warped.

[Touko Fukawa]

She hate, hate, hated the fact this wasn't even the FIRST time she was waking up somewhere she didn't remember falling asleep whatsoever.

Today.

Not that this wasn't an ongoing problem with her. But the fact was, usually when she passed out, it meant waking up somewhere normal, albeit covered in blood. Unfortunately, neither of those two things were true with this one, even though she came to on her feet already. She was disoriented, lost, and surrounded by a world painted in white- nothing but plain white as far as the eye could see. ...Well, almost as far as the eye could see.

Behind her there was some kind of tower, though also devoid of color- and there was certainly no... entrance to it. It was clearly a landmark as opposed to a building meant for occupation. Beyond that, and some similarly white brickwork at her feet, it seemed like the only thing for miles were the silhouettes of people in the distance. That, and so far it was almost at the edge of her vision, some dots on the horizon- though she was unsure if they were truly that far away, or simply tiny specks, given how easy it was to lose your bearings in a world with so few distinguishing features.

And, after standing in place for a couple minutes, something dawned on her.

"I... Am not w-walking... All that way."

Unfortunately, though she told herself this, and looked around fervently once or twice more, nothing changed. Nothing magically appeared, as it should have if this were some kind of dream. Why did this have to happen to HER of all people? Well, maybe she knew that answer, but at the same time, she didn't have to like it. She groaned with rage, and went ahead and slammed her forehead into the Fountain of Infinity. Twice, for good measure. But, eventually, she turned a random direction, pulled herself more upright, and took a couple steps away from the fountain.

"...Shit."

It looked like she was, in fact, walking all that way.

Just posting this to say... I did it, I posted on this account,

Making my own open thread because I would feel bad FORCING someone to interact with a bloodthirsty maniac. Or the most annoying high school girl in the world. Really either side of her is bad.

Oh, and also, Touko doesn't know anything about anything. Genocider got the intro, and the two don't share memories.

[Leonardo Watch]

After so many boring days wasted doing nothing, Leo had finally found a job suited for him. While his other friends were adamant at the idea of him working, with the excuse that a prime such as himself shouldn't "steal" the jobs for the normal people (AKA secondaries), this one specifically called for someone like him. The task was simple: go to the Pale Moors, exchange the card his boss gave to him for some package, and go back to Coruscant. They did mention the posibility of dangers and the like, but that was to be expected for a mission exclusive to primes. At least it was better than offering himself as a mercenary; the most common job for people like him. And besides, with all the boredom he had been dealing with lately, caring about danger or participating in shady activities was beyond him.

And there he was, the Nexus. It was as white and as boring as he remembered. Not even worth taking a photo. Without any complications, he summoned his scooter from back home, putted on his googles, and proceeded to cross the void landscape. It was much faster than walking; he should have done that the first time, had he knew summoning objects from thin air like some sort of videogame was posible.

From all the white surrounding him, the water fountain resalted as the only visible structure in miles. But by observing it closely, he noticed that a tower was taking its place. And by observing even more closely, a person could be seen near the fountain-turned-tower: a teenage girl, given her clothes. She didn't seem to be going to somewhere in specific, by walking, then stopping, then changing directions, and then stopping again.

It sucks to be lost.

Once Leo reached the tower and the girl, he stoped, although with the scooter's motor still roaring. "Excuse me, but do you need any help? Are you waiting for something?"

[Touko Fukawa]

It wasn't like Fukawa hadn't seen the scooter coming.

What did she look, blind? Well, given the glasses, maybe she was closer to that than she'd care to admit. Still, she had ears, at least- she had heard it coming a mile away. She had just... chosen to ignore it. For all she knew this accursed demiplane was some representation of her shattered psyche anyway, and she was simply dreaming- though she'd never had a dream quite this lucid before. Hell, it was debatable she was even this lucid most of her awake life.

And yet she jumped a little bit when the young man- though he wasn't too much older than her- called out to her. 'Those who have guilty consciences startle easier,' her mind mocked. But she shook her head, snapping out of it for just a moment. She needed to pay at least some attention to strangers who walked- or scootered- up to her and asked questions... No matter how little she wanted to talk to anyone right now. Hence, she turned towards the one on the scooter, a big scowl on her face.

