victory_road | Roll 4

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Video 1: February 21

[The video clicks on to show Ryou, except...he looks a lot more upset than he normally does, doesn't he?]

You know what? I'm tired of being pushed around and used as a perfect little 'landlord' by a spirit who was happy to see my friends comatose or dead. I'm tired of being blamed for what the Spirit did even though none of it was my fault. I just want a break, but I can't even get that here because I had a Carnivine chasing me everywhere I went and jumping me for a month!

[Behind him, a Hisuian Zoroark and a Chimecho can be seen. The Chimecho looks concerned and floats forward as if to interrupt, but the Zoroark just shakes her head no. Let Ryou vent, it's fine.]

Video 2: February 22

[The next day heralds another video from Ryou, except he's now looking a lot more sheepish than yesterday.]

I'm sorry about yesterday, I shouldn't have made that public for everyone to see. I just had a lot on my mind.

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[He said 'on', not 'wrong', but somebody is apparently too agitated to notice right now. IV barely resists raising an amused eyebrow and smirk as he meets eyes with the Banshee in the background.]

Okay. And why does some musty angry spirit have beef with one of your friends? That doesn't sound like what a Barian or Astral being would do at all.

Because one of my friends is the spirit of an ancient Egyptian pharaoh and the spirit who
kept possessing me wanted revenge against him for the destruction of his village. Atem didn't even order it, he was just connected by being part of the monarchy!

[Well, the Spirit also wanted to summon in Zorc, but the focus is on his issues with Atem and the fact that Atem hadn't been the one to order it, let alone knew what happened until he was told.]

Sounds like a typical royals problem, then.

[More importantly, what's up with just casually saying that you're friends with an Ancient Egyptian Pharaoh?! Either this guy is a lot more of a loon than IV first assumed or something seriously weird is going on here!]

How did your 'friend' handle that mess?

I'd say to ask him if he were still here, but he's not. I didn't get to see how he handled it in the end because I was apparently-

[Insert air quotes here.]

-'Too evil to help'. Never mind that I was wearing that cursed Ring when that Scales test was done, I was the only one barred. All I know is that he and our friends managed to get rid of the Spirit while I was busy being possessed again.

[Can you imagine how it feels to wake up from a possession and find out the Spirit who was tormenting you for years is now gone, for good? Ryou knows.]

'Too evil', huh?

[His gaze turns knowing for a second.]

Be glad they at least had the decency to give you an obvious nonsense excuse. What kind of scales did they use to detect something like that? And where'd the Pharaoh guy go?

[He would try to imagine it, but the crest that both possesses and protects his soul is still firmly branded onto his body. Maybe having somebody else to blame would have been nicer than knowing that it's always been only you yourself, one way or another.]

The Millennium Scales. There were seven Millennium Items, artifacts from Ancient Egypt with special powers. Two of them also had spirits bound to them.

[Ah, so that's where these spirits came from.]

A man named Shadi was the owner of the Scales and insisted on doing the test. [By the tone of his voice, he really doesn't like Shadi.] I had the Ring, which was one of the two with a spirit bound to it. Apparently it was too hard for Shadi to ask me to take the Ring off and test again, because I was just 'too evil' according to the Scales! It couldn't be the Spirit of the Ring throwing the Scales off!

[Ryou huffs, still frustrated with that incident and still affected by those odd pancakes.

As for where the pharaoh went-]

He was sent on to the afterlife. Atem was actually here for a bit, like us, but he left. Went back home.

[He almost could have guessed. IV lowers his head and subtly moves his camera a bit, so that Ryou can't see the smirk forming on his face. This sounds entirely too much like one of those horror adventure stories he's loved as a kid, he can't help but get excited over this!

Once he's sure he has his face back under control he smiles briefly again, faking empathy.]

I'm sorry.

That sounds like you were dealt a really dirty hand, and that on every aspect of it. I take it that there was no way to deal with that spirit of yours besides possession and it being exercised?

We had to deal with the Spirit several times, usually by beating him at his own game. Literally, he liked tabletop gaming and Duel Monsters and kept turning them into Shadow Games.

[The next part is said in a tone of extreme bitterness, a cold edge creeping in as he thinks about what happened.]

He managed to come back every time, except for the last. And he had me convinced that he had turned good, so I'd keep wearing the Ring for him.

What is it with it always being games and spirits needing to turn them deadly? I assume that's what a Shadow Game means?

[Because oh brother, let him tell you about the killer games they have where he comes from.]

....at least you only have 2 in 7, rather than 1 in 100 things and all are possessive as shit.

[Wait, he's supposed to be polite while in public, still.]

Pardon my language.

That's roughly what a Shadow Game is.

[Ryou's next words are almost snarled, his anger directed at what the Spirit had done to his friends.]

The Spirit used to seal the souls of my friends into their tabletop minis so I could 'keep playing with them forever' as some sort of fucked up wish granting thing. I suppose I should be lucky everyone was put back in their bodies eventually, but...

[But it was still confusing and frightening to go through that. And who knows how Ryou's previous friends feel about him after the fact, even if he was possessed.

The only thing that sort of brings him out of that particular rage is the mention of 100 possessive things that IV apparently knows about, and even then he's still mad.]

1 in 100? What in the world were you dealing with?

[IV just groans and shakes his head in a silent 'damn, called it!']

I'm sorry. I know it means way too little with a situation like that, but I truly am. Were you and your friends aware of what was going on?

[He feels like he has heard a similar tale not too long ago. Ah, yeah, Yuzu and her story of people being turned into cards. Different game pieces, same idea.

His expression turns guarded as he ponders how to wrap up everything he knows about the Numbers, and how to say as little as possible while profiting the most of it at the same time.]

The key to an interdimensional bomb, simply put. Think Heaven and Hell wanting to take that final jab at each other, except that they need to first blast a way through the mortal realm to be able to do that. That roughly paints the picture.

Not at first. I'd try to play a game only to lose time and wake up to find everyone else comatose with no idea why it kept happening. I only found out when the Spirit finally revealed himself to me after I'd had that damn Ring for over five years.

[Five years of not knowing why he kept having memory gaps or why his friends kept going comatose. And that's not counting the time after he found out about the Spirit, where he knew he was being possessed but didn't stop himself from wearing the Ring.

As for the Number cards...]

...What the hell. That's horrible.

[What else does he say to that?]

War tends to be. [IV shrugs his shoulders. He doesn't care about what happens to either the Barian or the Astral Realm, but he very much minds the way his family was dragged into their stupid fights.]

I'm one of those people who try to collect those fragments and keep them from possessing people. You endured those uncanny events for a long time.

[Or rather: he was amazingly dense to only realize the common factor after so long. But IV still wants to be on Ryou's good side for now.]

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