dear_mun | canon is bomberman 64

[ ghhhhh what is sympathy, why do you have it. he already feels bad but he totally expects you to hate him/dislike him/not want him around. it kind of says something about him that sympathy makes him want to book it because ugh!!! ]

Yes.

...Well done.

[ AWKWARD...PROBABLY UNWANTED...COMPLIMENT.... ]

[ALL THE AWKWARD. For his part, though, Bomberman just snorts.]

Not like I had a choice. It was either him or the universe. Kind of a no-brainer there.

[ oh good, we're back on...more familiar ground? yeah let's go with that. ]

Nevertheless. You fought well. [ he kind of wants to kick himself for saying stupid things it's not like he was actually bomberman's mentor for any significant amount of time augh. ]

There is really only one-e option in a choice like that-t in any case.

[yeah man stop creepin' on Bomberman here it's really kind of unnerving!!!! Though it's better than having to fight Sirius.

...on the other hand, at least when they were fighting, they knew where they stood with each other.]

So what's up with the new body, anyway? [TACT IS FOR SISSIES. He's still surprised that Regulus left anything of Sirius' corpse in the Rainbow Palace. It was fortunate for Sirius that Regulus' knight powers were sealed by Mihaele at that time, otherwise...]

[ it's pretty sad that this is the only way he knows how to show some kind of positive emotion for another human being. he's actually not acting like a lying bastard at this point in time, which is weird even to him. HE IS CONFUSING HIMSELF IS WHAT. ]

Hh. A reconstruction-n. 70% mechanic-cal, or so I have been told. [ MAN WHAT IS TACT ANYWAY. he still thinks it's a shitty job because it's basically riding the train to pain town all the time. what's the point of being alive if his body doesn't work properly, that's what he wants to know. ] Shoddy work. I could do better. Hard to, though, when you are missing a large amount of vital organs.

[ once upon a time he actually built the actual rainbow palace structure as his ship and made it work!

but then accidents happened and he became a bitter reclusive asshole instead of just a smug mostly well-adjusted one. OH, YOUNG ADULTHOOD. ]

I can imagine. [Yup, Bomberman's confused too. He's definitely feeling bad for Sirius, even if he's still kind of weirded out by seeing this guy again.] Who reconstructed you, then?

[ protip if you ever let on you're feeling bad for him he will not even know how to deal... ] I. Hn.

[ he doesn't really remember much. bright lights and white rooms and beeping, and everything was a blur. they'd fixed him up and thrown him out, practically. ]

I can't recall. [ frowning, though. ] No matter. It is irrelevant.

[ comparing his present form to the past, it's hard to find association between them besides his looks and the occasional flash of his old self. even his behaviour, his body language, has changed in subtle ways, though he doesn't notice it so much any more.

he's gotten used to pain, how nothing works quite the way he wants it to any more. he shifts his weight gingerly now, cautious and almost frail, and there's no hint of confidence in how he carries himself.

he seems defeated, really. exhausted, at least. ]

[O RLY? welp, guess what Bomberman's about to do, then. Sure, it takes like a minute of tense silence, but.]

...I could try getting a friend of mine to look at that body of yours. [Baelfael Motomiya, the genius behind the BHB Army's artificial singularity. And many other things, but that's the one Bomberman is most familiar with.] If you wanted.

[Honestly, he sort of thinks Sirius deserves his fate. At the same time, though, Bomberman's a hero at heart -- he can't help but feel bad for nearly anyone who's suffering. He has to at least make some token measure of helping this guy out.]

[ ...wow, really... ]

Heh. No need. [ He sounds kind of vaguely amused. ] I consider it p-penance, anyway. And suffer-ring builds character. So I have heard.

You're far too much of a good person. [ is that actual fondness...is it mildly creepy... he kind of shrugs. ] But I suppose that-t is what makes you a hero.

A hero, or a doormat?

[Ooh, is that a tinge of bitterness there? It might be.]

[ yeah we are definitely on familiar ground here ]

It depends on your-r choices. [ he might as well slap a label on himself saying I AM AN AMORAL BASTARD WHO MAKES TERRIBLE DECISIONS with the choices he's made, geez. ] Inexperien-nce or the choices of oth-hers are not things you can help. Necessarily.