"I'm... lost! O-of course I'm lost! There's... N-no way to not be, is there?!" She was growling under her breath, inches away from cursing, by the looks of it. Wow, Touko. You sure are a pleasant person to be around and very welcoming to newcomers who want to talk to you. "There aren't any... Landmarks... O-or really, anything, besides that." She pointed, almost accusingly, towards the Fountain-tower.

Granted, Touko was not thinking things through in an attempt to potentially get on this young man's good side and take his scooter. She was thinking things through as a scared and confused teenager with cavalcade of half a dozen or more mental issues dropped into a seemingly endless void. So maybe it was to be expected that she was not so initially friendly. ...Not that the person who had approached her had any way of knowing that.

[Leonardo Watch]

A faint smile appeared on Leo's face, almost imperceptible. Lost, ugh? Of course she was! While he didn't want to assume anything before asking, there was no way that girl couldn't use the help of someone who already passed the terrible experience of walking up in a white void without knowing what the fuck was going on, and what to do next.

Time to be the big brother, if that was something he knew how to do at all...

"Well, there are other landmarks beside this... thing", he looked at the tower, and then back to her. "If you walk towards the horizon, you'll find some big gates that are actually portals, and lead to where the people are"

Was that informative enough? Too preachy? In any case, that would've been useful for him when he was lost.

"Anyways, I'm heading towards one of the portals. You can... come with me if you want", he pointed at the backseat of the scooter. "They're quite far from here"

Now, he payed a little more attention to the girl. She seemed younger than him, even younger than Michella. That skirt and hair were... kind of cute, actually, and so was the stuttering.

Poor girl.

Fun fact! Leo is actually 19. He also has his eyes always closed unless stated otherwise, a detail I'll add (someday) to the profile

[Touko Fukawa]

...Portals?

"...P-portals."

Her statement seemed less disbelieving and more... spoken as if she were staring an escaped mental patient square in the face. However hypocritical that thought was. Of course, maybe he was just... calling them that. Because as far as Fukawa was aware, mystical portals to other dimensions DEFINITELY didn't exist. This was the real world. Or... Well, maybe the dream world. Still, how cliche would that be, to just have portals out of nowhere?

Unfortunately, she had no choice but to just... believe this guy. It was clear to her that she was going nowhere if she didn't, though how far she would get with him was also, well, debatable. She could picture him pushing her off of that scooter five hundred meters down the line quite easily. Honestly given how this dream- it had to be, right?- was going thus far, she was almost certain of that fact.

She hadn't been pushed from a moving vehicle in quite a while. Was that going to be another fun new trauma to add to her list today?

Eventually she snapped out of this, after realizing she had been staring at the back seat of said scooter for the past... fifteen to twenty seconds. In complete silence, as she was wont to do. Groaning as she pulled at her own hair again, she took a step or two forward. She didn't have a choice, she told herself. If this was a novel, the plot wasn't going to advance with her just standing here on her own. Even if she didn't want to, she'd just have to bear it. Whatever it was in the distance, portal or not, she wasn't going to stand here forever.

"F-fine." She mumbled at last, walking right up to the scooter. Though, she stopped about a foot short. "B-but! You'd better n-not... Try anything...!" Again, she was staring at the poor young man accusingly, as if she really was that suspicious of him. "I-I'm... saving myself! For... M-marriage!"

Good luck with that one, Touko.

[Leonardo Watch]

Was it too weird to ask her to just jump into his seat and come with him? The longer she stood there in silence, the more true that statement became. Goddamnit, of course it was! He just came from nowhere, on a place where there's nobody, and stopped just in front of a lost girl to ask her to jump into his bike and go who knows where. In fact, even he didn't know exactly where he was going, save for the weird instructions on his phone.

But anyways, Leo didn't want to push the girl to do something she didn't want to.

And just like that, she agreeded. What? No questions? Didn't she want to know what was going on? That's why he stopped on the first place!

