[center][h3]Esaka - Low Tier: The Roman Cancel[/h3]
[b]Yayama Yama[/b]
Status: Dreaming
LV: 6, EXP: 21/60
Word Count: 752 (+2)[/center]

Sleep came quickly, but rest was slower to follow. Disturbed sleep was a fact of life for someone with the kind of experiences she had; it was simply a consequence of being someone renowned as both a warrior and a person of conscience. Too often had a mountain of bodies haunted her in the night, both those foes that had fallen before her blade and friends who were gone all too soon. The simple fact of the matter was that, for the last decade, Yayama had been surrounded by death. Even before that, she had been no stranger to it, having lived through the Seventh Umbral Calamity.

[i]Of course, none of that is really you, is it? Not that I'm taking credit for it, either; I'm even more of a fake than you. As you pointed out, I shouldn't be here. The real Yayama Yama, the actual Warrior of Darkness, she already dealt with this. You, though, you shattered at the first blow. That's why I'm here. It's alright, though. I'll protect you. From the outside, anyway. As one of your inner demons, I can't exactly fend the rest off, can I?[/i]

A memory came to her in the haze of unconsciousness. Hers, but not hers, at once. A memory of a different life, one of an uncountable number. A different Yayama, a different false hero planted in a different fake place in a different time in this false world. Companions she didn't recognize surrounded her as they strode into a ruined castle, wielding strange weapons or stranger powers. A shadow blotted out the setting sun; she knew that they feared it beyond anything else, but also that it was their goal.

Death enveloped her once more. First it took the man in brightly colored armor; the yellow flash of his barrier was invisible beneath the stream of flame that left nothing but ash and molten metal behind. An explosive fireball took the next, hurling the monochromatic woman into a wall with a sickening crunch. The third fell to slashing claws, the black dragon tearing through plate armor like wet paper. Then, it was her turn, eyes filled with hatred giving way to snapping jaws. She felt fangs pierce her chest and rip her asunder before the memory faded.

[i]She isn't here.[/i]

The rest of her dreams continued in a similar vein. It didn't matter what the leadup was, the ending was always the same. A foe she couldn't hope to surmount, and her being the last to fall. A realization, perhaps some spark of the template she'd been endlessly copied from shining through, that her greatest source of strength wasn't here. One could not have Darkness without Light. Their destinies had been too closely entwined for them to survive without one another. Or, perhaps, that was some twisted form of wishful thinking. After all, at the end of the day, Yayama Yama was [i]not[/i] the savior of Eorzea. That honor belonged to another.

This came with another realization. Somehow, she knew, since the beginning, that she and that savior had not once met since the beginning of this endless now. Whatever the true nature of the force maintaining this place was, it had not once deigned to place them together. Perhaps it knew that it wouldn't survive the combination. 

Perhaps it was just cruel.

...

Yayama awoke early, somehow groggier than when she went to bed. She stared up at the ceiling for what felt like a small eternity. The silence shattered with a burst of profanity, Yayama fighting off the urge to smash everything nearby in a fit of rage. The squall passed after a few moments, leaving behind a feeling of empty loneliness. "Just keep putting one foot in front of the other," she told herself as she forced herself to roll out of bed. The sun was barely peeking through her window as she pulled on her clothes on. "Fake or not, people are counting on you now." 

[i]That, and you need to take your revenge.[/i]

"That too," she grumbled, before she headed out of her room and down the stairs. She wasn't about to get back to bed, so despite the hour, she figured she may as well get out and about. With a short wave to the staff on duty (a single woman who barely looked awake) she headed out the door and back into the streets of Esaka once more, in search of some small good to do.