Their Pasts

"What are you doing in my room? Just let me go to sleep!" Yotsuya had been chased back to his room. His tone didn't sound unwelcoming, but rather tired and exhausted.

"You left out quite a bit, too. I didn't even get to ask any questions in the end, did I?" Arthur walked in through the window and sat down beside his bed, carrying a smile of compassion and empathy on his face. Just as he spoke, however, his smile was replaced by a look of sadness.

"I'm sorry you had to experience that. It's fine if you don't feel like talking about it, but you did leave out quite a lot. You barely told me about this friend of yours, and you basically left after having said that you were accused of murdering your party. Don't you think it's a little irresponsible to leave such stuff out?" Arthur tried to remain calm and stoic at the fact that Yotsuya had had quite a rough time.

"So you want it from the beginning? From even before this game?" Yotsuya knew what he wanted, to which Arthur responded with a simple "Yes."

"Even back in the old world, in Japan, I had fallen in love with the way of the sword. It was my own kind of therapy, and it always helped me in stressful situations. I was actually quite good at it. I even made it to the finals of nationals once, but I did get defeated." A small silence followed, and Arthur saw nothing of it, thinking that it was because Yotsuya wanted to refrain from talking about his loss, which wasn't the truth.

"Just two months after the tournament, I suffered a horrible car crash that crushed my legs. I've been in a wheelchair ever since then, and my dreams of becoming the Kendo world champion were crushed along with it. I usually spend my time coping by playing games like these where I get to imagine and live my life with the sword once more..." Yotsuya kept on talking, and it looked like even he was shocked after hearing his own story come out of his mouth, as if he hadn't fully accepted just how sad it would be from other people's point of view.

"I was equally as terrified and as weak as the rest of us when this game started. I did find a party rather quickly, and all seemed to be going well. But, it all ended too quickly." Yotsuya paused again, and Arthur wasn't sure of how prepared he should have been.

"It was only a couple of days after the game had begun, and because of how good it went, we decided to hunt goblins in the night. That's when we were met by an intelligent monster, and a powerful one at that. I couldn't see what it was at first... I even thought it was a human because of its body. It attacked us before we could do anything, and before long, all of my party members had been brutally murdered, torn limb from limb and eaten right before my eyes." Arthur's jaw dropped completely, and his body felt like it stiffened up. The idea, the pure image of the words that Yotsuya was describing made him almost throw up at the thought, but Yotsuya didn't plan on stopping.

"Eventually, I was accused of having killed my party members as I was the only one left alive as the monster didn't find me. I then spent weeks as a prisoner sentenced to death as they tied me around a pole and left me there for granted. I had to endure mental and physical torture for weeks upon end, even having survived being poisoned multiple times, which is why I now have a pretty good immunity towards it. On the verge of death, arguably only a day or two away from my end, a stranger, which I've never met or even seen before, caught my curiosity. He was clearly even more injured than myself but as soon as he woke up, he ran towards me. We barely talked before he untied me, having ruled me a just and innocent person. Upon further inspection, it was true that I was innocent, and Velios even managed to prove my innocence, having killed the intelligent monster that killed my friends." Yotsuya continued, but Arthur couldn't help but stop him in shock.

"Stop! Wait a minute! You're telling me that a single human was able to kill the same intelligent monster that killed your party?! And you told me that it resembled a human too? Don't you know how powerful those are?!" He was clearly freaking out.

"Listen, this is why I told you that he's unique. He's so goddamn strong it's unbelievable. It was hard to imagine someone like that ever dying. Eventually, a week later, the two of us were tasked to clear a specific and famous dungeon named 'The Dungeon of Demise' because of the frequent deaths in there. I think there must have been at least twenty adventurers in total, and not a single one had made it out alive." Arthur was even more shocked to hear about that.

"You're telling me two people were tasked to clear the Dungeon of Demise?! What was the guildmaster thinking?" Arthur had heard of it before and he had heard of a singular person actually having come back from there alive.

