[center][color=a187be][h1]Yayama Yama[/h1][/color]
Location: Esaka's Low Tier - Banishing Flats
Status: Losing it
LV: 5, EXP: 10/50
Word Count: 1269 (+3)[/center]

Yayama rolled her eyes in response to Nadia's jab. It seemed innocuous enough, so she paid it little mind. Especially given that it was, in most cases, literally impossible to break up a fight in this World of Light, unless one was willing and able to beat every participant of said fight senseless at once. She'd noticed that people never seemed to quit until there was a clear winner, but it had always just sort of glanced over her mind until now. It wasn't normal, not at all; even though she knew it would have been impossible, her own inability to see that something was deeply, deeply wrong astounded her. It seemed like such a small thing, but it pointed toward the twisted nature of this bizarre mirror world that had replaced everything and everyone she cared for - not to mention Yayama herself - with pale copies.

Right, that happened.

She'd been distracting herself with the events in front of her, but now that there wasn't a clear problem to solve or objective to reach before her, that task had become significantly more difficult. Her thoughts swirled in a gloomy maelstrom, with a few common threads that kept resurfacing. 

Where had they gone wrong? How had they missed this threat? They'd thrown back the Empire until it crumbled, prevented ancient Allagan superweapons from devastating the world, destroyed Ascians and their plots. The Scions and their allies had even defeated the Final Days, something that the godlike entities that had once walked the earth hadn't been able to accomplish. And yet, Galeem had swept it all away, annihilated each and every one of them in one fell swoop. Every trial, every tribulation, every triumph, gone. Each tear shed, each life snuffed out to save another, now meaningless. The peace she'd fought for, bled for, gone to the very edge and fractured her own mind for, vanished like fog under a midsummer sun. 

Then there was Petra. The strongest warrior in Eorzea, possibly the entire world, bar none. They'd both had the curious mixture of a kind heart and a willingness to do anything necessary for victory that made for what people called heroes - when they won, anyway. What did this make them, then? [i]It doesn't matter what anyone else thinks. You know what's justified.[/i] Petra had been powerful, but with her strength came its own sort of weakness, one the foreign heiress had probably been predisposed to the entire time. It was a thing Yayama knew better than anyone, even more than Petra herself. Standing so far above everyone else meant there was nobody around for you to lean on - and a long, long fall when you slipped. 

And now she was gone. There might be some poor copy of her out there somewhere, bereft of the one person that understood her the best, left to bear the weight of the world alone. [i]Someone ought to suffer for wronging us so.[/i] It was twin blades piercing her heart; Petra was both dead and alive to be abandoned in her darkest hour. Not that she would even know. Yayama put her head down on the table for a moment, preferring to hide her face while she tried to rein in her rampant emotions. [i]You don't have to do that. If you're a fake in a fake world, why not let loose a little?[/i]

"Shut up," she snapped, louder than she meant to (especially considering she hadn't meant that to come out of her mouth in the first place.) Yayama - and only she - could see Fray standing a short distance away, arms crossed. It had been a while since they'd spoken directly like this. Right now, the apparition was in the form she'd initially "met" her in: a tall Hyur, face hidden by the dark armor she wore. He? The actual Fray had been a man, but this one was not. "I need some air," Yayama muttered, before heading back outside. There, she made her way into an alleyway nearby, attempting to find some brief solitude. When the lalafell turned around, Fray was there again.

"I thought we were done with this, after the last incident. We finally mended the soul crystal." She crossed her own arms, mirroring the shade's pose. "You're supposed to be gone."

[i]I told you a long time ago that I would always be there if you needed me. And you need me right now. Or, at least, that's what we remember. "We" never did any of that.[/i] 

"Don't do that. Don't keep reminding me, I still don't know what in the hells I'm supposed to make of all this."

[i]You know as well as I do, that's exactly the reason I keep doing it.[/i]

"Well, cut it out." To anyone observing, Yayama was apparently arguing with the air. Had they the right sort of senses to perceive it, they would see her aether roiling, straining like a wild beast fighting chains. "I [i]don't[/i] need you, at least not the way you are now. Where's the one who helped me subdue Myste?"

[i]Dead. But you knew that already.[/i] Yayama suddenly turned and punched the wall behind her, hard enough to crack a small part of the masonry with her gauntleted fist. [i]I'm sure the boy will be around again, soon enough. But right now, it's my time.[/i]

"No. Never again, not like this. We work together or not at all."

[i]You're shouting at the air in an alley. Do you think that's a sign that you're working?[/i] When Yayama looked up again, she saw her own face. [i]You've done enough, haven't you? Bled for strangers that wouldn't so much as piss on you if you were on fire, slaughtered men by the dozen to protect a city that threw you out without so much as a single question. Unless you've somehow forgotten how we met?[/i] Fray leaned closer. [i]You can't take this any more. You deserve to be free of these chains, much like the people you struggled so hard to liberate. Even now, you work to the benefit of total strangers, who've done naught but sneer at you or treat you like an ignorant child since you arrived.[/i] 

"I said [i]shut up![/i]" Her greatsword was in her hands before she knew it, wreathed in darkness and slashing through Fray from shoulder to hip. The steel and magic slammed against the ground, tearing a rent in it like it was cloth. Yayama panted with exertion and the effort of restraining the virulent rage toward herself and everything around her. She held her pose for a moment, then drove one end of her blade into the earth, slumping against it. "Oh, blood and bloody flaming ashes, I'm not dealing with this at all, am I?" At least she could talk to herself in the way a normal person would. . . though Yayama couldn't help put get the faint impression of a knowing, smug smile at the thought. "Pull yourself together, woman. You've got a reputation to uphold and a world to save."

Her head turned down once again, resting against her gauntlets and, in turn, her sword. If her friends were still around, she could lean on them. Taking care of them had always helped keep her calm too It had given her a purpose to focus herself on in trying times, and something tangible she could do. It was strange; she'd always been one of the cooler heads, but now she was going insane on her own. She felt the pain of solitude far more than she ever had.