2022-09-22: Warmth
- Log: Warmth
- Cast: Anti, Leina Ashta
- Where: Mass Villa, AEU
- Date: 2022-09-22
- Summary: Anti finally shares some of his deeper feelings with Leina -- after living with her for two months. It's a difficult subject. She brings him out of the rain.
<Pose Tracker> Anti has posed.
The sky is crying again. Here, too.
Anti leaves the villa. He goes outside. He stands. He does not have an umbrella. The rain falls over his hair. Into his clothes. His shoes, now he is aware of the delineation, grow damp inside. His feet. He is cold and it stings, looking up. He continues looking up.
He comes inside, eventually.
He tracks mud into the house, and when someone asks questions, he flees back to the room in which he sleeps. He fumbles with the balcony latch with damp fingers. He goes outside, and sits, precarious, upon the railing.
One leg draws up, to his chest. His boot leaves another muddy print on the rail. There is a trail of them, leading here.
It's the sky that's crying.
<Pose Tracker> Leina Ashta has posed.
"It's okay. I've got this." Leina speaks to one of the maids in Spanish, "Sorry to leave you with the clean up, Sofia."
The maid laughs it off with a dismissive wave, it is literally her job.
Leina gets a psychic impression even before she reaches the room. There's always a language barrier with Kaiju in that realm, but Anti is more human than most. Absently she reaches into a stand.
Leina sends out a text to another of the staff, apologizing for the inconvenience of the request. Putting it away in her pocket.
Following the trail of mud, she goes up to Anti's room, hand on the door. Putting her forehead against it.
She remembers eight years ago, that day in the pool - when it started raining. And her, a Spacenoid girl that was throwing herself far too hard into her physical therapy...
... taking a breath, she knocks on the door. "Anti? It's me. Leina. I'm coming in." Opening the door slowly, Leina walks into the room, seeming not to notice the mud trail. At the edge of the balcony, she opens up the Umbrella.
It's an old one, a child's Umbrella. It has Magical Girl Wonderful Persimmon on it. It's wearing out near one of the spokes.
Holding it over her head. She walks onto the balcony, then one handed, hoists herself up to sit on the balcony beside him, and puts the Umbrella over herself and him.
She doesn't touch him, but she keeps the rain off.
"Bad day, huh?" Leina asks. It's both casual and not. There's something soft in the asking.
<Pose Tracker> Anti has posed.
She's coming in, and it isn't shaped like a question or a request, so Anti doesn't bother answering.
The rain tracks down his hair, hides his eyes behind the heavy locks. Indistinct, his lips part, beneath the mess.
And he doesn't bother saying anything.
Anti sleeps often, here in the villa. He doesn't speak too much. Sometimes he gets into trouble, but not on purpose. Sometimes he thinks of leaving, but where would he go?
Since he's not wanted.
He looks up at the rain, until all a sudden the rain isn't.
An umbrella...
Under the mass of his bangs his eyes widen; under his parted lips his teeth make contact with each other. Call it recognition.
And, yes, he recognises the print on the umbrella. He saw it on the flat light box after Leina explained to him how it worked. There was a character in one of the sequences who was like him. He didn't really know how to feel about it.
Yes, he recognises that, too.
In addition.
The rain isn't falling on him any more. He blinks his eyes. He blinks water from his eyes. It's still hard to say he's looking at Leina, in the end, but his face turns that way.
"It didn't do anything wrong."
He's not being obtuse on purpose.
<Pose Tracker> Leina Ashta has posed.
Leina gives him this fond smile at his answer, understanding what went wrong in the communication. She's not wholly unused to this, she experienced it before with Nidaime. "You're right. It didn't. What I meant is are you feeling bad today?"
The rain falls around them, the Umbrella a shield, an imperfect one - but still offering some small amount of cover.
"When rain is coming, you'll notice animals take cover from it if they can. So do people."
Leina explains, soft. "Maybe it's not the same for Kaiju, but I suspect its different when one has a human heart."
Pause.
"When people sit in the rain willingly, it's either because we like the rain, we want to feel it soak our skin... or because we feel bad, and we want what's on the outside to reflect what's within."
Another short pause, as her green eyes slide over to him, warm in their sympathy, "And maybe I'm wrong, but I suspect you're not doing this because you like the rain that much."
<Pose Tracker> Anti has posed.
Cover...
Anti never had to worry about that.
He is silent, for some moments. The rain falls. Patter, patter, drum-drum-drum.
