[...that metaphor actually clicks. It's a horror game, so...it's not meant to give you a fair shot, or anything you can predict. Maybe you'll hear the whistle of the air as the smashing bat starts to come down, maybe you'll get a sense of the rhythm of the blows, but whoever's behind this isn't giving them a chance to react.

No control...maybe he can't control the hammer-stroke, but he can get better at working around it. And, it's okay if he's not perfect every round, as long as he, importantly, doesn't let it slow him down, because the next one's coming.

He shuts his eyes, adjusts his thinking, nods.]

It did.

Thank you.

[He still remembers, a little, how he'd felt a little lonely in his own body and a little sad, when he saw Ryou holding his hand but couldn't feel it. He has the strangest, strongest urge to take it now -- but doesn't. He wraps his hands around his cup instead, lowering it into his lap.]

I'm still sorry it hurt you through me. All it wanted was to secure you as another host -- it said whatever it thought would work to weaken you. It didn't really mean any of it...it used what I knew about what you were afraid of, and it kept me too far under to do much. But you were right -- no matter what it said, I didn't want it to happen.

[Not to Ryou, not unwillingly, not knowing Ryou's past.]