Before I Fall, Fall

"Before I Fall, Fall" is a [SEASON NUMBER] thread started on [IRL DATE] and finished on [IRL DATE].
==Summary==
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==Full Text==
It was quiet in the Library.
A clock ticked rhythmically in the lazy light of the morning. The constant whir of cog and wheel filled the air, punctuated by a hum and bend, phasing between Aidorinian styled bannisters, past crane carvings on the side of a bookshelf, and above a sandy blonde head hunched in front of a small shrine, tucked away in the corner. A single incense stick smoked from where it stood in its base as Juro sat in silence, his eyes closed and hands held together in prayer, glowing softly between blue and gold as he paid his respects to the Bookkeepers that disappeared several hours ago. 
Virion gave a single croon as it landed on his good shoulder in worry. He opened his eyes to give the golem a scratch on the head, “I’m fine…” he assured it softly, carefully getting to his feet. He was still sore all over, accompanied by lethargy in his limbs from the massive output of magic he made. He carefully thumbed the torn fabric of his kimono on his shoulder, lamenting the loss of the garments, the blood already dried a while ago. He had yet to change.
“I was careless. I forgot she saw everything,” he murmured as Akkey’s interrogation replayed in his head. “You’re attached to Yun Milae.” He placed a slender gloved hand on the edge of a table, leaning his full weight against it, the other covering part of his face as he struggled, “I know that. That’s the problem…" 
One thought led to another as he spiraled through his memories, ones he wished to forget but couldn’t. Virion could only watch and extend its magic around its master in protection.
“You are nothing but a tool. A vessel for infinite power, destined to be alone. You can’t leave this place. There’s nothing, nobody out there for you. Don’t let her stories get into your head.” There was a scream of pain as a whip was brought down onto his handler. He saw nothing but white.
-
“Well… this was Jurou’s idea, but I can’t fault him for it, I understand where he’s coming from. We’re your family now. Our law is no help, no harm, and record what you see…” The Elder’s lopsided grin shone down on him. He smiled back in the same way, “But between you and me, I break that rule a bit. I like helping people even just a little, makes me feel more myself, more human. But don’t tell the others.” They laughed together.
-
He fought with his Mentor, “She’s bad news, I can feel it! Why won’t you listen? She’s nothing like you!” He didn’t see him for years after as the Mentor stubbornly searched for where the suspicious girl came from. 
-
“This is all my fault,” His Mentor was crying, “I’m the one who dug around and set off their radar. You need to run, Jin. I won’t have you pay for what I did!” The Elder laid in his lap, dead. He had lost control again. Everyone was gone, it was just him and his Mentor left, cowering away from the Weapon as she pressed on with her duty to bring him back to Chuugo.
A flash of light on blade. A protecting arm flung over him. The sickening sound of sword through body, streaking blood over his face. The tip of the weapon nicking him along the jaw in the process. The Mentor heaving against the pain to keep her away from him, the blade slicing him again as bodies collided. Blood trailing in two lines down his neck as he was pushed towards nix portals, whose captured users were also escaping themselves.
“Don’t forget who you are, Little Crane.”
He ran.
A bell-like sound pinged from the flat device with the multiple buttons that he used frequently to read entries from the Modern timelines, interrupting his light speed thoughts, bringing him back to the present, “It’s like Jii-jii and Jurou-san decided to reincarnate in one goat body…” Juro couldn’t help but laugh. The smile didn’t quite reach his eyes.
Juro shook his head, stretching his long arms up and growling softly at the back of his throat as he returned his focus to the rest of his intended tasks, "Right. Catch up on entries…” He pulled scrolls and devices towards him, supporting his weight against the table, and got to work.
The minutes passed, slowly turning into hours, daylight sliding across books and dust and inkwells as it filtered through the windows of the Library, only the workings of machinery and the scratch of pen heard for a long time. It was a picture of peace, just like the old days.
Juro reached for another black, flat box, fingers flying over the buttons all over its surface. The face of the box lit up brightly, its blue-white glow shining softly on his cheekbones. Text appeared from the light, and his amber eyes swept across quickly as he read them.“Nothing out of place for Dario. Out for the weekend with friends as always. He has a show next week." Juro’s lashes lowered. Jin’s entry was right on time. They’ve been very regular as of late, particularly revolving around a certain seidkonur’s partner, worrying and keeping an eye on him. The Worst Bookkeeper truly… he grinned to himself in reproach at the Modern Bookkeeper’s unabashed display of his affinity towards Yun and his life, but it wasn’t a serious issue any longer, and more in amused surrender. After all, their neutrality was a choice–it was his that wasn’t. And it was exactly how he was reprimanded in his early Bookkeeper days as well.
His brow furrowed at the intrusive memory, gritting his teeth as he balled it up and threw it in the darkest corners of his mind as he always did. His fingers clicked away again on the buttons, and the light shifted into a different set of words. 
