[ Azathoth doesn't appear – can't, in dreams, that would be too contradictory – but it doesn't need to, to be able to change a cognition. It's something Maruki hasn't witnessed in a long while: The way a glow floods into reality, a blue cast over both of them and everything around them as if they were bathed in the light of a television at night. A moment of stillness as everything wavers just slightly off center, as if two layers of reality have separated by inches to show everything in brief double vision–
And then a shock of light so multicolored it can only coalesce into blinding, brilliant white. Reality, shattering from the center outward to reveal– ]
Oh.
[ –not Shujin. Not the temporary office he dreamed of, night after night, again and again.
No, it's his very own. Smaller, more warmly lit. Scrubbed wooden beams on the ceiling, a stone floor covered in mismatched rugs. Comfortable, squashy furniture. Plants everywhere.
A thin layer of that viscous, bloody ocean along the floor. ]
Well, it wasn't perfect, but... Welcome to my office, I suppose.
no subject
And then a shock of light so multicolored it can only coalesce into blinding, brilliant white. Reality, shattering from the center outward to reveal– ]
Oh.
[ –not Shujin. Not the temporary office he dreamed of, night after night, again and again.
No, it's his very own. Smaller, more warmly lit. Scrubbed wooden beams on the ceiling, a stone floor covered in mismatched rugs. Comfortable, squashy furniture. Plants everywhere.
A thin layer of that viscous, bloody ocean along the floor. ]
Well, it wasn't perfect, but... Welcome to my office, I suppose.
[ What the hell. ]