... He did turn red at her accusation though. "No no no, o-of course not! How could I? Th-that's not... what I meant... !"

Leo stood there, with the girl behind him, and the motor still on, but didn't command the scooter to move. Yes, she had every right to suspect of him. He'd seen so many terrible people; thinking himself to be unlike them didn't meant others thought the same.

"B-before we go, can I ask your name...? I'm Leonardo"

He let out the rest of the bottled air on his lungs in a short sigh.

[Touko Fukawa]

Yeah, by this point Fukawa was beginning to seem much less like "new prime ready to go" and more like "extremely confused and self-loathing secondary some doofus prime abandoned here."

Well, for some intents and purposes, she was- if one considered her and her other self different people. In that sense, she really was just some other girl summoned for the convenience of a prime and left out of the loop. After all, she was obviously just some... average high schooler. Below-average, in several regards, appearance not the least of such. At least, that's all she looked like to the untrained eye. Even those from her own universe likely wouldn't recognize the shut-in author at a glance, given her nature- perhaps her name, more likely the titles of her works, but certainly not her face.

Speaking of which, by the time she'd sat down on the scooter- side-saddle, not wanting to actually... touch this guy- he had somewhat composed himself from her earlier comment. She had been somewhat dreading introducing herself, given- ...she didn't remember. It was as if she was forgetting something horrible, but the lingering presence of it was still giving her anxiety in the present. This was a sense she was all too familiar with, one you could never really shake after your first time waking up to having murdered someone- but it still wasn't pleasant.

"...I d-don't... Expect you to remember it, but..." Again, she paused a moment, to swallow her doubts from seconds before. "I-it's... Touko Fukawa." She didn't expect him to recognize it- he certainly wasn't at all the type to read her novels. Or even read at all, given he was a young man- most of them didn't. "...Heheh... A-a disgusting name for a d-disgusting person, like me... I bet y-you think it's perfect..." Though she seemed to be addressing him, it was pretty clear she was talking more to herself than anything. Especially given she was staring into space while doing it.

Eventually though, she sat up a little straighter, some of her self hatred temporarily lending itself to being general displeasure. "W-well? Go. The... the sooner we get out of here, the better."

Ah, beautiful. How her fear of the unknown had just temporarily overrode her crippling self doubt and social anxiety.

[Leonardo Watch]

After a short silence, Leo commanded the bike to move. Unlike on his first trip from the Coruscant gate, he kept the speed rather slow (around 50mph) as he didn't want the girl to lose balance, given her weird position. On the other hand, it kinda felt like carrying a princess, with her long skirt and hair flowing in the wind, if it wasn't because...

...This girl – Touko – was... A little weird. He wanted to save his judgement until she had the chance to present herself, but that last comment was disturbing. No way around that.

Sometime after they started moving, Leo said "Why would I think you or your name is disgusting?" And without giving her time to answer, he proceeded "I think your name is pretty, and kinda reminds me of a friend I had back home. She had a japanese name too"

...

... ... ...

Why the fuck would he say that?! Is that all he could think of? So stupid! What had she and Ms.Chain in common besides the japanese last name?! And isn't saying something like that racist? Fuck. He really hoped he didn't offend her. She was nervous enough already; no need to throw more logs to the fire.

Leo shrugged his shoulders, and would have facepalmed himself if he wasn't driving. Thank goodness she couldn't see his face right now.

[Touko Fukawa]

That was not slow enough for Fukawa. In fact that was blazingly fast, at least for this side of her. But she didn't want to say anything about it- instead just digging her fingernails into the seat cover and closing her eyes. Maybe if she just stopped thinking about it for a while, she would forget. ...Doubtful, but even she could try to be optimistic sometimes.

And his comment? Well, it didn't do much to change her mood. Though by now he probably expected that. "Hmph... Th-that just means... There's a whole country's worth of people... w-with better names than mine, right?" She sounded like she was trying to convince herself of this, too. Even though she knew that wasn't what he said or meant, she would just delude herself into thinking it anyway.

