Kaiji waved off Sora's apology. "Don't be," he said passively. It wasn't the kid's fault that they were kind of backed into a corner here. It also wasn't his fault that they had to play the waiting game, which served as a decently sized root for the problem of his reluctance. The more time spent idling, the more time he had to come up with reasons why this was a bad idea. The more time he had for that nervous constricting feel to happen to his throat. The more time he had to get that sensation in the pit of his stomach as if everything had been shifted around to where it shouldn't have been. The latter two hadn't started to kick in yet, but hanging around like this for too long would put him at high risk for it.

Especially with the weird background noise. But if Sora wasn't going to respond to it, it meant that it was best not to. He knew better, he knew better, he knew better.

Why couldn't they have gotten a good running start?

"Well, I..." This wasn't a good question. A frequent (forced) player of mind games, Kaiji really hadn't been involved in too many physical battles. Being tortured and having his own body used against him, yes. Fighting in a traditional sense, no. There were a few, but they were hardly even worth mentioning: most of them had ended with him being pinned down by swarms of security personnel.

That couldn't have been the kind of answer the boy was looking for. Kaiji desperately wanted to say something reassuring, but that would require blatant lying. Not only was he a horrid liar, but in the long run it was better to be honest about this than to create unrealistic high expectations. "No, not really," he admitted, feeling more useless by the minute.