#2) if I were a gem shattered by lunarians and then woke up as one

[tama1313]

(HNK spoilers!) I may be biased because Ghost is my favourite but I have a theory why they decided to do that to Cairngorm.

If they only cared for Lapis and projected them over Phos, they didn't have to turn Cairn into Antarct. But they eventually did.

Why?

Well, Phos and Ghost has a lot in common: they both are "outcast" with difficulty at actually socialize (even if in different ways) and they both lose someone they deeply cared (the only gem they could connect with).

Therefore Ghost does not only project Lapis on Phos. They know what's feel ling being through something like this.

Therefore the whole plan to turn Cairn into Antarct in my opinion, was actually more a clumpsy tentative to preserve Phos from any further sorrow and avoid them to suffer like Ghost did (also sweet reminder that is not Ghost's fault if they were born like this and more than once in the manga is hinted that they trust Cairn and evel let them take control over their shared body)

Sure, what Ghost did was wrong but hey! We are in HNK, not in a Disney movie

This manga is full of morally gray characters with ambiguos morality (our beloved protagonist too) which's action are way worse than theirs, and yet I see Ghost getting a lot of hate

[jitteryfool]

Both the Euclase and Jade confrontations are directly tied to past chapters.

Which is why I'm very curious to see how Phos vs Cinnabar is going to go down.

I mean, first of we had Euclase who didn't try to fight at all and immediately surrendered, pleading Phos to reason with them.

Which bears very strong similarities to the first raid except for a few fundamental differences that are in direct opposition to that arc. I talked about it in detail in this post.

But summarized, in both scenes Euclase asks Phos for cooperation and tells them they need them. Difference is that in the first raid, Phos was the one who lost and on the ground while here it's Euclase. Plus, Phos reacts very differently in both scenes when told they were needed.

Another interesting parallel I found is the way both Phos in the first raid and Euclase in this arc got shattered at the end.

While Euclase gets decapitated and Phos their face smashed in, they both have their heads shattered by a sword from the moon from someone they had hoped they'd receive help from.

It's also interesting to see Phos essentially taking in Cairngorm's place here as they, just like them, went to give the lunarians an order after shattering Euclase/Phos.

Now, onto Jade's fight. When I first saw how Jade went for Phos' torso, the first scene that came in my mind was when Phos' alloy went out of control and they were told from the other gems to neutralize Phos in order to protect them from themselves (Chapter 39)

Different from Euc, Jade doesn't surrender but immediately begins to fight, a contrast to Chapter 39 where they had to be convinced by the other gems to shatter Phos and even apologizes while doing so. Phos' control over their alloy is also in opposition during these two scenes - now, they seem to have perfected their ability to use their alloy in such a way that even getting split into half doesn't hinder them from fighting.

Jade also succeeds in what Euc failed in: affecting Phos with their words. While Euc’s (second) declaration to Phos about how they need them leaves them cold and doesn’t make them change their facial expression at all, Jade’s last words clearly hit a mark in Phos.

The differences between Euc and Jade’s words are, I’d say:

1. the fact that Jade didn’t recycle old words like Euc that they failed to uphold in the past

and

2. it’s because Jade here explicitly admits their own mistakes they made when interacting with Phos in the past. They actually apologize to Phos instead of acting as if everything that happened was of no fault of theirs and as if Phos wasn’t driven to the brink of insanity specifically because of how the other gems treated them.

I haven’t reread the past chapters of HnK yet but I actually think this is the first time a gem has actually realized what they did wrong in regards to Phos and the first time in a long time since someone actually took Phos’ feelings and thoughts into consideration. All the others were extremely unconcerned with Phos’ mental state and didn’t even bother to attempt to understand them, much less show guilt for failing them.

What I’m saying is Jade is the only gem besides Phos I have respect for right now  Euc didn’t realize what they did wrong seeing as they tried the exact same thing with Phos as 200 years ago that got them shattered. Jade though, no matter how small, has at least shown that they’ve reflected on their past actions. And that maybe, if they had tried harder to understand what Phos was going through, this wouldn’t have needed to happen.

