driftfleet | 001; come be the first in line to shake the hand of mine.

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001; come be the first in line to shake the hand of mine.

Who: Souji Seta and ... you???
Broadcast: Network; open.
Action: Marsiva; all over.
When: backdated to Saturday morning, before the Shuffle.

[It's a little unnerving, this idea of being on television - a little too reminiscent of the Midnight Channel. Souji himself never appeared on it, but he saw a lot of his friends in those staticky broadcasts over the past year, back in Inaba, their flaws put on display for all to see. It's uncomfortable, but - there really isn't anything to be done about it, so Souji doesn't.

He spends his first three days quietly aboard the Marsiva, mostly keeping to himself. Time seems a little too linear and solid for this to be Liminal Space, and when he wakes on the fourth day and nothing has changed, he concludes this must be the next Jaunt after all. He's not seen or heard from any of the Travelers he knows, though, and the psychic network seems to be out of reach, too. It's somewhat unsettling - but, he supposes, things could be worse.

Things can always be worse.

Later that morning, he finally turns his device camera on himself to make a proper introduction. The face may be recognizable to some, with one notable exception - a thin scar slashed across his left cheek. He speaks quietly but confidently, with all the poise of a perpetual transfer student. The smile he shows is practiced and polite.]

Hello. I'm sorry I didn't introduced myself sooner - my name is Souji Seta, and I'm new here.

[Words he has spoken so many times he's lost count.]

I look forward to working with everyone. If there's anything I can do to help, please let me know.

[He nods once, then ends the transmission.]

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[What do you want to do ... Leader?

A cold, heavy weight drops hard in Souji's stomach when he hears the familiar voice, sees the face he hasn't seen in a while but couldn't forget if he tried. (And he did try; he did. He tried to forget everything and everyone in Inaba, and he only found himself faced with Naoto and Adachi and himself all over again.)

Push the bastard in.

Souji smiles at Yosuke, and it's not warm and friendly - it's reserved and distant, a gesture made out of obligation. The difference between Souji and any other version of himself is as stark as the thin scar that cuts across his left cheek.]

Yosuke. [He nods, biting back the formality that itches to slip across his tongue, call him Hanamura instead and delineate the difference between them even further.] I didn't expect to see you here.

[ What a greeting. ... Looks like his gut feeling was right. This isn't Yu - or if it is, it's not any Yu he knows. Couldn't be... ]

What, seriously? I've been here! ... I, uh, take it you haven't before?

[ He hesitates for a moment, not sure he wants to ask... But he has to know. ]

What's going on here?

[He shakes his head.]

Just for the past few days.

[A sick, creeping feeling slithers down his spine, even as he forces the smile to remain, uncracked, on his face.]

What do you mean? [And he shakes his head again to indicate he doesn't understand the question.]

[ Yay, comms augment. With a few quick button mashes, he locks the channel between the two of them, for privacy's sake. ]

Okay. This is... really weird. But you know, we've kinda been through weird before. And then again with the Plane. [ Beat. ] Well. I have. Maybe not-- Look, what I mean is...

[ One more moment of hesitation, as he swallows around a suddenly dry throat... and then, he blurts out: ]

You're not him, are you? Yu Narukami? I mean, you look like him. Almost exactly like him. And you sound like him, but... you're...

[ If his expression is drifting away from wary and more toward something closer to desperation, he's not aware of it. ]

[It's almost a relief, hearing that other name, because it means Yosuke here on the screen isn't the Yosuke who knows him. There's a distance already, without the need for him to make it. Souji shakes his head.]

No, I'm sorry, that's not my name. You must have met a different version.

[The way he smiles now is a little easier, a little less forced. Explaining this is easy.]

It's not that strange, actually. Where I was before, I met a girl named Yua Narukami. She could have been my sister - she looked that much like me.

[She even was his sister, once, in a Jaunt. Souji's expression fades to something a little distant, a little fond, as he remembers the love he felt for her when he was a demon and how it carried over into Liminal Space once he was returned to himself again. He shrugs, bringing his attention back to Yosuke.]

I guess, in some places, that must be what my name is instead of Seta.

[ A different version. Aha.

There's a small wave of relief for him, of course there is, but it comes on a tide of a different kind of sinking feeling, one he's not sure he knows a lot about. So for now, he listens-- No wait hold on. ]

Yua? No freakin' way, a girl? [ He actually grins a little at that, amusement clear in his eyes. But it passes quickly, Because there's more serious conversations at hand here. ]

Yeah. I guess it is.