Binate World. A fairly new thread that appeared only a month ago. It wouldn’t have garnered such attention from Juro if it weren’t for two things: the timing, and the nature of the timeline. And he might have an idea of why.
He didn’t have as deep an understanding of other universes as either Yun or Milae, but he could still tell what generally happened. Two threads twisted into one, spawning two bookkeepers housing the same soul. Juro skimmed the entries from the timeline, a small laugh escaping him. The bookkeepers were young, and the way they wrote reflected it, wonder and awe seeping into their words as they learned how to string their sentences together in neutrality. They were growing fast, their world a mix of magic and mundane. They were already 8.
But there was still the question of when it happened that metaphorically raised a brow more. First, the Battle of the Jaw kicked off way earlier than it was supposed to, bringing a seidkonur all the way to the opposite side of the multiverse. Then, within days, the unnatural thread was created, seemingly out of nowhere. There’s outside forces affecting these, I’m certain… His eyes lowered even further as he stared blankly at the entries, thoughts turning in his head. Immense power surges. Twisting threads. Disappearing marionettes and souls of the Court. Weaving of time and stories.
Golden eyes and a creeping darkness.
"I can’t think of anyone else but her. It must be Frigga…"  Juro’s lips barely moved when he commented, his eyes going out of focus.
The sounds of the Library became muted, like a veil was hung in the dimension where it existed within the Golden thread. Light and shadows began to melt together through his vision, becoming more hazy and indecipherable. The pen in his hand was still. Stringy shadows streaked across his line of vision. The Library disappeared.
Juro found himself in a bottomless abyss peppered with stars, standing on nothing, hearing nothing, feeling nothing. Across from him was a large, arch shaped shadow that hung from an unseen ceiling. He could barely make out the chains that wrapped around it, then shot outwards in millions of directions in a horrible scrape of metal sounds. 
A small lonely figure stood in between him and the shadow, faced away from him, yet he knew who she was, with her light locks and bare feet.
“You’re a fucking mess, aren’t ya…”
Her voice bounced around in echoes, filling up the entire space, doubling, cycling, amplifying. Chains began straining against the dome, moving and pulling across space. She spoke again.
“All this power you sealed, uncontrolled, creating problems that you can just solve on your own if you would just accept it and learn… but you don’t want that, do ya?”
Several of the chains began to glow blue then gold, and his mouth opened in a voiceless scream at the sight, crying desperately for the light to stop, to keep the lines intact.
“You’re ashamed of who you were, and you want to erase yourself by locking it all up. You detach from anything that could cause you pain, and disguise it under neutrality. You’re addicted to this solitude. You want it. You need it.”
The child turned to face him finally, but her face was void of any features, a creepy mask of smooth skin and porcelain. Her movements were choppy, unarticulated, inhuman. Her cadence was different.
“You’re trapped, yet you have the key.”
It burst into a chaotic twist of dark lines and threads from behind her, tensing and pulling to its most extreme without snapping. The space around Juro flickered violently, the space phasing in and out of reach in two, three, four, five waves, threatening to rip at the seams, streaking past the girl and heading straight for him, wrapping itself around his limbs and torso and body and face in that familiar, terrifying way. His right side pulsed.
“So many new lines to trace, new stories to collect… and their words…. words are so important,” a different voice whispered in his ear, and his body seized, the sound crawling everywhere on his skin, the dialogue sounding familiar but incorrect, like they were spoken by the wrong lips. Light left his eyes as he stared blankly before him, unseeing. Another chain glowed with his colours.
“…fā vald ađ rifa örlagaröđina,” he replied to seemingly nobody, his voice a hollow sound.
”That’s right, darling,” the voice remained soft, “You know the importance of words and stories. Then maybe…”
It was inside his head now, “…maybe you can rewrite yours.”
The echoes of metal links and soft voices came to an abrupt stop. 
Complete silence.
Darkness faded back into the Library as cog, wheel, and hum returned. The second hand of a clock ticked once more. The late afternoon light filtered through the windows again. Everything was still in place.
Juro was staring wordlessly before him, unaware, like there was no alarming bend of space that glimmered around him. With an accompanying sigh, his eyes slowly, finally came to a full close, lashes slipping over amber in one smooth motion. He fell sideways, his knees buckling and collapsing towards the ground until he hit something soft and feathery. His golem caught him in its wings with a worried caw, as his arm dropped to the side, pen rolling out of his fingers onto the wooden floor as he laid within his golem, unmoving. 
Virion crooned again in concern, but relaxed when it realized that his breath was steady, “Sorry Vir… I’m… suddenly… really tired…” Juro could only mumble under his breath, sinking into the sea of blue and white. 
He had fallen fast asleep.
It was quiet once more in the Library.