And even though Phos says that it’s too late for that admission of guilt now, their expression shows that Jade’s words have affected them. For the first time since they woke up, Phos has actually shown an expression other than uncaring cruelty, mocking laughter or small annoyance at the other gem’s antics.

I feel like with those fights, bit by bit, Phos’ walls will get broken down and that the fight with Cinnabar is going to impact Phos even more emotionally. With nice references and parallels to past chapters on the side too, of course.

Basically, this is a very long post saying that I’m HYPED for Chapter 92. (I just desperately hope Ichikawa isn’t so cruel to switch to Aechmea/other characters in the next chapter. We have waited long enough for this confrontation.)

[arllenn]

METANOIA chapter 2

There’s only cannon typical violence in this chapter and it’s only described briefly so I think this should be ok for y’all. > AO3

Opening my eyes I was greeted by snow once again. Only this time there was much more than when I had last been awake. Hills of the fluffy white powder framed the landscape creating an eerily stunning image. I was facing downwards the snow taking up most of my vision with only a sliver of the sky making its way towards me and questioned just where I was. For a second I wondered why I was alone. Did the person from before go to get help? Did they get tired of watching me bleed out and leave, or was it all a hallucination?

It stopped snowing, the sun bleakly shining through the clouds, a ray of light burned into my eye sockets, having escaped through a small hole in the weather. I thought to raise my arm up for some type of relief before rembering that it most likely wasn’t possible. Both of my arms having been so damaged in the car accident. It was a wonder, I could no longer feel any pain only overwhelming numbness and the texture of the snow underneath my body. Again odd, how was I able to feel the snow so vividly through my clothes. I attempted to look down towards where my body should be but my eyes stuck firmly in place the effort only bringing rise to an uncomfortable grating feeling. I attempted to call out for help, my jaws feeling uncomfortable like I was grinding the top and lower together just to forcibly pull them apart seconds later, but the only noises that came out of my mouth were breathy huffs who lost their sound in the wind. Closing my mouth a resounding ‘clink’ came from it. It sounded a bit like glass and I assumed that it was just my teeth hitting one another, that wasn’t right it’s never sounded like that, however it also reminded me of the noises that the gems made when running in Houseki no Kuni. I loved that show back when I was younger, and still watched it for the nostalgia. It’s unfortunate that as it’s looking it be now I’ll never get to finish the manga or see season 2.

inwardly I sighed. Here I was who knows where with serious injuries that I could no longer feel with no idea how long it will be until my body gives out and I’m reminiscing about anime that I like. I’m ridiculous. I had to move, get out of here, do something! Clumsily I raised my arm towards where the window frame of the car should be. The feeling of my skin, or was it bone, grinding against itself was uncomfortable and a slight bit painful. I definitely should be worried that something as serious as my bones touching and grinding together is only a slightly painful but now wasn’t the time. I fumbled for where the window frame would be, it shouldn’t be this high up, it’s never been this high up, my arm felt like it was going to drop, until it felt lighter all of a sudden and something hard dropped down hitting my back before crushing something else.

I panicked. My arm just broke into two, it just broke, broken into halves like nothing! It didn’t even feel painful! I have to be dreaming, or having something like a full body hallucination right before death, because there’s no way in hell my arm just broke in half and I’m fine, hell I couldn’t even feel the blood gushing out that should’ve accompanied it! I tried to use my other hand to push me up so that I could find some way to help myself, rising on a single shaking arm that felt like it too could snap in any moment I noticed something. My arm, no not just my arm, the long hair that fell off my head too, was all a milky white with splotches of iridescent blue gemstone. I breathed out not believing what I was seeing when my other arm gave out leaving me lying completely on my side, face to face with a huge flat rock, or was it a mountain and the rest of what I presumed to be my body which also held the same bewitching shine as my arm and hair.