"It rains with her."
When he speaks he speaks without preamble or decoration, voice dull and close to ground, with none of a giant's volume.
"When it went wrong."
Each failure, each rejection joined by the rain. He still feels them. Still is feeling them.
"It went wrong."
He's not just repeating himself.
Anti didn't find what he was looking for, when Leina took him back to Tsutsujidai.
<Pose Tracker> Leina Ashta has posed.
The rain falls. Leina just watches his expression. It patters against the umbrella, before rolling off the sides. It makes hollow metallic noises as it strikes the rain gutters.
She listens.
Then she looks forward, eyes lidded and low. Part of her feels bad, that she's out there doing everything in her power to give Akane a safe space...
... when she never gave the same courtesy for Anti. It feels unfair, somehow. She knows it's not so simple. The manipulated and depressed girl, so full of self-loathing.
It's still no excuse, for what she did.
"It doesn't rain here because things went wrong. It just happens. But that doesn't change how you feel when it's raining, does it?"
After a moment, she switches the hand of her Umbrella, keeping it in roughly the same spot, and holds out a hand.
"Would you like something to go right?" She asks, gently in this moment. She does not force him to take her hand.
<Pose Tracker> Anti has posed.
She doesn't force him, and he doesn't take it, though his veiled gaze flicks down.
He has a different impression of what it means -- to shelter them, inclusive.
Anyway.
It's more cruel if it just happens, isn't it?
The stab of unfairness running through him after Leina insists rain doesn't have any special meaning here is difficult to mistake. He resents the fact that the rain is impartial and uncaring. There's no justice in feeling so terrible over a random event.
It's not right.
So his answer to her question -- finally, at length -- is: "Yes."
Still not much of a conversationalist.
<Pose Tracker> Leina Ashta has posed.
He's right to resent it, after so much association with it before. So many memories.
Leina doesn't force him to take her hand. Instead, she just swings her legs back over to the other side of the balcony, keeping the Umbrella up.
"Let's go inside, Anti."
Pause. Then a smile.
"I won't leave you out in the cold."
And while it's a warm fall day. Leina knows it's deceptive, with soaked skin and clothes and rain falling.
She learned that the hard way.
<Pose Tracker> Anti has posed.
Anti's eyes blink shut. His lips shut. His throat shuts.
His first reaction to that reassurance is pain.
He knows that isn't fair, either.
He swallows.
"Mm."
He grunts.
He lowers his leg from the balcony rail; he stands. He does not wobble or slip in the rain. He turns to the balcony door.
He hesitates, and then he steps inside.
And there he dwells, hair dripping down to the floor. He stands, and does not move to sit.
Is he cold? He never had to worry about that. It didn't matter, really. He doesn't get sick, so it doesn't matter.
His dismissal is entirely too loud, and he does not say a word.
<Pose Tracker> Leina Ashta has posed.
Once he's inside, Leina folds the Umbrella up, and lays it down. Then she puts up a finger, as if to ask, 'One moment.'
Then she walks to the door, opens it. And picks up a whole pile from outside. You see, she texted the staff asking them to leave certain things here.
First, she plugs in a portable heater. Then she drapes a blanket over his shoulders. Then another around him.
She tries to usher him over to the heater. Then turning it on, she settles into taking a towel and toweling off his hair, she does it gently, so that it won't be too irritating.
Once upon a time a girl overdid her physical therapy. She was out in the pool for too long on a lukewarm day. She found herself pale and shivering before long. From a Colony of eternal stagnant Spring, she never knew what hypothermia was like.
Her Guardian picked her up in blankets, rushed her inside, and put her in front of the heaters.
Anti may not have ever had to worry about the cold...
... but she tries to show him without words even that this world of cold cruelty that Akane retreated from, can hold warmth.
<Pose Tracker> Anti has posed.
Anti is easily led, in this situation, to the heater. He sits. All wrapped up in blankets, he blinks, as Leina towels his hair. Eventually his eyes are even visible behind that mess of hair, as it grows less water-heavy and fluffs up onto his forehead, again.
His attention is forward, on the heater; his thoughts run deeper than that, as he tries to square Leina's consideration with his feelings.
"Gridman appeared," he says, at length.
"Even so, I couldn't transform."
The wound this carves in his psyche is something vast and deep and unfathomable, a challenge to the very essence of him.
"So, she really doesn't need me any more."