Man, she was the troublesome type. "A little weird" hardly began to cover it.

Sorry, Leo. But if it makes you feel any better, just about anything you could have possibly said would have resulted in the same answer, or at least something so close it may as well have been. Well, the good thing was that Touko had not yet decided to jump off of the moving vehicle instead of talk to you, so that was a plus, right? (That was not a joke. She absolutely would do that, even though she didn't know she was immortal now.)

At the speed they were going, it would still take a while to reach the gate to the Moors. Normally Fukawa would not have minded sitting there in awkward silence the whole way. But the circumstances were far from... Normal, at the moment. So, instead, she chewed at her thumbnail as she continued to try forgetting the speed she was going at. "Wh-where are we, anyway...? As in... right now." Honestly she didn't seem like she was expecting an answer to that question, assuming he would either ignore her or not know himself.

[Leonardo Watch]

Leo decided to ignore her comment. As much as he'd like to help her, this was definetely not the place to do it. And he probably wasn't the right person for it either. Maybe Klaus was better suited; he sure helped him on his lowest. But this girl was not "low", but more like rock bottom, maybe even lower. Goddamnit, this really sucked.

On the other hand, her quesion brought a short smile on his face. Finally, the real questions! That was something he could help her with!

"This place right here is called the Nexus", he said, louder than usual. "It's really big and has nothing on it, so it'll take a while to reach the border. Where we're going, instead..."

Instead... What? From what he heard, the Moors was a hellish place akin to the Beyond, but without the physics defying landscapes. There were monsters lurking everywhere, and where he had to retrieve the package was a particularly infested place, hence the prime-exclusive job. This didn't look like the kind of trip he'll bring a scared girl into. But she was a prime, right? Could she defend herself? Could he defend her? It'll really suck if something happened to her because of him. Like, really, absolutely, the I-don't-want-that-to-ever-happen kind of suck.

He was such an idiot.

Leo stopped the bike. "Look, I'm really sorry, but... We're heading to a really dangerous place. I know should have said this ealier, but...". Was tunnel vision an acceptable excuse? "If you want, I can take you somewhere safer, perhaps nicer too. I wouldn't mind turning back, although it'll take hours to get out of here..." Even at top speed, the Nexus was so unnecessarly big to cross it in a timely manner.

Way to go, Leonardo.

[Touko Fukawa]

The dictionary definition of Nexus sat there in her mind, being poked and prodded from all angles. It was the... Center, or core of something, connecting things. A pretentious as hell word for it, but that was what it meant. And if what this guy said was true... well, it was a suitable enough name for it. ...Not that knowing the name answered the hundreds of other questions she had.

"Hmph... Wh-what kind of person buys a building this big and doesn't put anything in it?" She opened her eyes again for a moment, just to get a slightly better look around. Clearly some misunderstanding of the situation there, but whatever. "Except... Wh-whatever that was." This time she glanced back towards the Fountain, which seemed to be shifting- making her squint. No, that must have been her imagination. Or maybe she just needed new glasses.

Though by this point her supposed "escort" had changed the topic, seemingly having realized some mistake. Oh, great, danger. Fabulous. Just what she wanted to hear as the next stop for her today after being tossed into a seemingly endless void, white room. That being said, while she didn't enjoy the thought of being taken somewhere dangerous...

She mumbled to herself quietly, though still loud enough to be heard, biting her thumb as she did. "I-it's not like there's anywhere left that's... not dangerous, right?" She did not care to explain herself here, figuring that he should know what she meant. Shouldn't he? Though, when she asked herself why she thought that, she couldn't come up with a real answer either. It was just another looming sense of dread in the back of her mind that she couldn't shake.

God, she hated those. And she especially hated when they were right. Which was more often than not, given that she shared emotions with her other half- she was no stranger to being saddled with feelings she didn't understand or want.

"A-and after all, to you I'm just some... Trash you picked up along the way." She was grumbling again, clearly addressing his question but not looking at him while doing it. Still off in her own little world, as usual. "There's... There's n-no point in going out of your way just for someone like me, right?" Though out of context this sounded like obvious guilt tripping, Fukawa's intonation made it clear she was being serious. Or, at least, that she didn't care enough about their destination to object.