I don’t believe it, no I can’t believe it. My body had somehow turned into some type of wacky gemstone statue and there was no sign of the car that had killed me, nor the road that I had been flung off of. However just like before the teal shards were there. Only this time they took the remote shape of a person. Maybe it had been a statue? If so then was I still on the scene of the car crash, or did they get moved to where ever I had been moved as well? There were too many questions and not enough answers. So I decided to think my way through the situation I currently found myself in.

I had presumably died, or been severely injured. And transfered to somewhere unknown along with the statue from before. My body was made out of some type of stone, a gemstone most likely, and I am unable to speak or look around without risking snapping the remainder of my limbs off. Is this some kind of prank? Ridiculous I know but my only other theory was that this was my brains last parade before it shut down and I died. Or maybe I was in a coma, do people dream in their comas? It’s good to sort everything out even though I don’t have enough information to fully understand or even attempt to grasp the situation.

Pursing my lips, or just making the attempt to, I wasn’t sure of anything other than the feeling of my rough jaws pushing against each other, I looked at the statue infront of me. I studied the shape of what could possibly be a face, small and round with large eye sockets that were empty (did they get knocked out before I was here?) a nose that fit its face perfectly, small and button shaped. With hair that flew down in jagged layers looking a bit like leaves on trees at just the start of fall. It’s a bit funny I had just been thinking of Houseki no Kuni and now here I was staring at what could very well be a life sized Phosphophyllite, if only a bit younger than what they were shown to be in the begging of the story. Huh? A life sized Phos, a humongous rock that has bits of gemstones peaking out of its craggy surface, and a barren landscape with no signs of humanity. Not to mention the fact that I’ve literally become a gemstone as well! There’s no way it could be right?

‘Wait...’

’Don’t tell me...’

‘there’s no way in hell..’

Hah yeah right, the day I’m isekai’d is the day pigs fly and the moon explodes. Actually didn’t NASA find a crack in the moon? Off topic but the point still stands I’m jumping to conclusions way too far out of my league. There’s no way isekai is real, I’ll probably wake up in a hos-

THWACK

As if just taking off one of my legs wasn’t enough the arrow that was accompanied by an all too familiar sound track came and cracked through my denial, a second punishment for daring to doubt the universe I suppose.

Bad, bad, bad, this was bad, no more like horrible! I can’t move, my limbs being too splintery and uncontrollable to even attempt to run away, I lost half of an arm and my leg up to mid thigh, theres no way I’m moving myself. So unless by some miracle Phos lookalike, the real Phos, not just some lookalike, suddenly tripled in hardness and was able to move I’m done for. Isn’t this cheap? Dying before my life even begins! I’m not even a main character! There’s no plot armor to save me! Maybe Phos but not me! Is that why I don’t remeber a anyone that looks like this? Because they were so irrelevant that they were never mentioned or eluded to?

Desperatly trying to escape with only an arm on the brink of collapse and a leg that doesn’t want to even pretend to cooperate really makes your blood pressure skyrocket. Can I even say that anymore, it’s not like I have blood! My panic was accompanied by the sound of bows being drawn and the sound of arrows piercing through the air.

In a split second my torso was separated in two and my other arm shattered into bits along with the majority of my shoulder. Looking over to Phosphophyllite who had been shattered completely everywhere except for their head and legs carved a sense of desperation into me. There was nowhere for me to go and even if there was there was no way for me to get there. Resigning myself to a second death I stopped struggling and just laid there. Truly a blessing I was turned away from the lunarians so that I didn’t have to see the arrows and spears being flung at me. The strings were pulled back and...

Nothing but a spray of snow came. It threw me over forcing me to look at the lunarians and whatever had caused the snow to be so greatly disturbed. Slightly off to the left in my vision but at the center of my mind stood ANTARCTICITE? If the lunarians hadn’t convinced me of my situation then this certainly did. The arrows and spears all stuck into the snow having been slammed off course. They glanced back at Phos and I before readying themselves to go on offense. They took a running start and soared through the sky straight towards the lunarians. The anime could never compare to seeing it right infront of your eyes. The way they used their legs to make complicated twists and turns avoiding every attack while delivering one of their own was breath taking. They had cleared out the front of the float. There were only a few archers left on the float (ship? I forget the cannonical name for it) that was quickly disappearing the final blow haveing been delivered to the center just a few seconds ago. Fighting in what was essentially mid air they breezed through dodging arrows and pointed their sword at their final enemy. They twisted out of the way of the arrow being shot and plunged their blade straight through the lunarians neck. Of course knowing my luck, because I clearly being crushed by a car and almost being taken to the moon could never be enough, the arrow that Antarcticite had just dodged came flying at me. I felt it pierce through my nose and shatter my face. The last thing I saw was antarcticite running towards us as my world faded back into that inky black.

