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[Endgame: rise or DROWN]
[How long have you been exploring Nessa's palace now? You've met her family, viewed her memories, learned how to fight as a witch and tried to find the source of her power and the Treasure of her palace: the Voidheart. And along the way, you've tired your best, with mixed success, to avoid the incarnation of her eldest cousin and the representation of her trauma and fear, the Nightmare of Esmau.]
[Wherever you are in the Palace right now, you feel the ground briefly shake under your feet. Little shakes here and there haven't been out of the ordinary - Esmau is trying to blow the place down to the studs, after all. But that felt different. That felt....worse.]
[Your phone beeps as you receive a message.]
[Wherever you are in the Palace right now, you feel the ground briefly shake under your feet. Little shakes here and there haven't been out of the ordinary - Esmau is trying to blow the place down to the studs, after all. But that felt different. That felt....worse.]
[Your phone beeps as you receive a message.]
[You have risen]
...
[Shadow Nessa is with Zarya in a corner of the temple. Zarya is hunched over in a sitting position. In the strix's lap is...
Nessa. The teenaged version of her. She's...not moving.
The Voidheart has returned to Shadow Nessa - it's embedded in her chest once more. The effects of the Voidheart being returned to her have already started to repair the palace. The Dark Forest is returning to normal and the sky is gradually started to undarken. She almost seems unaware that after all of this, she's finally reclaimed it. She's just staring down at the younger Nessa.]
Why...
...why did she get involved?
She had to know...there was no way she would survive.
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[Tsumugi is making extra sure she can keep in character by holding her hand over her face to hide any potential sadness from leaking through.
...but it's hard. So hard.]
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Tsumugi.
You may hate it. But you understand "hope", right?
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[okay, she'll finally take off the cosplay.]
I don't hate hope at all. Hope makes great stories-- that was the entire point of the killing game. Setting up hope to win. Giving people the happy ending.
[a soft sigh]
Though, I guess I can see how you'd get plain confused when I cosplay a character like Junko Enoshima so easily...
/2
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...
Why did she try to fight Esmau?
Was it "hope" that made her do it?
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They're both fictional characters, Nessa. ...My cosplay is just me. It's just a fun little thing I do for entertainment. For myself and others. --Sure, I do things the characters do and role play it out, but that's just how I personally approach the hobby.
Maybe Junko fighting so hard against Esmau wasn't one-hundred percent faithful to the source material in how she'd handle that situation. Maybe I had to bend the interpretation of Junko's characterization and motivation... but... it's fine.
Esmau pissed me off.
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[. . . is this what Shadow Nessa meant. . .]
[Akira is crouched on the ground next to Minato, holding the other wild card's hand in his own. but he looks up. . . at Shadow Nessa, and at the younger Nessa bundled in the Shadow's lap, still and unmoving]
. . .
No. . . I don't think. . . that's quite right.
[said quietly]
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What do you mean?
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She survived. Through you.
You were her once, weren't you? You may be older, and different, but. . . you are what she became.
You're what she grew into, as she learned and experienced and fought and achieved and became a better person.
. . . right?
[he isn't sure if he's getting the symbolism correct, but. . . it's what he likes to think]
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As a teenager, Nessa was alone. Caesar left because... [She sighs and waves a hand.] That's a whole other story. She didn't have friends, at least not any humans friends. She didn't know any other witches, either.
In this prison...she made all of these bonds.
...
...
Bonds with people she was willing to die for.
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Are her bonds not your bonds, too?
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But eventually... he does. ]
... Even when we came here to save her... Nessa still ended up saving us.
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Esmau would've used the Voidheart to kill all of us, without a doubt, if she hadn't interfered. Even Zarya wouldn't have been able to do anything if Nessa hadn't created an opening.
[Not "the fake" or "moppet". Nessa.]
...she's never been able to stand up to Esmau once in her life.
She had to have known that doing so would mean Esmau would kill her.
...why did she do it?
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[ Minato just tilts his head slowly at that, blinking. ]
... She's the only one who could say that for sure. But... I don't think it's a surprise.
Nessa's always been one of the bravest people I've met here.
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...
...
She stood up to the person she fears more than anybody.
[She half-glances at Minato.]
Because of you.
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His shoulders slump, and his head dips. ]
She saved us. ... She saved all of us. I really... really owe her so much.
[ for so many reasons and so many things. ]
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Re: [You have risen]
everyone.
she jolts from reverie and spins on her hands and knees. Tsumugi—alive. Minato—?! hurt, but... alive. Akira, alive too. they're shapes in the room to her, more than they are people, just shapes she's counting to make sure everything's as it should be.
her gaze swings around, then, to that far end of the room. three shapes. that's all she sees at first: three shapes.
but the details start filling in after a moment. ]
N... Nnno. [ guttural, haggard. she staggers up and forward, wobbles, staggers up again, moves forward, none of it conscious, all of it instinct.
there's a body, and it isn't moving.
she staggers, wobbles, moves forward. at the end, she stumbles and pulls herself the last few feet on her palms, and sorry to Zarya and Shadow Nessa, but she barely even acknowledges them, for now. ] Lapochka.
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Zarya looks at Sprezzatura.]
...
...
I'm sorry, Sprezzatura Vaux.
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Sprezzatura Vaux. The only person here who never knew Nessa before she became a teenager.]
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in the next breath, she's weeping. ]
Nnnno. Oh, lapochka, no, no...
[ she doesn't just hold a hand to her mouth—she falls down over her like a cage, like a cradle, nestling the girl's body between Zarya's lap and her own, sobbing like she'll join her in her rest. is it terrible and selfish of her? of course. Sprezzatura Vaux is a terrible and selfish woman.
but this grief is very sincere. the Nessa she knew was doomed from the beginning; this was always going to be how it finished, you see. like burned books. like waking from a dream. ]
/3
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And she pulls her off of Nessa and pushes her aside.]
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[And Shadow Nessa plunges her hand into her own chest.]
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