The Greatest Show

[cuteandinnocentpet]

[The events of the last couple days must be taking its toll on you, Strangers. You did fight a giant snake lady after all and one with Composer powers which is no easy feat if those from the Mall can testify. And yet, there feels to be both a lull and quiet but also something on edge.

The intense feeling can almost be overwhelming.

But with this over your heads, something comes to visit you all. No matter where you are at, a Kyuubey comes to you.]

Oh, there you are! I didn't know if this interests you but that one satellite with the large screen is sending a transmission. [It points and blinks--wait, blinks? towards Cancelled and scampers off. It's hard to tell but some may think this one as the one little rat who made a certain delivery by being rather polite.

If you decide to follow it to Cancelled, the creature will be seated in one of the many seats and looking at the large screen blasting something out...wait a minute, don't those people look familiar?

Take a seat, Strangers. Watch the show...it's supposed to be a real blast.]

Comments

[icanhearscreams]

[He's quiet for a few long moments.]

And it'd bring all of them back?

... Let me think about it.

[byanyother_name]

[Kurama touches Jun's shoulder gently.]

There's more than one way to make a miracle happen. I know that. Akira, Chariot, Karma... All the survivors of my first game showed me that.

[icanhearscreams]

[He jerks at the sudden touch, hand clutching his chest as if he's expecting his heart rate to spike violently.]

... Some of the people in our group made it out alive, but most didn't.

And no one made it out of my first group alive.

If miracles exist, I don't think I've ever been near one.

[touchsensors]

...I have-lun.

[icanhearscreams]

Well good for fucking you.

[But there's less venom in his voice than one would expect with those words. Mostly he just sounds tired.]

[touchsensors]

So it can happen again-lun! If a miracle happened, then another one can happen-lun!

[icanhearscreams]

If miracles can happen, they didn't happen for fourteen versions of Earth in a row. We won by luck and skill and still killed an entire planet each so where was a miracle then?

[touchsensors]

I don't know where a miracle was-lun! [Lala you don't need to shout!] All I know is I have to keep believing there'll be one now-lun!

[icanhearscreams]

Stop yelling! [Jun you're yelling back.] Just believing in something doesn't make it true.

[touchsensors]

[...

Lala goes silent.]

[icanhearscreams]

[... Did he go too far? His shoulders slump a bit.]

They're not a thing where I'm from. And I doubt miracles happen to someone who's double dead.

1/2

[touchsensors]

...lun.

2/2

[touchsensors]

[...and then suddenly Lala perks up.]

But they can still happen to the people who are alive-lun!

[byanyother_name]

People like to talk about miracles as gifts from God, things that come from nowhere. As if people have no agency. But the only miracles I know came because people hoped, and worked, and believed in themselves.

Even when it seemed like everything had failed and they stood no chance.

There was no miracle for fourteen rounds of the Game at the mall. But we ended it. And while I didn't get out alive, that was my choice.

So now, I choose to believe that it can be done again. To believe in all of us, living and dead.

[icanhearscreams]

... I didn't end it. I couldn't end it. If I tried we'd have been destroyed. Zearth's on another world now, I think. Keeping the cycle going and going and going.

I don't know what 'belief' is, really. Knowledge, yeah. Faith? Not so much.

[alwaysgonnatry]

[ She immediately perked up hearing the one name and beamed. ]

Yeah!! Chariot's super strong and she would know how to make miracles happen that wouldn't involve anyone else getting hurt or left behind!

[ So she'd heard about Chariot and Croix being in that game a bit thanks to Akira but it was nice hearing it all the same. ]

[cuteandinnocentpet]

Think...?

Oh! You speak of a contract?

[icanhearscreams]

[He doesn't say anything, just nods slightly.]

[cuteandinnocentpet]

Oh.

[It's quiet for a moment.]

Well, we would be all for this but there seems to be a problem with that: It's not possible here.

[icanhearscreams]

... Why not?

[cuteandinnocentpet]

We're dead here! It is logically impossible because of it.

[icanhearscreams]

Kyuubey, pretty much everything here is logically impossible.

[cuteandinnocentpet]

I know for a fact that you are unable to contract while dead.

Because of energy! Dead people don't carry it otherwise we would have done it a long time ago.