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Kouji stared at her hand for a moment as she left the question to him, did he want to show her?
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Confronting himself, it was a moment like this where that would happen, he didn’t know who he was, not yet. It was the logical half of him that came to that conclusion, but the cowering animal in a corner, cornered, snarling, and begging to be let go.
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He swiped the bag’s handle, and took it into his chest. ”Tch. Just say that you’re too scared to do it, don’t worry, big bro Kouji has this one in the bag.” He tried to force a laugh that rang hollow as he almost tapped at the bag, he held it to his chest and turned on the place.
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It was a robotic movement, each step seemed filled with hesitation. ”Don’t get left behind, I’ll do this, even if it kills me.” Could he do it? Would he do it? Was it right to do it? Kouji didn’t know, he asked these questions to himself again and again; maybe there was something else, another path?
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Whatever it was, he couldn’t find it. Backing away from a mission given to him by Rocket didn’t even exist in his brain, he knew that fully, he understood that very well. ”Maybe we’ll win the war with this one…Huh?”
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His voice wavered, but he still stepped forward, very stiff steps as if he had already begun to undergo rigour mortis, could he kill his heart?
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No.
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He’d have to do this one with conviction.
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”It’s time for me to become a monster…” But he had never felt any weaker than this very moment.
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"Hey. Can I be honest, this is terrifying." And so he opted to run away instead, to run away from his bravado.

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Kouji stared at Howard for a moment, a long moment before he clicked his teeth again.
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Nothing huh?
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”Not like there’s anyone else here to hear you, you might as well spill the beans, but I won’t force ya.” He looked over his shoulder for a moment to see if anyone else was coming in. ”Guess that’s how that kinda shit crumbles. Lemme tell ya, it feels like we’re playing with something we can’t know.”
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There it was, here it was. The cinch he wanted to get a better mind on, Kouji’s picked up a fair amount of experience in a small amount of time, back to back tasks, missions, and strange happenings. ”We’ve been playing with dreams a tad too long, how do you feel about it as a smarty pants.”

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Kouji clicked his teeth.
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”600000 less? What are you smoking? Do you have a tree trunk stuck in the right side of your noggin or something?” He answered without really thinking about it, an instinctual response to the statement the man had given. ”Even with the new contra-”
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Did he know?
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”Whatever, yeah, let’s talk about real men stuff, like…Whatever the brass has been feeding ya about the mist. You've been studying it, yeah? Anything special come out? Did you ever huff it and end up meeting an idol? I only got to see bits of my past.” He said as he looked over it, and that of others.
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He sought the resolution to that strange thing. ”I guess there might be other weird uses.”

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Kouji didn’t smirk, nor did he smile as he was likely to do.
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Because he didn’t agree. ”The hell you talking about? Monsters live all around us? We’re surrounded by walking corpses, those guys died, killed themselves the moment they did that. I didn’t ask if you were going to die while being alive, I asked if you were ready to become a monster.”
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He wondered if perhaps he didn’t understand her, or it was a difference in world views, but Kouji did walk as he thought, and as he talked. His mind was fixed on the resolution, would he watch it? As everything blew up? Or would he simply run away? He didn’t know, but he had resolved himself to do it.
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The question was, would he have to do it alone, or would he have someone else to share that view with? ”I’m not sure what I am yet, I want to be strong. But I could just be a weakling. I haven’t had that moment, the conflict that pushes you over the border…I can’t go sitting on that line forever.” But he didn’t want to confront that yet, confront his weaknesses, would he succumb? Would he be overtaken? He knew it, he had seen it, the moment in which someone confronted themselves…Was the time most people lost to themselves.
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”What about you? You’re not scared, you ain’t giving your name, and you don’t mind monsters being all ‘round us…Are you already a monster? A walking corpse, or just weak?”
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A part of him did not want to hear the answer to the question he himself had posed to her, a question was simply a reflection of what one didn’t know, a reflection of one’s own doubts, and an answer could elucidate what he didn’t really want to know.
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Whether they were the same, or different.

