[It's immediately clear that Ryan looks and feels like death warmed over. He's exhausted, pale to the point of looking almost ill, disheveled-- and there's none of the usual expressiveness in his weary face, no interest as he looks at the feed. No light in his eyes.

He pushes his hair out of his face, exhales; his tone is just as lackluster as his expression, utterly worn out.]

So. Guess we're hitting that point, yeah? You saw the message yesterday. It's not the only one, and I get the feeling neither of these is going to be the last. It's all starting to roll downhill. Unravel. Fall apart. Pick your overdone metaphor, it means the same damn thing.

[He stops there for a moment, with a brief false start before he shakes his head and continues on.] And what I want to know is- what are we even accomplishing, here? What are we doing-- we get told we're changing destiny, we're going to save the worlds, but you can see what's happening now. Maybe we delayed it but this is what happens when you try to fight what's meant to be, when you try to push at what wants to happen. It pushes back at you. It lets you know you can try all you damn well want, but it's going to have its way in the end. I mean, what-- it was supposed to be this war ending it, wasn't it? That final battle? We changed that. The Big One hasn't really gone down but just look at this, things are ending no matter what we do.

All of this, all of the shit we've done, it's a dam. That's all. It's holding the flood back as well as it can but it's still raining, isn't it? It's not going to stop raining. And eventually it's going to overflow no matter how high we keep building, because we can only do so much and this is bigger and more persistent than any of us are. We're just pulling the bandage off slowly and it's only going to hurt worse for that in the end.

[This time, the pause is longer. Ryan leans back away from the screen, the back of his chair propping him up, and just eyes the feed for a few moments; when he carries on again, there's finally something more to his voice, something hurt and angry and broken that rises while he speaks 'til it's near feverish.]

So what do we do now. Are we going to acknowledge it's not going to work, or are we going to keep at this while worlds shrivel up one by one? Are we going to keep pretending we're doing anything at all until not a single fucking person here has a home to save anymore? And what about us, what about the people who've already lost everything--

[It's there that his breath hitches, catching in his throat, and the anger floods out of him all at once. He almost visibly deflates, exhaling one more shaky breath, his voice small.]

What are we supposed to do now? Tell me that. What do we do now.

[Yuiko was scared, she was terrified. She had been trying to hide it with a smile and laugh as she talked to others on the network but between the nightmares and now people telling her it was useless and the worlds would rot and die anyways, Yuiko felt sick to her stomach. Crying hadn't helped much either, but finally she managed to put a little courage together.

She had to at least try, wasn't that everyone had told her. She was still a little shaking when she started recording her message, he ears folded back slightly and her expression still uncertain in what she was doing.]

I was wondering if there's anyone that could teach me how to use the powers that we have here. I haven't used it at all, and don't know if it will be helpful but I want to try.

I want to help. There a lot of people important back at home, but also there's someone important here too I want to keep safe. [Yuiko blushes a little thinking about it]

I'd do anything it takes to help.