Of course, Fukawa had never been to the Moors. She had no idea what she was getting into. And when she got there... Well. There was a good chance she would be changing her mind.

[Leonardo Watch]

"Maybe you think you're not worth helping, but I like helping people. Even if what you say about yourself is true –which I don't think it is–, it won't change what I'm doing... Or at least trying to do. Don't think too hard about it"

He sure hoped what he said wouldn't make her feel worse. Twisting helping words is so easy when you're having a hard time believing them, it's almost funny. And sad. So very sad.

"As for the Moors... From what I've heard, it's plagued with monsters. But that's not the case on the other worlds. Coruscant, which is where i'm comming from right now, is really pretty and safe..." He even had photos! How couldn't he? It's unbelievable how pretty it is! However... "If  you stick to the upper tiers, of course. The lower ones are also... Plagued with aliens... And monsters" But some of those aliens are really good people! He had many non-human friends, both from his own world and now a few from Coruscant too.

[Touko Fukawa]

If Fukawa could have pulled her knees up into her chest right about now, she would have. Unfortunately there was not enough space on this scooter to do that, especially not sitting like she was. So instead of that, she huffed, anxiously tapping the heel of her foot against the ground as as they sat in place.

"Wh-whatever...!" She pouted as she spoke, still avoiding eye contact. (Not that she could make it with the young man's eyes closed- but she still avoided looking at his face) "That's not going to f-fundamentally change my opinion of my worth as a person." It was true, though he probably didn't want to hear it. One hitchhike to somewhere unpleasant where she whined about her life problems wasn't going to make said problems magically vanish. Even her delusional brain knew that.

The woman breathed in sharply and swallowed, trying to steady herself at least enough to speak normally. "And I know you're only helping me because... because you don't know me well enough to think twice." It was the truth. There was a very limited subset of people who really would help her if they knew everything about her that she knew about herself- and that was not the subset of people she wanted to be interacting with.

Of course she was wary of people who would willingly befriend a murderer- even if that murderer was her.

Finally she glanced back at the man who had been driving. Though of course she didn't want to be somewhere supposedly full of monsters like that, even though she had a doubt they really existed, she couldn't just expect him to turn around and drive hours out of his way for her. "So... j-just dump me wherever it's easiest for you to forget I ever existed." That would be the easiest for both of them. He wouldn't have to feel guilty about helping her, and she wouldn't owe anything in return.

Maybe she deserved to be dumped with the monsters anyway.

[Leonardo Watch]

Well, this was a hard one... Maybe he was thinking too hard about it. Not everyone wants help, and he could accept that. But he still felt somewhat responsible for her. Why, he didn't know, but perhaps the fact that he took the time to stop and get her on a ride played a factor. Perhaps he had too much empathy.

But self doubt woldn't make Leo just turn around and leave aside someone who desperately needed help, regardless of how much she rejected said help. If really she was a new prime, then it's safe to assume she wouldn't have anyone there for her. Not that it was absolutely needed though, given that he himself didn't had a problem adapting to this world, but she sure seemed like the kind of person for whom that may not be true.

Or, maybe, he was thinking too hard about it again. She already made herself clear she didn't want to be with him, and that she didn't want his help, so why put this much effort into it? Was he pushing his own feelings too much on her? Probably.

Anyways...

"Well, if that's what you want so badly, then I'll take us to the Moors without any more distractions"

His mouth felt dry. This wasn't a good idea. None of this was a good idea. Why did he took that stupid job? He could keep rotting in peace on his low-class apartment, instead of trying to be something he wasn't. Wasting his life didn't sound so bad when he was about to recreate his worst mistake.

He swallowed nothing, and put the scooter back on track. This time he didn't bother to care about speed. Leaving aside everything, the fact that his bike could get to 80mph was beyond awesome. A dry awesomeness that had no effect on Leo.

unless you want to do something extra, i think we could move to the Pale Moors now