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”What kind of self-respecting adult still watches cartoons, that’s almost as embarrassing as being into idols. I think they’ll be as good as a foamy crap.”
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Kouji answered without removing his eyes from the Television screen, the scene was good, but what was more interesting was something else. ”Well, back to the narcissist, yeah, a new album. M.M is what it was called, not sure why she’d release it after a battle to the death for Dewford, but stranger tastes.” He thought back to that day, really, he doubted he’d feel adrenaline like that for a good while.
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”Don’t go there, that place is terrifying, it has this creepy mist, and all kinds of weird pokemon walking around inside of it…But at least it’s not Brycen Man 4, the idol edition.”
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Kouji managed to laugh just a little at that before he refocused his attentions, he didn’t know what else to do consider when it came to a movie like this. ”That’s a lot of idols, that’d have cost them…22,325,565 pokedollars for all of those na- I’m guessing.”

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Kouji looked at her, there was expressions on her face that were difficult to read; but if there was one thing that he did know, it was that he wasn’t smiling. He enjoyed a fight, but there was nothing to enjoy about this.
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”I think so.”
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Kouji considered, there was simply no way that they didn’t know. It was beyond obvious that there were people living in there, why? Because kids had come to that realization, Kouji had come to realize it, the girl across from him knew.
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”Doesn’t matter, we’ll just have to do it. It’s our orders.” He said as he grabbed the bag and lifted it onto his shoulders. ”You scared?” He asked, though there wasn’t any teasing to his voice.
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Because he was terrified.
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Taking a life wasn’t easy, Kouji understood that perfectly, it had been one of the most difficult things he had done…Well, been made to do. Forced to do. He had been pushed, physically into doing that action. But this was different, he was doing it to people who couldn’t fight back, who didn’t know, who he wouldn’t see.
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”If we do this, we’ll be nothing but monsters.”

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When it came to Gyms, well, he had thoughts about them; but this was a unique one. He pulled down the cap of his hat, and pulled up his facemask. This was a man he had seen before, clashed against before, it had been a while; but he made his way to Mauville.
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Testing Security, a day of maintenance, Kouji looked around, watching around, this shady lil security company seemed clean, so he had that going for him. But he stored it away in some corner in his head as he looked at what gaps existed. Some attacks had happened here not very long ago, but now…
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It seemed close to full proof. There was one thing that could do it, but Kouji kept that to himself, for himself. He turned back on his feet, and went to the office of the Gym Leader, knocked on the door to grab his attention.
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”Hey, Josh.” He dropped his voice an octave. ”How about we test the battle stage, that looks like it has some gaps in it.”

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When it came to Gyms, Kouji never really had an interest in it before Navy. The man he considered to be his biggest challenge, but there were other Gym Leaders, and he had only met a few of them, clashed against a few of them.
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Litteroot had one, with the great hole that led to another space…Kouji was utterly bamboozled to see a child as the one leading this gym.
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It was why he had waited for the time he had, as the sun fell below the horizon, he stood there with his arms crossed; eyes focused at the door, for the young man to come out of it. He didn’t plan to impart violence onto a kid.
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But to see if that kid really could be that good a Gym Leader. Eris Halla had been proof that kids could battle well, but was she really just an exception, or was she just one of a few.

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Kouji looked to his right, it was the person he didn’t want to have to work with, but he was supposed to be a professional now, twenty failures, including being dug out by a kid again and again impressed that upon you. Yet, that hell sought to overwhelm even that growth, Kouji took in a deep breath before he sighed aloud.
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”Is there even any value in this place?” In truth, the reason he wanted to avoid doing anything to this place was because of Tempest Quinn, his friend. This place was his home, the place he came from. Watching it be used for anything seemed to be spitting on that. But he’d be willing to, for Rocket.
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As he looked around at the wooden platforms that connected the various floats, he wondered just how easily a place like this could sink below the seas, and yet it had never suffered such a fate.
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”How the hell do you protect a place like this from storms?” Maybe there’d be something useful there.

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