"The guildmaster was just that convinced at Velios' strength. This was a week after we had met, for your knowledge. As soon as we arrived, there was an eerie atmosphere all around, and it didn't take long until we paid the price. He had to save me as I was the most careless one, not being able to react to the beam of fire that came out of nowhere. He did manage to save both of us, but at the cost of his arm."

Arthur was now too shocked to be able to speak or think properly. If he didn't even understand what was happening, it would be best to ask questions, but he didn't. He decided to shut it and listen to what Yotsuya had to say.

"There was something incredibly wrong about the dungeon itself. It had no effect on me, but it was as if Velios had lost all of his senses. I tried to wave and scream at him, but he was close to being both blind and deaf, which he normally wasn't. The monster that attacked us was a giant earthworm, similar to the sandworms here in the desert, but somehow, it was capable of manipulating and controlling fire to a high degree. When Velios finally got footing and started fighting the monster, he urged me to make my way out of there as fast as I could. I don't know why, not even 'til this day... but I ran away like the coward I was, knowing that I could do nothing to help him because of just how weak I was!" Yotsuya was obviously crying, but he tried to smile to not make it too obvious as tears kept rushing down the sides of his face. He tried to dig his face into his palms to try and hide that fact further.

"I barely returned alive and with many close-to-fatal injuries at that. Even so, I couldn't wait to see if Velios was okay or not, but I wasn't allowed to check at first, and my body was far too damaged to go back to the dungeon in the state I was. It was weird, and I still don't know how to explain it, even until this day. Normally, if you clear dungeons, they break or go away completely, and if you die, the corpses are basically spat back out. When anyone got to know what had happened, the dungeon seemed to be entirely gone, and there was not a single trace of a person. I held my thumbs in anticipation and hope of Velios returning someday, but... there's no way that he's actually alive. That was the day he had died." Yotsuya ended it quickly and without as much detail, but it was far more than enough to leave Arthur at a complete loss for words.

He couldn't even bear to turn his head to watch what Yotsuya was expressing in the moment as far too much had happened. He knew that there was essentially no way that he was lying, but it all seemed far too sudden and brutal for a normal person of the modern world to be sent into a world filled with so much death and blood and make that world even harsher for some people.

"You really have been through a lot, haven't you...?" Arthur didn't know if what he was asking was appropriate at all, and quite frankly, he didn't know if asking anything at all would be deemed inappropriate in that sort of situation. Yotsuya tried to stop himself from crying further while wiping the tears away the best he could. "... That's nothing..." Yotsuya tried to speak again but almost gave up at how much he was stuttering the first part of the sentence.

"T-that's nothing compared to what Velios had to go through!" Yotsuya was even more passionate while speaking about Velios than himself. "Nothing in this entire world, no measure or amount of pain, could inflict the physical and mental torment that Velios had to endure!" Yotsuya kept on screaming, seemingly lost and confused as his own emotions slowly took over again. It was clear that Yotsuya knew something about Velios that could be deemed an even worse life so far.

Yotsuya tried to calm himself down after having realized just how much he was screaming. The people down on the streets could probably hear him. "I'm sorry... I didn't mean it; it's not your fault..." Yotsuya was truly and honestly sorry for having shouted at Arthur. At no point was it directed at him, but something had suddenly snapped inside of Yotsuya that he wasn't even sure of what it was. Arthur looked both worried and sad at what he had to hear. At no point did he ever think that Yotsuya had to experience such tragic and trauma-inducing events, and yet he still had the confidence to correct him by saying that his dead friend, Velios, had an even more tragic and tormenting life up until the moment he eventually died, allegedly.

Eventually, Yotsuya had seemed to calm down somewhat. "Did you tell him about your past? To Velios?" Arthur was curious and he needed to get the answer. Yotsuya, still not fully calmed, turned his head to face Arthur, who was looking straight back at him. "I did... And he also told me about his."