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Your name is Ryoji Mochizuki, and you are a perfectly ordinary boy.
A perfectly ordinary student at a perfectly ordinary school, sitting on a perfectly ordinary roof staring out into the glittering ocean in the distance.
The perfectly ordinary is fascinating, you think, and you don't understand why more people don't pay attention to it. If you cover one of your eyes with your hand, and continue staring, it’s like the view almost blends into a painting, as if the water is millimeters and not miles away, as if you could reach out and touch it.
You don't even notice that that's exactly what you're doing until your hand is already caught between the bars of the railing, and you're left wondering why they installed such a thing at all, why they wanted another barrier between the school and the sea and the sky..
There's something in you that aches at the reminder that the world is always much larger and much farther away than it seems. You decide that this must be your heart.
It would be nice if you could continue sitting here and staring forever, even nicer if you could just start walking and not stop until you’ve managed to walk all the way around the world and ended up right back here. Sometimes you wanted to see more. Most of the time you wanted to see everything.
But then your eye darts to the watch on your still-outstretched wrist, and you know that you have to get going soon if you don’t want another lecture for being late to class. Oh well. Even class has its own wonders, so you aren’t too sad about it; you would get to see your dear friends, after all
So absorbed are you in these thoughts that you never noticed the stiff pair of eyes watching your every movement.
---
All rivers will lead to you.
Such is death.
---
You have a fuzzy, empty head, you know.
You could tell because thinking about anything other than the current moment made your brain hurt and your head swim. Maybe you just weren't very smart; it would explain your horrible grades, how everyone seem to know things you didn't, how they all took for granted stuff you spent hours mulling over.
Sometimes people ask you about what your parents did, or what it was like to grow up in America, and it's so odd; you search your mind for memories but the only thing there is an overwhelming fog. So you laugh it off and say that it you're much happier now that you can be here with you, no~?
People usually liked you better if you talked like that. You usually liked it if people liked you. It was a win-win situation.
Still, something about the fog unsettled you. But no matter; a gaggle of girls was approaching you and you beamed cheerfully at them. No, it didn't bother you at all.
What did bother you, just a little, was the girl standing at a distance, staring at you intently. Ah, Aigis-san.
If she wasn't by Minako-chan’s side, she was watching you. Maybe she was lonely, you think, if she never spoke to anyone but Minako-chan and she never did anything but confuse the teachers and stare at you from a distance.
Maybe you should say hello!
“Aigis-san!” You call out cheerfully. Her eyes just narrow, and you wonder briefly what exactly it was that you did to upset her so much. Maybe it was just a mysterious feeling, the way you felt drawn to Minako-chan.
Maybe it had something to you with all the fog in your head, but you didn't really like that train of thought, so you stopped it right there.
“Do you want to go somewhere?” you call out instead. But her eyes just narrow.
“You are dangerous.” There's something weird about her speech; there's always been a strange tinny quality to it, like it was coming out of a speaker instead of a throat. But you don't understand how harsh she sounds despite that, how she seems to - to hate you for some unknown crime
At a loss, you continue speaking.
“Huh? Is it because I finally asked you out?” Not actually your first intention, but you realize that that's undeniably how the situation reads now, and you roll with it. Being who you are, you are used to accepting things and moving along. “I didn't mean it that way, though - ” because you should probably explain, “ - but maybe you could tell me why I'm so dangerous?”
The last part comes out a little more hesitantly than you would've liked, because you're Ryoji Mochizuki and you do this all the time, and the girls around you seem to notice, too.
“Don't be so mean to Ryoji-kun!” one girl - Kyoko-chan - scolds. “He didn't do anything to you.”
“He - “ Aigis-san’s words are usually so careful and even, but here she seems to falter. You can relate, because you never know what you are saying. “He is dangerous.”
A different girl, Miki-chan, wrinkles her nose at that.
“Ryoji-kun’s not that bad,” she complains. “He's not a dangerous heartbreaker.” Yet another girl raises her eyebrow.
“Do you have a crush? Are you jealous?”
“You won't woo any boys acting like that!”
They all continue to nag Aigis-san, and you feel sorry for her. This hadn't been your intention at all.
She stares at them all, turns around, and walks away. You think about following her, but…
Oh well. There would always be another day.
---
Forgetting your mortality is the ultimate arrogance.
---
You aren’t sure what compels you to leave your dorm that night. You’ve noticed it for a very long time, how if you stayed up long enough, the world...shifted. Water became blood, electricity was gone, and everyone somehow transformed into coffins.
Trying to think about why this might be made your head hurt the same way it did whenever you tried to think about your past, so you just didn’t. Holing yourself up in your room and going to sleep was always the best solution, to you.
But something is pulling you out of your room, out of the building, out into the city, walking around, trying to avoid the puddles of blood, something drawing you...somewhere.
You finally arrive at the bridge, and you have no idea why you’re here at all, so you just lean against the railing and stare out at the sea. It’s completely different now, the light of the monstrous moon lighting up the bloody waves in a way both pretty and frightening. You love new experiences dearly, but something about this just feels…wrong, yet familiar, and you aren’t sure which is worse.
“I know who you are.”
The sudden voice breaks you out of your thoughts, and you whirl around to face -
“Aigis-san? What are you doing here?” But instead of answering the question, she just squints at you, expression intense.
“You are dangerous.”
It’s nothing unlike anything she’s ever told you before, but here in the hidden hour, with the glint of the ugly, swollen moon, it feels so much more chilling. You kind of want to be sick.
“What do you mean?”
”I know who you are.”
You try to play it off this time, plaster a smile on your face, but your head hurts and you’re panicking just a little bit. Why does this suddenly make you feel so horribly, horribly uncomfortable?
“Huh? I still haven’t even asked you on a date yet - “
“You are Death.”
Hearing those words causes something in your mind to shatter, and you remember. You remember everything.
You didn’t want to remember everything. You didn’t, you didn’t, you didn’t, she’s still talking but all you can do is collapse. You didn’t. You didn’t. You didn’t.
You remember.
Your name is Thanatos, and you are the Appraiser. Ryoji Mochizuki is not and has never been a real person, and you wished you could’ve dissolved without ever having to had learned that truth.
Aigis charges at you and you have no choice but to respond. There are more people coming now, and it’s, it’s, it’s.
Why? Why? Why? Why? Why? Why? Why? Why? Why? Why?
---
All paths have an end.