His voice remains quite stoic, quite dull; the regret he feels is something carried in his heart.
"I tried to reach her, but it didn't matter." The kaiju Anti made, and Death Knight, which almost unmade him.
"... now, I can't even destroy Gridman."
<Pose Tracker> Leina Ashta has posed.
Leina sets aside a wet towel, and just focuses on bundling him up without restraining him in the blankets. When he starts to talk, she doesn't respond at first, just listening.
Then once he finishes, she moves to the side of him, and settles down cross legged, she's damp herself right now.
She wishes she could tell him that he shouldn't have to worry about Akane any longer, after what she did to him. But it's not that simple, and she knows it.
"You know, Ramo and Ako. They told me that Akane called you her little brother."
Leina glances sideways, looking at his eyes, "I have a brother myself. A big brother. So I know what it's like being the little sibling. It can be hard right? You feel such... responsibility for them."
After a moment, she puts a hand on his shoulder, "You want to protect her, right? And Gridman is what she sees as the source of all of her problems." Leina's green eyes look him in the eye, "And if you can't do that, it feels like you failed her."
She pauses...
"My big brother once tried to support me by doing bad things. Because he thought it would let me go to school, and live a normal life in a bad place. He thought he knew what was best. But it wasn't what I ever really wanted at all. I didn't want him doing bad things for me. I wanted him to go to school with me."
There's a small quirk of her mouth, "Do you know what I did? I did what I thought was best for him. And I joined something that would stop him from doing bad things... even if it meant I had to quit school."
Leina gives him a small smile, "Just because she says she doesn't need you. Doesn't mean she doesn't need you. I think you should ask yourself. Is destroying Gridman what she really needs? Or is it only what she thinks she needs?"
Leina rubs a hand against his back, "If she's doing bad things that are hurting herself. What can you do to protect your big sister from herself?"
<Pose Tracker> Anti has posed.
'Trying your best to carry off Akane's little lie about the two of you? It doesn't really suit a kaiju.'
Anti feels a little dismal, when Leina says Akane called him her little brother, but he's not forthcoming with why -- the words which flash into his mind, so, so clearly. He listens, instead.
Responsibility...
Anti is quiet, for a long, long moment.
"I was made to crush Gridman. That's why I exist. Now, I can't crush Gridman... so, I don't know why I still exist."
He stretches a hand out, from under the blanket, holding it up in front of himself. His pale fingers spread. (Much the same skin as hers.)
"Even if I could, I don't know if she'd thank me. Actually... she might die." He delivers that evaluation with his same dull tone, as if he doesn't even realise he ought to sound upset about it. "Since she's being used up."
His hand lowers.
"But it's what she wanted from me. It's why I exist. I don't... know what else I can do."
<Pose Tracker> Leina Ashta has posed.
Leina listens to him, it's so hard to listen to. She's heard it so many times, in so many different ways. From Elpeo, from Callisto, from Renais. People created to be weapons, or transformed into them. People with a purpose decided for them.
It's often a long journey out of this place. And it's many small steps, against such hostile conditions working against them.
Part of her just slumps, as her mind continues to categorize Akane Shinjo in that same place as Glemy Toto, despite the differences. Will she work any less hard for her as a result? No.
In the end, she actually cared about Glemy, and he cared about her in his own way.
"Well. Do you know why I exist?" Leina can't look at him while she says this, "I exist because my parents made a mistake."
Her eyes just, are somewhere in the middle distance, "I'm pretty sure they didn't want me to be here at all. There was no purpose to my existence... but I'm here anyway. And I have to make the best of it, and figure it out."
There's just this, light shrug, "I think, having a purpose... then not being able to do carry it out, puts you where the rest of us are. Where we don't know. And we learn what our purpose is along the way."
After a moment, she slowly takes up a dry towel, and puts it around his shoulders, and rubs at his damp hair again as she slides herself in front of him, her green eyes against his red ones, "I had a hard road, figuring it out. But in the end I made it my purpose to make this world a kinder one for people like you and Akane."
Leina slowly rubs her towel against his head, "It sounds like you care about her a lot. Personally? I don't want you going back there again, I don't want to give her more opportunities to hurt you again... but I know it's not that simple. We care about, who we care about. So, my question is. Do you want her to get used up? Do you want to help her, even if she won't thank you for it?"
She takes on a firm tone, "If you care about her only in so much as your ability to fulfill the purpose she set for you, to be thanked by her and rewarded. Then, you shouldn't go back there, to Tsutsujidai. It means there's nothing you can do for her. You'll only open yourself to be hurt by her more."
