Note: please be as cryptic as possible regarding any specific actions your character takes when discussing them in the game channel to avoid influencing everyone else!
. . . I was chosen as a hostage during my first game. I think no one on your unit was present, but it was a bad game, and Yasuragi made the decision to sacrifice Cardigan to save me, even though there was a chance that both of us could have been saved. It was a timed decision.
Needless to say, I wasn't happy to be the reason someone died, or to have been considered so weak that I needed to be protected to that extent, but also... I was new, and I didn't expect anyone to care. I was a stranger to him, and to everyone else, yet Yasuragi did something that put his own life in danger for my sake.
From early on, being on a unit felt like something meaningful to me. I'd thought I had nothing, but I was on Taisho, and that meant I, too, had something to protect and fight for.
I'm not sure, they just started doing that one day. I thought I should take care of them at first, but then some of the colors started taking over the trunk, so I cut them and things went back to normal... or so I thought. Soon there were no red branches anymore, just colored ones, and it became harder to take breaks.
Some of the colored branches didn't cause any sort of trouble at first. The blue ones were one of those, so it was fine to leave them there.
Your unit's color only started to spread recently, and that's my fault. So I don't think anything will change if I cut them. Nothing I tried to do made a difference anyway beyond staining the trunk, so I just need to go back to the way things were before.
We're not. That's one of the reasons why the branches in other colors are always taking over the trunk. Maki was so mad that the branches weren't all in her favorite colors that she even left our unit.
[Draws his knees up, uncomfortable and a little embarrassed.]
It kinda sounds like the colors represent Taisho's connections to people on other units, and by cutting them off, you're trying to protect Taisho's unity. Because theoretically, Taisho won't be able to argue about who they care about if they don't care about anyone at all. By saying it was your fault that the colors started to bleed, it implies that you cared about someone, and that caused friction ...enough that you're worried it could cause monochromatosis somewhere down the line. And the only way to protect yourself, or Taisho, from that is to stop caring about them completely.
It's fine... You didn't know the original tree, or what it meant to me, so there's things that are bound to be hard to understand.
[he stands up]
The Gigas Cedar is a demon tree. It's not made of love, or care. It existed as a roadblock, and even now, it's keeping me from resting in peace. My Calling was to cut the original tree, but it was impossible to do in one life-span. So I was expected to live out my life alone, just like old man Garitta, who was before me, and all the others who went before him...
[he shakes his head at himself, throwing a few more branches into the fire]
The thing is, even if it's what's keeping everyone in this place alive now, it's still this tree, you know? I chose to look after it to atone and prove it to myself that I'm still human, but I can't do that and leave all the branches in all the colors at the same time. We can't both have what we want. So in a way, we're fighting a battle. The tree doesn't care about anything except survival, and it will absorb any colors it can, because... it's hungry, and that's the only thing it knows how to do.
Meanwhile, I...
[he trails off]
Well, it doesn't matter. Nothing will change between me and your unit no matter what happens here. Not with the way things currently are, so you don't have anything to worry about.
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Ah... I didn't stay at the festival because I suspected you might be around here and I wanted to check on you.
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[takes it]
Thanks.
[for both things, probably? he's not specifying]
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[chilling out a bit by the fire]
How long have you been out here?
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How long? Hmm... Since my second game, the one with the poison. My shifts were shorter back then, though.
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Why then, specifically?
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Ah, it's kind of a long story, and it's not very interesting. You're sure you want to hear it?
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. . . I was chosen as a hostage during my first game. I think no one on your unit was present, but it was a bad game, and Yasuragi made the decision to sacrifice Cardigan to save me, even though there was a chance that both of us could have been saved. It was a timed decision.
Needless to say, I wasn't happy to be the reason someone died, or to have been considered so weak that I needed to be protected to that extent, but also... I was new, and I didn't expect anyone to care. I was a stranger to him, and to everyone else, yet Yasuragi did something that put his own life in danger for my sake.
From early on, being on a unit felt like something meaningful to me. I'd thought I had nothing, but I was on Taisho, and that meant I, too, had something to protect and fight for.
That's when I started looking after this tree.
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What did the tree look like back then?
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It was all red, same as the trunk.
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What happens once you cut the branches down? It looks like the pep!pep! ones are next... Is it going to change things between us once they're gone?
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Some of the colored branches didn't cause any sort of trouble at first. The blue ones were one of those, so it was fine to leave them there.
Your unit's color only started to spread recently, and that's my fault. So I don't think anything will change if I cut them. Nothing I tried to do made a difference anyway beyond staining the trunk, so I just need to go back to the way things were before.
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Tell me something, Cobalt. When your unit needs to make hard decisions, during games, for example, how do you go about it?
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We're not. That's one of the reasons why the branches in other colors are always taking over the trunk. Maki was so mad that the branches weren't all in her favorite colors that she even left our unit.
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1/2
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N-No, no, that's not it at all... But I-- I get why it might sound that way...
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It kinda sounds like the colors represent Taisho's connections to people on other units, and by cutting them off, you're trying to protect Taisho's unity. Because theoretically, Taisho won't be able to argue about who they care about if they don't care about anyone at all. By saying it was your fault that the colors started to bleed, it implies that you cared about someone, and that caused friction ...enough that you're worried it could cause monochromatosis somewhere down the line. And the only way to protect yourself, or Taisho, from that is to stop caring about them completely.
I'm sorry if I'm understanding this badly.
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[he stands up]
The Gigas Cedar is a demon tree. It's not made of love, or care. It existed as a roadblock, and even now, it's keeping me from resting in peace. My Calling was to cut the original tree, but it was impossible to do in one life-span. So I was expected to live out my life alone, just like old man Garitta, who was before me, and all the others who went before him...
[he shakes his head at himself, throwing a few more branches into the fire]
The thing is, even if it's what's keeping everyone in this place alive now, it's still this tree, you know? I chose to look after it to atone and prove it to myself that I'm still human, but I can't do that and leave all the branches in all the colors at the same time. We can't both have what we want. So in a way, we're fighting a battle. The tree doesn't care about anything except survival, and it will absorb any colors it can, because... it's hungry, and that's the only thing it knows how to do.
Meanwhile, I...
[he trails off]
Well, it doesn't matter. Nothing will change between me and your unit no matter what happens here. Not with the way things currently are, so you don't have anything to worry about.
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