[Name after name, he flicks through listlessly. Apathetically. They're new names, to be sure, and their responses will be potentially valuable for the difficulties ahead... But he doesn't really care about them. Why should he? Even Ciro hadn't been concerned about them, he thinks, not really. He had thought he should be concerned, because that's how it was to be accepted, and so he had acted accordingly, but.... He couldn't really care for people he hadn't known.]
[Chikusa has even less reason to do so.]
[So he goes through them only out of a sense of duty, because it's his only idea of what to do, and he flicks dully down to the next name- ]
[Mukuro Rokudo]
[His heart stops in his throat.]
[Time doesn't stop, not like it has in the past, but it feel as though it has even though he's in a room full of people. That name- it's the one name he's been aching to hear, to read. For weeks, now, his psyche has been in a state of disarray with Ciro and Chikusa too close for comfort, and he's been dizzy trying to make sense of what he wants and who he is. The entire time, however, Chikusa has known this: seeing that name would make it all clear again.]
[And it does.]
[He has to turn away from everyone else, retreat into the hallway and then Ciro's bedroom as his breath quickens and his eyes hastily skim through the answers. It's right, it's all correct, even the silly part about illusionary clothing, and then he reads- ]
[His body isn't his own again. Somehow, his mind has detached completely and utterly, and he barely notices the way tears well up in his eyes. In all of Chikusa Kakimoto's memories, from that name and to all the aliases before, he's never once heard their leader show any value to them. All people were tools, and, for all that they had never been replaced, that included the two that had been with him the longest. Again and again, him and Ken had been told that, and they had accepted it just to stay by his side. If anyone was worth being a simple tool for, then it had been Mukuro.]
[There are people I care about more than myself. He takes a sharp breath, tasting salt distantly on his tongue. I'd take their place in hell in a heartbeat. In the back of his mind, that very first memory resurfaces again, being told they would hold him back and yet knowing- ]
[It's a miracle he can see at all past the tears gathered in his eyes, and doubly so that his fingers manage out any sort of response.]
I'm glad.
[Logically, he knows he can't say anymore than that, won't be allowed when the timer reaches zero, but....]
[He's glad. Head bowed, swallowing back tears, he couldn't be more glad for anything else, save perhaps one other person.]
Chikusa Kakimoto ☸ Astaroth
[Chikusa has even less reason to do so.]
[So he goes through them only out of a sense of duty, because it's his only idea of what to do, and he flicks dully down to the next name- ]
[Mukuro Rokudo]
[His heart stops in his throat.]
[Time doesn't stop, not like it has in the past, but it feel as though it has even though he's in a room full of people. That name- it's the one name he's been aching to hear, to read. For weeks, now, his psyche has been in a state of disarray with Ciro and Chikusa too close for comfort, and he's been dizzy trying to make sense of what he wants and who he is. The entire time, however, Chikusa has known this: seeing that name would make it all clear again.]
[And it does.]
[He has to turn away from everyone else, retreat into the hallway and then Ciro's bedroom as his breath quickens and his eyes hastily skim through the answers. It's right, it's all correct, even the silly part about illusionary clothing, and then he reads- ]
[His body isn't his own again. Somehow, his mind has detached completely and utterly, and he barely notices the way tears well up in his eyes. In all of Chikusa Kakimoto's memories, from that name and to all the aliases before, he's never once heard their leader show any value to them. All people were tools, and, for all that they had never been replaced, that included the two that had been with him the longest. Again and again, him and Ken had been told that, and they had accepted it just to stay by his side. If anyone was worth being a simple tool for, then it had been Mukuro.]
[There are people I care about more than myself. He takes a sharp breath, tasting salt distantly on his tongue. I'd take their place in hell in a heartbeat. In the back of his mind, that very first memory resurfaces again, being told they would hold him back and yet knowing- ]
[It's a miracle he can see at all past the tears gathered in his eyes, and doubly so that his fingers manage out any sort of response.]
I'm glad.
[Logically, he knows he can't say anymore than that, won't be allowed when the timer reaches zero, but....]
[He's glad. Head bowed, swallowing back tears, he couldn't be more glad for anything else, save perhaps one other person.]