Gemstone.

The nickname rouses the admin from a pain-induced haze. The hatred that the name sparks is what causes the corpse to stir and shift, a skeleton not dissimilar to the corpse that Chu-e Choi was several months ago, back when his wits and spirits were at an all-time low.

How the tables turned.

"Fuuuuuck." A wheezy rasp left parted lips, cracked and burned. "Off..."

He was not going to die like this. Not in the power of this piece of shit.

"Where're my real doctors? Get them and fuck off."

---

Chu-e Choi

Chu-e's grasp of the English language was surprising, given how often he butchered it.

Who knew the Miltank better than the butcher, after all? It was a strange grasp of lucidity for the archaeologist to have, given the amount of Dynergy flowing through his body. His hatred for this infuriating man vastly overwhelmed the toxic vindication of the god.

"Fuck off. I won't be saved by you of all people. I don't care if you found something to live for." Howard retreated as Chu-e came closer, forcing the pills to his lips. Get my nurses, you piece of shit.

As his mouth opened, the cup was forced into his mouth, leaving him hacking and spitting.

---

Chu-e Choi

It takes several moments for the choking to subside. His helplessness is intoxicating.

Eventually, he finds his voice.

"To omit them would likely poison me. To deny them to me would be the same as slipping a knife between my ribs and twisting. You decided to give them to me, even if they were destined to reach me. Why?"

The eye watches the former underboss with curiosity, as if Chu-e is a curious insect that Gideon Graves was studying in his museum.

"Don't tell me you actually care, Chu-e?" The disgust in the admin's voice is palpable, even if he respects the man's goals. "About me?"

His voice turns even more bitter.

"I wish you had come earlier, when I was... weak. You could've killed me then."

It's an echo of the first time they met.

---

Chu-e Choi

"jayden cross is a twit for ever looking up to you."

It's all he can say regarding the defense admin's connection to Chu-e. Their story is a tumultuous one, and it is not one that Howard has any place in. What was between them stayed between them, regardless of what Jayden thought.

Howard was just a pawn on a board between two avatars and their gods, before Chu-e had disregarded his child.

"Try again and I won't fight back." A deep breath follows, brittle and dry. Adrian hasn't convinced him that his life has value. Navy hasn't visited him. Bryan hasn't, either. Alone with his thoughts, Howard decided that self-termination was the only way. "You alone can do this. You alone understand."

Blue eyes meet a crimson one, scarred by red energy.

"If you care, do it."

---

Chu-e Choi

It's blissful, knowing that death is coming. Knowing that the karma that the archaeologist shouldered would finally be free of him.

People had died in Dewford. Howard didn't know how many, but lives had been extinguished by his actions. They were not malicious deeds, but they had buried people under meters of snow anyway. If they had been evil acts, it would've been better. There would have been a purpose to the curdling of a flower as it was snuffed from this world.

Instead, it had been a misguided deed born of a genuine desire to help people.

In that moment as he crushed the life from Howard's lungs, Chu-e had never looked so pristine. As his windpipe crushed, all the archaeologist could do was smile.

It was a perversion of their first meeting, twisted into a mockery.

"I fought. I lost. I rest. Why do you care?"

---

Chu-e Choi

A dry, choking chuckle followed.

"Fair enough." Without missing a beat or betraying anything in his voice, the admin continued. "So kill yourself."

He regarded Chu-e with contemplative pensiveness. He was detached from the earth at this point. The quandaries that happened on her soil eluded him.

"I can't stop you. Do to me what you wish to do to yourself." The laughter continues and Howard regards his colleague, foe, and anomaly that Chu-e represents. "You look different when you're passionate. When you care."

---

Chu-e Choi

It's a disgusting sensation. There is no affection here. It's the violation of one man's space after shouldering the weight of the world for three months in a disgusting paradise. There is no room for love here. No room for affection.

They are two people bound together by their contempt for a greater force in this world.

"Find it in in your heart to love yourself, Chu-e." The former underboss's action does little to move the admin's heart. Howard is a contemptuous person, without the resolve to keep going until his heart finally mends and he learns to tolerate the results of his actions. "Because even though we share a goal, we do not share a dream. Mine is the antithesis to yours."

A bright and better world where everything worked as it should, where Eternatus was dead and the DRK Triad was gone and the world was unmarred by the weight of yesterday.

Arcadia. Even. Paradise.

"Imagine if I had joined Team Rocket a few years earlier." His face caressed the former underboss's cheek as he retreated. "Just think of the worlds we might have seen."

---

Chu-e Choi