[ he would honestly have been surprised if the 16 year old kid he'd met back then had been able to see through him, since everyone he'd ever met couldn't either. HE IS JUST A CYNICAL BASTARD WHO KNOWS HOW TO MANIPULATE PEOPLE, that ain't even a thing. ]

...no. Not really. [And Bomberman knows about this helplessness, far too well. It's not even just about the stuff with the Masked Trio, it's everything in his life up to this point. So many factors out of his control, and he knows that he just has to play it as it lays, but -- it doesn't mean that he's okay with it.] Doesn't make the line any easier to see, sometimes. [Think think thinking out loud.]

It-t is hard to ascertain the righ-ht choices in many situations. You can hard-dly be blamed if you did what you thoug-ght was best.

[ in his experience, life tends to be shitty and throw things at you and you just kind of have to keep weathering it because it doesn't really stop. ]

There will-l always be difficult choices to make, I find-d.

[ look he's...being...reassuring? jfc well the world's turned upside down hasn't it. ]

Tell me something I don't know.

[He almost means that as a challenge, really.]

[ do you want him to bore you with history or something because he sure is considering trolling you.... ]

Literally, or figur-ratively?

I c-can always be boring, if you-u like.

[Having a conversation with someone who used and manipulated you may be fraught with suspicion or numbness, but it's hardly boring.]

...don't suppose you could tell me more about the Omni Cube.

[He'd actually like to know more about things like the real story behind Sirius' family (unless that was something akin to "the truth in the lie"), but. One thing at a time. Something like that strange artifact might be a safer topic to start on.]

[ Point taken. ]

The Cube, hm?

An art-tifact of immense power. Though y-you know that. To use it requir-res a certain mindset. A need or a desir-re for something that consumes you, that you-u want more than anything else-e in the world.

Something-g you would d-do anything for.

[ oh, you don't really want to know about Sirius, it's really depressing and kind of boring in parts tbh and full of him being bitter because of accidents

he doesn't really talk about it to anyone

though the 'lie' he'd told may have had more than a grain of truth to it. ]

Something you'd do anything for, huh...do you know if Sthertoth or one of his cronies created it? [It sounds like something the dark side would do.]

T-the Cube has had many names-s, and many ow-wners. It is impossible-e to tell wh-here it came from origina-ally.

But t-that is certainly a possibility. A-after all, it is s-said to show itself only if no o-other route can b-be taken, if all other a-avenues are exhausted.

[Now that's pretty interesting.]

Guess you must've hit a wall, then.

[ SURE IS...I GUESS.... ]

By t-that point, I would h-have done anything. S-so I suppose you-u could call it that.

[COOL STORY BRO

....]

What happened, then? That you ended up finding the Omni Cube?

[ KNEW THIS WAS COMING

there's a pause. ]

It was. A long-g time ago. It was an accid-dent - nobody-y's fault. I was in the wrong place. Wrong t-time.

I was lucky. That-t was what they said-d. [ whoa bitter suddenly before he goes back to normal. ] My mobility was s-severely compromised. I w-would no longer be able to run. T-that alone would not have bothered me. It would have s-sufficed. I was a technician as w-well as a fighter.

My arms w-were damaged as well - in particular, my hand-ds. I w-was no longer able t-to do delicate work, the type of-f work that was required, that I had been best at.

But I was lucky to be alive, s-so I should be grateful. Even though I was useless. [ guess how much self-loathing he has under the whole I AM AN AMORAL BASTARD thing

yeah a lot ]

[Bomberman can't help but wince, an uncomfortable quirk of the side of his mouth and a slight narrowing of his eyes. That's...

He starts to say something, but for the moment he'll remain silent. He's curious if there's more of the tale to be told. There wasn't time enough, years ago, to learn this sort of thing, but here in this weird world? Here's there's perhaps too much time. It's uncomfortable, but...in doing the work he does, apprehending wrongdoers of all sorts, he needs to be able to understand their stories. Needs to know that there is a story, worth being told no matter how horrible it is.

Because if Bomberman forgets that there are stories, he may very well turn into Jun. Or Shiroyasha.]

