Holy crap, this topic is ALIVE again?!
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"You're going to have to explain this one to me, Kaguya. I don't say this a lot anymore, but this game is new to me."
Mokou muttered an admission to Kaguya as she entered the room, seeing a table roughly six feet long planted in its centre. A pair of chairs sat at the ends, waiting for the immortals to use them, and in the middle was a mysterious metallic object Mokou didn't recognise. It was roughly large enough to fit in her hand, but didn't resemble any piece of technology she'd seen beforehand. Kaguya followed her afterwards, pushing her from behind towards the nearest chair as she walked over to the other side.
"I had to be told about it as well - it's from the outside world. Reisen apparently found it when she went shopping at Kourindou and was curious enough to bring it back here. Out there, they call it a 'revolver'."
The dull grey metal of the device almost begged for a polish. Kaguya, pulling it over, rubbed it lightly with her sleeve as she continued talking.
"People out there don't know how to use danmaku, so they come up with machinery to do it instead. It's meant to work that each of the six chambers in it contains a bullet - pull the trigger and fire."
Casually, Kaguya pointed the gun at Mokou and fired. For an instant Mokou flinched, but a loud click filled the room as the princess let out a little laugh.
"Oh, you poor thing. I haven't even loaded it yet."
She smirked, with that same degrading smirk she had always had, as she pulled out a single bullet. She jammed it into one of the revolver's chambers, spinning it wildly as she returned it to its firing state.
"So now, we know that there's one bullet in there, but we don't know which chamber."
She pointed the gun at her own head.
"So we take turns finding out. Sound fun?"
Mokou was still angry, but she couldn't help but admit that the princess had some style. She figured that if this was her new way of killing Kaguya, she may as well enjoy it as much as possible. She shrugged, grinning.
"Aw, what the hell. What's the worst that could happen?"
The pair laughed together, in a way only immortals could. Then, after a few seconds, the laughter died down into a tense, painful silence. Kaguya continued to hold the revolver against her own skull, not shaking in the slightest as her finger pushed down on the trigger.
Click.
Not so much as a sigh of relief from her as she slid the gun down the table to Mokou.
"Your turn."
Mokou took a few seconds to figure out which fingers went where as she picked the device up. She replicated Kaguya's pose as accurately as possible. The princess looked at her with a manic grin.
"Ooh, wonder if it's the chamber with the bullet in it? There's a 1 in 5 chance, that's pretty large, and then your brains are gonna be all over the wall~!"
Jeez, shut up already. You'd have thought after all these years she'd have learned to shut her damn trap.
Trying to phase her out, Mokou pulled the trigger instantly.
Click.
"Awww."
Kaguya frowned in false disappointment as the gun made its way back to her. The face made Mokou feel warm and fuzzy inside.
"Hmm, down to 1 in 4 now...hope I don't make a mess to hard for Udonge to clean up-"
Click.
"Never mind~"
The princess seemed nearly bipolar - jumping between elated and disapproving with reckless abandon. The gun was once against sitting in front of Mokou, and she paused before picking it up.
"How do you get such a kick out of this, anyway? We've been doing it for centuries now."
She pointed the gun at herself, but held herself away from pulling the trigger. She had to hear her answer first. Kaguya responded with an expression that seemed almost infantile.
"Well, why not? It means I get to spend more time with you, doesn't it?"
"Cut the crap."
Click.
Mokou didn't bother handing the gun over right away - that would cut the conversation short far too soon. She stared at Kaguya, perplexed.
"The hell is wrong with you? How am I meant to get any sorta pleasure outta this if you're enjoying it?"
Kaguya placed her elbows on the table, waving a finger at her opponent.
"Come on, don't act like my company doesn't mean anything to you, Mokou-taaaaan."
She let the last syllable fall out of her mouth as slowly as possible. Mokou grit her teeth.
"Think of it this way. Who do I know better than you? Over a millenium I've got to know every little quirk about you. Every like and dislike, every dream, every fantasy, every thought. And I'm gonna keep seeing you from now until everything here's just a pile of dust. Probably a good while after that as well."
Mokou's hand squeezed the handle of the gun, almost misfiring the fifth shot. How could she be saying this?
"What about your goddamn alchemist? Isn't she immortal too?"
"Eirin is...different. She regrets the Elixir, and since then our relationship has been strictly...business. But you," Kaguya said, pointing at Mokou manically, "you're different. You come here and put every ounce of your heart and soul into killing me. Maybe that's just the thing I need to keep things interesting over an eternity. An intensity like that. You're the same in that regard, aren't you?"
I'm...making things interesting for her? I...enjoy this?
Mokou had half a mind to ignite the table right now and throw it in her face, but some unseen emotion was holding her back. She couldn't agree with this, not in the slightest - Kaguya had shamed her, shamed her father, this couldn't be entertaining to her. It was vengeance, simply striving for revenge...wasn't it?