[ It's a lot to take in, but... it would have been a hell of a lot weirder if he hadn't known about similar possibilities from the Astral Plane. He's quiet for a moment, sitting back in his chair and rubbing at his eyes with the heels of his palms. He finally looks back up, with a deep breath and the barest crack of a rueful smile. ]

Look, I get the idea of other worlds that are kinda similar. I picked up on that where I was before here. And for me? It was... it was definitely Yu Narukami. There was Inaba, the Midnight Channel, the Astral Plane... then here.

You know, actually, you just missed him. He disappeared a little bit ago.

[ He ignores the sting that admitting that out loud brings, but that smile on his face turns a little more shallow - lonely. ]

[There's a shiver that goes up his spine at the mention of Inaba and the Midnight Channel, but he does his best to keep it in check. He's had time to practice. Souji wonders if it was the same for this Yu Narukami, if Nanako died in December or if he was better at being their Leader than he was. If he was able to save her. If he was able to stop Namatame in time.]

I'm sorry to hear that. I would have liked to meet him - I've met another Seta, but not a Narukami, except for Yua.

Yeah, it... kinda sucks that he's gone.

[ He still looks pretty pained about it, even if he's still trying to play it off with a smile on his face, before changing the subject entirely. Deflection is totally legit, right? Right. ]

Huh. Think that means there's some other me out there with a different name? [ Beat. ] Well anyway, where were you that you met all these other yous?

[He can see the pain there; he's not blind. And he remembers, too, that he and Yosuke were fairly close, once, before last December. What do you want to do ... Leader?

They'd grown distant, after. But maybe it wasn't the same for this Yosuke and Narukami.]

I'm sorry. [He nods, thin-lipped, and doesn't press the issue any farther.]

I guess anything's possible. I didn't ask the others, but I knew a Yosuke Hanamura. [He shrugs.] I don't think it really had a name ... we were just Traveling. The different places had names. Melasurei. Questing Country. Liminal Space, in between.

[And now he's here. On a ship, on television. It makes his skin crawl if he thinks about it too much, so he doesn't.]

[ He's totally okay with not being pressed, which he signals with a shrug of his shoulders that is obviously forced to seem casual. He leaves it alone. ]

Yeah, good point. I learned about anything being possible on the Plane. But.. you were traveling? Kinda like this, or less just drifting and more like actually having a destination?

There were destinations. The - they were called Trumps, and they collected people from their home worlds and sent them into different places to do something for them. Kind of like a quest, I guess. We didn't know what it was we were supposed to do ahead of time, though. And sometimes, once you were there, you weren't yourself anymore. You could become anyone.

[Like a powerful demon, obsessed with accumulating power. Souji presses his mouth into a thin line at the memory.]

You've been somewhere else too? The Plane? What was that like?

You could-- just... become anyone? Whoa. [ Mind blown. He shakes his head rapidly. ] And you'd just go back to normal after? Or something?

[ He sees that look on Souji's face, though - if the conversation's over, it's over, that's fine. But it doesn't stop him from being curious in the meanwhile. ]

Right, the Astral Plane. It was like... a center point between all sorts of worlds and realities. It was a machine, actually. Sometimes you could hear the gears turning. And there were people kinda in charge, like behind the scenes and stuff? Some of 'em... didn't have good intentions. They'd do stuff that'd screw with us or our worlds. Experiments. But we could go there from our own world whenever. ... It's still kinda weird to me that I can't go back from here.

[He nods.] Natives to wherever it was you ended up. They called it Infiltrating ... I'm not sure why. You'd take on that person's memories and personality.

[He drops his head under the weight of the memories.] It, um ... happened to me, once. It wasn't a good experience. I remembered everything that happened, after ... everything I did.

[And that's really all he wants to say on the subject, at this point. The details of being a demon, all the evil deeds he'd committed - that can wait for another time, maybe.]

That seems like a common theme. Experiments. Yua said she thought the Trumps were using us on their teams.

[ His expression turns solemn. This guy may not be his partner, but... no one deserves to have to go through whatever the hell exactly he went through. Not with screwed-up memories and mixed-up identities, doing things you wouldn't do otherwise. ]

Geez. ... I'm sorry.

[ But that's all he'll say about it, too. For now. ]

Sounds like she might've been onto something. I mean, not that I'd know, I wasn't there. But... that's how it was on the Plane. Sort of.

It's all right. [Souji forces a smile; there's no point in letting on how deeply unsettling the experience was.] It's in the past now.

[If only it would stay buried there.]

Hm ... and now we're on a television show. It seems to fit the pattern, huh?

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001; come be the first in line to shake the hand of mine.

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