2022-03-05: That Person's Name Is
Cutscene: That Person's Name Is
Cast: NPCs of Suzaku Kururugi; Sir Fulgencio Teodoro Serrano and Sumida Yuu
Where: The Naka Ghetto
Date: March 5th, 2022
Summary: In which a peasant becomes a page.
A career knight sits in the cockpit of his Zenith 250, freshly-customized, freshly hideously damaged. One of the monitors around him has been destroyed because of the beam saber that came a little too close to it, and to him, when it cleaved down through the shoulder. The soldier is fine with this on the whole, because he had a lot of fun with it.
Your name is FULGENCIO TEODORO SERRANO. You are thirty two years old and have been fighting since you were fifteen. Though you inherited KNIGHTHOOD from your father, even if you had been a mere commoner you are sure you would have found your way to the battlefield. A little slower, maybe, and a little less extravagantly. You could live with that. You have a great mane of black hair, currently tamed and tied up so that it fits underneath your helmet. You're tall but not astonishingly so, and a bit stubbly, which is your preference. Your sidearm is situated just to your left.
You tell your pilot to take you down. The Glasgow pilot had fought well, and you're not going to leave her to make her way back on foot in hostile territory.
A rookie soldier sits in the cockpit of her Glasgow Knightpolice model. It is neither customized or fresh in any sense of the being, and most of it is way over there in smouldering remains of the parking garage your Precinct was using for storage. The soldier is not particularly fine with anything just now; a lot of people got hurt because she wasn't strong enough.
Your name is SUMIDA YUU. You are fifteen years old, an Honorary Britannian, and CANNON FODDER. Your country has been occupied by Britannia since you were small, and you want the fighting to stop. You are short, athletic, and have a short crop of messy white hair buried underneath a helmet. Britannia is NORMAL to you, but you have no illusions as to the worth of its character; you are not worthless to it, but you are a resource to be spent before all others. You hate the fighting. You hate the fighting. You hate the fighting. And so far it has seemed futile for the Japan-that-was. So you want it to stop. No, YOU want to stop it. If you're being honest with yourself you had delusions of being a good cop, and bridging the differences.
You try to open your hatch again, but it's jammed. You find yourself sitting and waiting for several long minutes before some kind of prybar jams itself into a seam and cranks it open.
A friendly KNIGHT stands over you, his lips curled into an elated grin. He tells you to come along and you do, snagging your emergency kit from beneath the seat. What's your name, he asks, and you nervously introduce yourself while you climb aboard his VTOL.
The KNIGHT says that you're his SQUIRE now. You reply that there's no such formal designation, and he clicks his tongue in faux exasperation. You think it's faux, he's so energetic and friendly it's hard to tell where the sincerity begins and ends. He reassures you that it's fine, and you'll get a good deal out of it anyway. You're nervous. You ask him what he wants from you.
"Alone among the rabble, you were the only one that burned," says the KNIGHT.
You point out that you lost.
He points out that Gentle Chapman did too, eventually, and asks if you think that made the man weak.
You tell him that you suppose it doesn't, and ask what this means for you.
The KNIGHT laughs, and replies jovially, "The same thing that it always means: I will teach you how to burn, and you will decide whether to burn brightly or burn forever."
Your name is SUMIDA YUU. You are fifteen years old, an Honorary Britannian, and a SQUIRE.