"Ufufufu." Kaguya chuckled. "Don't tell me you're only realising this now. That's another thing I've always loved about you, Mokou - so headstrong, but you never think anything through. It's been a millenium and you still haven't grown up."
Mokou didn't bother to slide the gun across the table anymore, flinging it straight at Kaguya's face. The princess caught it with ease, carefully placing it to her own head.
"Ooh, down to 1 in 2 now. Getting dangerous."
She was deliberately taking as long as possible, savouring Mokou's reaction. The phoenix girl was running through every emotion she could think of - anger, fear, guilt, joy, envy, love, madness, elation...
I...I have to hate her! I HAVE to!
She watched Kaguya's slender finger start to push down on the trigger. All her instincts told her to pray for the bullet to go straight through her head right now, but some other part of her was begging for mercy. This couldn't be happening, shouldn't be happening. Was she...worried about Kaguya?
"I was confused like you, once."
A single, totally calm sentence. Mokou froze in place as Kaguya took on a tone that didn't seen to fit her eternally youthful complexion.
"Of course I hated you. You tried to kill me over and over again, so of course I had to hate you. But then I realised something - what does death mean to me now, anyway? I'm immortal, so you can kill me seven times and I'll stand up eight. You're hardly taking anything from me, no matter how much you may have wished you were. And in return, I got to experience your fiery passion first-hand - your insistence to kill me, over and over again for the rest of eternity - there'll never be another person in the world as amazing as you, Mokou-tan, and I'm going to have you all to myself."
Kaguya smiled. It was one of the most genuine expressions Mokou had seen from her in centuries.
"I know this sounds like a paradox, but it's these games with you that make me feel...alive. So I don't want to lose you, Mokou. You don't want to admit it, but you feel the same about me."
The room returned to a painful silence. Mokou seemed calm on the outside, but deep down she was tearing herself apart. Kaguya couldn't be telling the truth, this was a trap, a trick...
But...it sounds so...right...
"...W-What're you doing?! Hurry up and shoot, dammit!"
Tears were running from her eyes, and she hated herself for it. She hadn't cried in a long while - not for pain, not for people, not for anything. And now Kaguya had reduced her to a gibbering wreck with such pathetic ease.
"See? I'm the most important person in your life, and you're the most important person in mine. So we should make the most of these nights, shouldn't we?"
Kaguya heard no reply from Mokou other than a few muffled sobs. She shrugged.
"Oh well. Guess it's time to bring this to an end, one way or another."
Slowly, agonisingly, Kaguya nudged the trigger.
Click.
Kaguya grinned, sliding the gun back down the table to the silent Mokou.
"Well, there's one bullet left in there. Finish the game off."
Mokou looked down at the revolver, observing it again. She could easily point it at Kaguya and fire once, put a bullet right between that smug bitch's eyes. It was cheating, true, but she didn't care about these stupid games. She wanted to kill Kaguya, and that was it.
So why hadn't she done it already? Why was she just looking at the gun?
"Awwww. Mokou-tan isn't thinking of cheating, is she?"
Kaguya was almost goading her own, asking her to fire at her. She wanted to, she HAD to want to, this was what her life was, wasn't it?
Wasn't it?
...Isn't it?
It was a long, painful minute before Mokou finally grasped the gun. Kaguya watched every tiny aspect of her motion, curious. The gun slowly rose off the table...
...until it completed its journey, the barrel lodged firmly against Mokou's head.
"...You know the one thing I hate the most about you?"
"Hm?"
Mokou's finger started to pull the trigger.
"I hate when you're right."
The room exploded in a flash of light as Mokou's head burst cleanly, leaving an ugly splatter of blood against the wall. Her body slumped onto the table, revolver still hanging in her hand. Kaguya sighed.
"...Any second now."
Almost as if on cue, Mokou's body began to move in reverse, pulling itself back into its original position. The blood on the wall flew back into place, and the scattered remnants of her head magically repaired themselves. In a matter of seconds, she had resurrected completely. But something about her was...different.
"Dammit. Never stops hurting, does it?"
Mokou didn't have the same expression of anger, of hatred, that's she'd had before. Instead there was a proud smile that showed no sign of fear, no willingness to surrender. It was like by shooting herself, Mokou had somehow been reborn. She slid the empty gun back over to Kaguya, a stray bloodstain still hanging on it.
"Get another bullet. Best two out of three."
Kaguya let out a little laugh as she caught the gun, complying with Mokou's demand. This was the side of her she loved the most - totally confident, totally proud, refusing to budge an inch.
"We're going to be doing this all night, aren't we?"
Mokou nodded.
"Yup. Just the way we like it."
Another laugh, as Kaguya spun the barrels and handed the gun over to Mokou. It was her turn to go first.
"Well, then," said Mokou, "let us make the most of our eternity together, shall we?"