[ everyone has a story. it doesn't excuse his actions, he knows, but it plays no small part in his development. he is bitter and broken, useless again through the seemingly beneficial work of others, and he would rather have died.

he was happy, once. but he's never gotten that back. it doesn't excuse his machinations, his manipulations; that self-loathing reminds him clearly of his faults and the terrible things he's done. ]

I s-searched, after my rehabilitation was finished. T-there was nothing left of the t-things I had. [ a bitter twist of his mouth, almost a smile. ] I t-told you I lied, about m-my family, but the only part that was untrue w-was that Altair had d-destroyed it.

It-t was partway d-during my rehabilit-tation. More pr-roof that I was worth nothing, if I w-was unable to save anyone.

S-so I searched. It t-took me years. When I found t-the Cube - or more accurately, it f-found me - I was willing-g to do anything to be useful again.

So it restored m-me, and in e-exchange, I did its w-work. Simple, isn't it?

[Bomberman can understand the feeling of being useless -- being a failure -- born from being unable to save something. But nothing on the scale on what Sirius has just described to him.

The original sob story had been a great sympathy ploy for the more naive Bomberman. It had reinforced his sense of right and wrong, and propelled him forward through the trauma of Artemis and Orion's accidental deaths and (later) through the confrontation with Regulus. In Bomberman's mind then, he'd fucked up, but he could still make things right for Sirius, couldn't he?

Well. He sure did. Just not in the way he'd been expecting.

Thinking back on things now...Bomberman still can't help but feel sympathy for the man. It's a more gentle one, the light of idealism faded with time, but it's there. It doesn't excuse, but it certainly explains. Which is mostly what Bomberman had been looking for in the first place.]

You're talking about the Cube as though it's a sentient thing. Is that why Regulus and the Masked Trio had problems stealing it from you? That, instead of you holding onto the Cube...it held onto you? Or am I overthinking things?

[ it had been a ploy born of desperation, of the artifact's siren song; it had driven him to seek it once more, because Sirius had not been killed. Normally, a bloody brawl would occur, and the victor would become the next 'host' - but that had been a special occasion. ]

It is. P-power for a price; r-receive anything-g you desir-re, and give it your soul.

[ he shakes his head. ] T-that is c-correct. Altair, however, d-did not accomplish his g-goal in the traditional sense. Ordinarily, t-the new owner would find it by chance, the old host hav-ving died - as I did - or t-the old host would be killed in the b-battle for it and it would transfer its energy t-to the new one.

He s-stole it, without killing me, and t-that was his mistake. It is indiscriminate, and l-lives to fulfill its function-n, but it was s-still drawing from me, and also from him.

It desires-s a conflict, a battle of o-ownership. The new host w-would have to prov-ve their worth to be able to utilis-se it fully.

Altair wasn't working with the full power of the Omni Cube, then? [Not that that seemed to mean much. He'd still managed to wreck a fair amount of damage on Sakihara and even a bit of Chenru in the process of his power-tripping with the Cube.]

C-correct. But ev-ven w-with limited ca-apacity, it is s-still a powerful a-artifact, is it not-t? It is m-made for destruction on-nly.

T-though. I feel s-sorry for hi-im. I belie-eve as punis-shment for not c-conducting the transferal of p-power properly, he w-was subjected to nightmare visions. N-not pleasant.

[ oh look, he has empathy. FANCY THAT YOU ARE LEARNING SO MANY NEW THINGS TODAY ]

[Gosh, it's like Bomberman is back in school! Er, wait. He technically still is in school, at the Base. Hrm.]

Well, can't say I'm sorry that the Cube was destroyed. Unless it was, like, a sacred artifact of your world or something. [Like the Fire Stone.]

[ timey wimey bullshit :| DON'T YOU LOVE IT ]

T-the Cube itse-elf is an art-tifact that drive-es its hosts t-to destru-uction - both of oth-hers and their own-n. I d-doubt it would b-be missed by an-nyone.

[it's less timey-wimey bullshit and more "Sora can't figure out or remember what the hell she did with her obscenely detailed worldbuilding"]

Heh, you never know. There are probably some chaos-crazy people out there crying into their cereal about the Cube's demise. [THAT WAS A JOKE, OKAY OKAY]

canon is bomberman 64

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and now I'm getting cheddarbrained, so we shall have to tagspam this again later ;A;

ahhh yes go to bed!! ;w; i really enjoyed playing with you gosh!!

same here! It's so nice to be in Bomberfandom even here 8D

yesss >w< and it's always nice to see familiar faces!

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