The next time I woke up was to a body that didn’t feel like hell when I moved it and eyes that roamed to where I told them to. The animation in Houseki no Kuni, I was IN Houseki no Kuni I’m a gemstone that lives and exists here, did the actual architecture of the school no justice what so ever. I remember hearing rumors on the internet that Ichikawa studied architecture before writing the manga and the fruits of her labor really showed through in person. The high ceiling met the archways perfectly and truly reminded me of the drawings and pictures one would see if an elegant civilization from back at humanities beginning. The wooden cot I was laying on didn’t seem worn out in the slightest despite the age of the gems and how often they had to be repaired.

i was yanked out of my thoughts by the voice I had heard during so many watch throughs, raising my eyes from the swirls in the wood that my fingers were tracing I looked up at Sensei.

“Hecatolite also that is your name. A hardness of six. You were born on the twentieth day of winter along side Phosphophyllite.”

I bit down on my bottom lip, while I was no expert of any kind on gemstones I had never even once heard of the name Hecatolite. Was it named after the goddess Hecate? In that case I don’t think the pale white and glimmering blue fit the name at all. Considering that Hecate was a goddess of the night.

As if he could read my thoughts Sensei, Adamant, whatever, told me something that I couldn’t help but laugh bitterly at.

“Hecatolite also had the common name of moon stone long ago.”

I a human soul who should have realisticly been reborn into this world as a lunarian was a gem named after the moon, the place where I belonged. Honestly this kind of ironic situation is something I’d expect from a novel, not real life. Sensei was still looking at me and I just wanted to be alone with my thoughts for now so I nodded as best I could with my awkwardly stiff yet also too loose neck. Apparently satisfied he turned to Phos and began working on them.

I’ve really never thought of the idea of being isekai’d before. Sure most stories about the premace were fun to read but there’s no way on earth I ever would’ve thought that I of all people could ever be isekai’d but here I am, sitting in the gemstones infirmary that I’ve seen in every way possible watching Sensei, or adamant which should I call him , carve Phosphophyllite’s face, having just been told that I’m Moonstone Hecatolite or whatever and have a hardness of 6. My life would in no way be hard like Phos’ or Cinnabar’s due to my hardness, the only thing I could ever even imagine that would cause trouble is my name, but then again I could just go by Hecatolite and keep the moonstone part to myself. It’s not like Antarcticite knows, or maybe they do and I’m just assuming, they were rather close to Sensei before they died, Sensei doesn’t seem like the type to blab information like that and I’m not sure that Phos is awake right now.

‘Really’ I thought as I brought my knees up to my chest slowly hugging them tightly so that the wouldn’t fall that any point. Today, could this even be counted as just a day had been too much all at once. I had essentially flung myself off of the road, died after being crushed with some random stranger holding my hand. Upon arrival into this messed up world I had encountered lunarians earlier today and been saved by Antarcticite after almost being taken to the moon. This is, unbelievable, ridiculous, I just can’t seem to comprehend what the hell is happening right now! Even in the lore of Houseki no Kuni it was outright stated that humans souls became the lunarians and that the gems were their bones, my very existence went against the firmly set laws of this world! It made no sense when I first realized and it makes no sense now, in all honesty I’m sure that it will never make sense. But, here I am sitting watching Sensei, Adament, whatever, whoever, carving Phos like it was nothing.

