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[darkinferno]

Dante Rantanen

"Hey, you've reached Dante. I'm not in right now--you know what to do."

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[darkinferno]

[Any other time and he wouldn't have gone into it. When it comes to the stuff he's remembering about his other self, Dante's been keeping his cards close to his chest. There's too much bad, too much he doesn't want to acknowledge as being real. But with everything that's happened over the past few weeks (and the help of the gin he's been drinking)... it slips out easier, just one more bad thing to add to everything else that's gone down. But even so, he's shrugging, trying to wave off Pen's concern.]

Whatever. It's no big deal, I'm doing fine. He's not me, right? We're different people.

[Not that he really believes that. How many times has he worried that he'd repeat the other Dante's mistakes? That he'll fall prey to the same traps and end up in the same place in the end?]

But there you go, the reason I don't like dealing with Sora. Every time I do it's more of these memories, and they're never good. Especially when he's in them.

[mincingminuet]

[Quietly, she nods. She...definitely gets that at least a little. Memories with Noah were never pleasant.]

Sure. Yeah. I feel that.

[Shaking her head, she goes back to the soft drink. May as well brighten the mood some.]

There's no way I could be like other Pen. I swear, she's got to be some special kind of insane. Absolutely fucking nuts.

[darkinferno]

[Dante's more than willing to follow her into a subject change.]

Oh? Why's that?

[mincingminuet]

I'm not nearly so adventurous for one.

[Going along with it then.]

Half my memories are of these crazy places, and others are full of monsters.

[darkinferno]

You too, huh? [Not the adventurous part, but...] What sort of crazy places?

[mincingminuet]

At least two different mines. A desert, where the sand sort of flows like water in some places. Full of oil rigs too, which is weird.

[But the one she remembers the most...]

And a city. A dead city. Just...empty. Covered in a thick fog. I've never seen anything like it, but a man I hear in my visions sometimes called it a Necrohol.

[Shivering a bit, she drinks more of the soda.]

Ever seen pictures of Hiroshima and Nagasaki after the nuclear bombs hit? It looked a lot like that. Only, with monsters.

[darkinferno]

[Dante shakes his head, taking a drink. What is there he can say to that...?]

Any idea why you were there?

[mincingminuet]

Couldn't tell you. Other me was scared but seemed like she knew what she was doing, and there was clearly a purpose for it. Treasure hunting maybe.

[darkinferno]

...do you ever wonder why we're getting these memories?

[Dante's staring out at the ocean as he speaks, recognizing how he mimics his other self in that moment.]

Why we're the ones getting them, or what they're trying to do.

[mincingminuet]

All the fucking time?

[She can't keep herself from chuckling a little. It's an unhappy, ugly sound...because she really doesn't want any of this.]

I mean, I heard in Unreality that they are ours. That we have a claim to them. But I don't really know why. Like, what makes us more special than those other people in town.

[darkinferno]

[That they have a claim to them... it makes sense, if Ardyn's reincarnation theory is true. And it's something that he's known himself for a while, that everything he's gotten back is somehow his... it's like he told Alison; he would much rather know he's reincarnated and that what he's seeing is his than to think that it's all at random.]

Our names got drawn from the hat?

[It's dry, sardonic--the best he's got to offer.]

If they do have a reason, I'd like to hear it. But I haven't seen anything to make me think they're organized enough to have a system of who they "wake up."

[mincingminuet]

A part of me thinks it's just who they can catch, at random.

[Which is pretty fucked up. But what can you do?]

But I have a feeling that this is our stuff. That this was our past self, or something.

[darkinferno]

[A nod.]

A while back, the prof and I talked about it. Both of us think it's probably a past life too. It just feels too... right to not be.

[And then he snorts, sitting back on his rock.]

Though who knows? Maybe I'd be saying that if I was remembering the stuff Noah was, too. For all we know it could be Retrospec making us feel like this is ours.

[mincingminuet]

Seems like an awful lot of trouble, and for what purpose? Nah, I think it's ours.

[She believes Surina, having been there for the Sphinx, even if she's keeping it quiet as she processes that revelation.]

Fits too well.

[darkinferno]

[He shrugs.] Probably.

Hey, Pen?

Thanks. For listening.