Accept the Blue Truth

I relented. Gretel... I've brought you in this far and it seems you've come to accept something important that the witch hasn't told me. I'll hear you out. Countering that, I heard the witch's voice snap at me immediately.

"Child of Man... if you get off track and try to turn this into something other than erotica, then-"

"It should be fine... You'll still have your reader. Like I said... I'm inheriting this game board. His ghost will be gone, but his spirit will live on with me."

"Very well. Don't come to regret this... and don't make me regret it either."

I wondered if I could really regret anything any more, in this strange world where my **** only meant a temporary setback before I achieved whatever sexual goal I set my mind to. I assured the witch I would be fine... Ange and I restored our clothes to a decent position, then sat next to each other on the bunk bed.

Gretel looked to me with sad eyes once more, as if to verify she could continue. I nodded gently, feeling like this air of gravity was odd for a person such as me. I'm not exactly the reverent, thoughtful type. Finally, she closed her eyes, then began to speak the Blue Truth:

"H.I. Player was a fascinated Witch Hunter who came to Japan to further his studies. Antisocial with incel tendencies, he had a hard time making friends throughout school. He began to hate his life and the world around him. He wasn't the type who could be satisfied just conjuring up some friend he could talk to in his head. His desperation, his loneliness, were too great. He held the world to an unrealistic standard... He wanted magic and adventure, but in the world, he saw none of it. He wanted love, but in this world, it didn't exist. He saw Rokkenjima as a place too bombastic to be real, with all of those eccentric characters and magical witches and demons. But knowing that world, so replete with mysteries to be solved, so full of characters to be explored, and so worthy of exploration by all who studied it, made him crave it. Rokkenjima was a place of terrors, but it was a place he wanted so desperately to be a part of... a place that mattered. Player knew that he could never be a part of it, however.

Player had much 'magic potential,' more than he even realized. He began to plot a 'suicide ritual' that would take him to the world of Rokkenjima. All suicides are embellished with a bit of magic, really... In them, there is a strange, misguided sort of 'hope.' His was especially embellished. As he killed himself, he held tight to that story of Rokkenjima, wanting so desperately to reach that island...

But a miserable man like himself... Would any angel grant him favor? No... he needed a witch. So he reached out to one. Like any good bargainer, he offered all of the seemingly valuable things he didn't care about, in an effort to satisfy the witch's terms.

His eternal life. He wouldn't go to heaven or Christian hell. He'd simply repeat his **** over and over again, as much as it took. It could take quite a lot, considering the massive miracle he was expecting to receive. Could any writer be so crass as to let themselves fully enjoy their carnal pleasures, then live on happily, into old age?

His ability to receive love. He felt he'd only received minor tokens of love throughout his life. If one of those figures he idolized was to give him love, what would he even do with it? Could any writer be so crass as to give themselves the love of these cherished subjects?

His ability to harm others. Like any self-loather, he believed that **** should be reserved exclusively for him. Others are better and don't deserve that sort of hateful interaction. Could any writer live with themselves if they killed the very characters they'd summoned in such living detail?

And so the contract was complete. Running from sadness, running from pain, running from loneliness, running from everything but bliss and acknowledgment... That was to be Player's fate. In return, he offered the witch his story. A story born from all of his studies of Rokkenjima, with the most fully realized characters he could manage to put to paper or visualize in his mind's eye. They were, as he claimed, born of love. No less could give them the life they needed. From zero, he summoned a 'fantasy' and gave birth to a new world.

It was never about erotica. It was just about escaping loneliness in the only filthy, inelegant way he deserved to. He'd live in shame. He'd die in agony. Over and over again, as he himself demanded of himself, an atonement for the fantasy world he'd allowed himself to live in. <No pain, no gain.>

That's the story of H.I. Player."