Go comfort Raven- I don't know, he doesn't want to hear from me, clearly, so just-" he makes a disturbing mechanical noise, "-go home."

[vessel_ken_amada]

"What you did to Raven when under control was not your fault," he agrees, dangerously getting closer to a monotone again. "But you were aware of it. And you are not even trying to help heal him properly. What you just did was just the opposite: you set him back for a while. You're not willing to get better. I am not going to just sit back and watch."

His facial expression is also getting dangerously drained of emotion.

"And of course you don't have to like people going through your brain. But they saved you, and you keep acting like they did a bad thing. What should they have done then? Let an agent of Shido run wild? Kill you?"

[gorobo]

Anger flows through his wires at Amada's words, but-

"..."

He doesn't even try to defend himself. What's the point? He didn't fucking mean to- he's been trying so, so hard not to make this shit a problem for anyone, but Amada's not going to want to hear it.

But hah. In a sense, isn't he right?

God, Falcon's such a piece of shit.

"Of course not," he hisses, "but that doesn't mean that was the right way either. I don't know what they should've done." His fists clench and unclench. "Maybe they should have! I don't know, but not- that."

Not what he meant to say. Fuck.

"Amada- I mean it. Leave," he says, "you don't look good."

[vessel_ken_amada]

"You'd rather have died than have been saved like this? Is that what you are saying?"

[gorobo]

"What? No- of course I- stop calling it 'being saved'." He narrows his eyes. "That wasn't being saved. That was being tortured."

[vessel_ken_amada]

"You were supposed to be asleep. It's not anyone's fault you had defenses and were forced to live through it. And you forget that you were getting dangerous. You had almost attacked Raven. People had to work fast. There was no time to find a better plan. No one had done this before. But they chose to risk everything and give you back your life rather than kill you. And now you're complaining because they didn't free you the 'right' way."

He looks at Falcon's eyes intently.

"Listen. Either they were right in making that choice and you should be grateful to have your life back. Or they were wrong and you should have died back then. Which is it?"

[gorobo]

He's trying so, so hard not to snap again. How dare Amada talk like that when he doesn't even know what it's like? It's such an unfair fucking question. How the hell is he expected to answer?

"Amada," he says coldly, "leave."

[vessel_ken_amada]

He laughs. It's a ...weird laugh. Not the laugh of someone who is in their right mind.

"I see. You can't even answer that, huh? What am I even supposed to do, then?"

He pauses a little.

"All right. Let's do this. You are making everyone miserable, and blaming them for it. You keep hurting my friends without trying to get better. Change, or answer to me."

He then teleports out of here.

[gorobo]

"Amada, I don't want-"

But he's gone. Just like that. There one moment, gone the next. Falcon doesn't even sense him on his radars anymore.

What the fuck?

Something is... clearly wrong with that kid, and it's not even his fault this time. Or is it? Fuck if he knows.

Completely baffled, with the remains of fury lingering, he grabs a chair and sits down, head in hands. Well. At least Amada finally fucking listened to him and left before he could hurt the guy unintentionally.

God, what is wrong with him?

He sits there like that for a good minute, before his phone pings, and-

Oh. It's... Raven.