To be fair to him it was probably nothing considering the fact that Phos is the youngest in a long line of gems, but it’s still unbelievable. To me a person who had been living in modern society and didn’t believe that magic or reincarnation was a thing possible being here right now just wasn’t something I could wrap my mind around currently. I put my head down into my knees and thought of my family, my life up until the crash and everything that I had ever done. I tightened my hold on my knees in an attempt to focus on something else. Gems didn’t cry instead when they had extreme emotions they cracked. I didn’t want to break my newly formed body already. Despite my best efforts a crack still formed. Luckily I wasn’t a soft gemstone and it was something minor that could be chalked up to me falling. I moved my hand up over to my shoulder to cover the shallow but midsized crack. My regrets, my wants and the moments I was proud of all came to the forefront of my mind.

I’m not sure what the measures of time are here but to me it felt like quite a few hours, however it was hard to accurately perceive time as I currently was and I had no intention of finding out how long it actually had been, seeing as to the fact that I wasn’t even sure that I could talk, or that the languages that I had knowledge of would translate or be understood. And even if they were only Sensei would be able to understand and that would likely bring up questions as to why I knew a dead language. So I kept quiet as I was led by Sensei alongside Phos to where I guessed our rooms were. It did make me wonder if gems were born understanding the language and unable to speak it or if this was a cheat granted to me by the universe as compensation for ending my life.

We were placed in rooms next to each other. The designs were simple and minimalistic. A single window a bed that was shoved into a crook in the wall that had a wooden frame, it really just looked like a stone box with a pile of sheets on it but I digress. Young Phosphophyllite was rather cute, it was a shame they’d go feral and lose their mind one day. I plopped down onto the bed only keeping on the button on shirt that came with the winter uniforms on. I know usually from what Sensei said that gems sleep with either everything off or with a uniform that they requested from red beryl but considering that it was winter and they were sleeping I would have to make do with this until they woke up. The idea of sleeping without anything on at all was just a bit too much for me as I currently am.

i looked out the window towards the moon that was high in the sky and allowed myself to play with the strands of my hair, funnily enough the weight was comfortable and from the way my hair fell it seemed like it was styled the same way as it was in my past life. Of course mirrors weren’t a thing currently, so it was just an assumption. Pulling the sheets up I resolved to not think for the rest of the night. Reliving my life for who knows how long was definitely draining.

A few minutes after I had laid down I heard shuffling around the doorway. Looking up I realized that Phos, who looked two steps from falling over was standing in the door way looking at me. I sat up and beckoned them over by waving my hand towards myself. For a second I got scared that they wouldn’t understand, after all they don’t know how to speak and i have no idea if this means something different to them, but cute innocent Phos stumbled over to my bed on legs that would make a newborn fawn jealous. It looked they they were going to fall midway so I sprung up tangled in my sheets to steady them. Luckily the sheets formed a barrier in between us that stopped me from cracking them but it was still nerve wracking. That matter aside I wasn’t sure why Phos was here or what I could do for them currently.

With their behavior matching their angelic face Phos didn’t leave me to silently wonder for too long before they pointed at the bed. Though vague I think I understand? Did they need help getting into their bed because of their hardness? I nodded and picked them up ready to take them to their room, however once I reached the door frame they reached out and pointed towards the bed again...

’I’m an idiot...’

Sighing I went back into my room and placed Phos down on my bed and put on the shorts that came along with the winter uniform. I didn’t want to risk grinding them into dust like I was Achema so I took precautions. I left the room to go and grab Phos’ sheets. I wrapped them up in mine as if they were a cat getting medication or a shot and used their sheets to put over the both of us. There was no way I was going to break Phos on my first day alive, or ever considering the story. A small smile played on their face and they fell asleep soon after.

Sighing I decided that sense it was like this I should just sleep for now. There was no point in staying up and thinking when the situation was like this. Though I am nervous about crushing Phos in my sleep I really don’t want to wake them up right now.

The sky was empty and without stars, a stark contrast to the night sky I was used to. The moon was the only source of light and all I could think about was the earth that I was used to before all of this.

That night I gained a few more cracks over my shoulders.