Pause, and her tone softens subtly, "But if you care about her, even knowing that you can't fulfill that purpose. Then ask yourself. Do you still want to help Akane, even if she won't thank you? Even if she won't reward you? Do you want to keep her from being used up? There's people there, fighting for that very thing right now. You've fought them, learned from them. SO ask yourself, with what you've learned... what can you do for her, without a purpose?"
<Pose Tracker> Anti has posed.
Red one, really. The other is still covered. Anti meets Leina's gaze, anyway.
Learning what his purpose is... it feels like Leina's describing something which can't be him, because Akane is the one who decides his purpose. But... that's how it was for her, a human, anyway.
(He's a kaiju. That's the difference, surely.)
"I won't give up on her." Anti says, at length. It is something of a denial -- but not entirely.
"Akane Shinjo is human. It's why I look like a human, too." A kaiju like Akane... he had nightmares about that. "Your story... fits her. But Alexis Kerib gave her purpose."
Anti pauses, here, for several long beats. The heater hums, in the background, quietly.
He's a kaiju like Akane, after all.
"Now there are hearts in her drawer."
Anti blinks, once, and does not explain what he feels, about how much of Akane has gone into her work, about how much of her work is in Akane.
He is quiet, again, for a moment.
"I don't know."
A beat: "I don't know what I can do like this. But I won't just give up, either. I'll survive. ... Akane Shinjo doesn't believe she can."
Anti doesn't flinch or look away from Leina's gaze; it might be unsettling, even, just how evenly he meets hers, with no regard for discomfort or social mores.
"She needs to see that."
<Pose Tracker> Leina Ashta has posed.
"Good."
Leina meets his one red eye, appreciating his resolve. However...
"He did not." Leina answers firmly, but not angrily, "I understand you feel that way, but I disagree. He took it away. Life is the search for purpose. What he gave her is a retreat from life. That thing does not deserve that kind of credit as giving her purpose."
Leina doesn't respond to what else she has to say, until the end. And then she takes the towel and lightly dries off one of his cheeks, just dabbing there, "Oh Anti. Can't you see?" Leina quietly just begins to smile at him, "You're telling me you don't know what you can do like this."
Pause.
"And then you're telling me exactly what you can do for her. Something only you can do. Would it mean so much coming from anyone else?"
And after a moment she drops the towel, and wraps him in a loose hug, "That's your answer right there. So don't give up. And show her that she can survive too, just like you."
It's only a momentary thing, before she backs away from that hug, "She needs people who can show her, she can stop retreating. Because as cold as the world is, she can find warmth in the people who care about her."
Leina says not long after, "That's exactly, what she needs to see."
<Pose Tracker> Anti has posed.
"He gave her a task."
Is that what Anti thinks of as a purpose...? A task which must be completed?
He doesn't full comprehend Leina's firmness, though certainly he can hear the shift in regard when she talks about their driver.
Can't he see?
His head tilts, a little, when Leina dries off his cheek. He blinks. "Something only I can do..."
He's just as surprised -- a dull kind of surprise, numbed-out and disconnected from a body too small for him -- when Leina leans forward to hug him.
Anti has been hugged precisely twice: by Ultraman Z in service of one of his assaults, and by Nidaime, after he expressed concern for her. He's still quite baffled by it now, but at least when Nidaime did it she wasn't trying to wrestle him, so prior experience tells him he's probably not going to be attacked.
Before he can sort out exactly what to do about it, it's over. (And he still hasn't been attacked.)
Anti is quiet, for a moment.
"You're warm," he points out, entirely too literally.
That doesn't necessarily mean he's misinterpreted her.
<Pose Tracker> Leina Ashta has posed.
"A task... is not a purpose." Leina tells him with a certain softness, "It's just something that someone gives you to do. A purpose has to be decided by yourself. If you were created for a task... then it's up to you to figure out what motivates you, from here on out. What you would like to dedicate your life towards. You say you've survived, and you have." Leina says with a twinkle in her eye, "Figure out how you want to live, next and you'll find your purpose."
Anti's reaction to the hug is not unexpected necessarily. However, she can't help it. She's proud of him. And someone needs to show him that.
'You're warm,'
Anti points out, and she just smiles at him, "Yeah. And now you are too."
And then Leina voices the words behind the hug, just so he'll know unequivocally, "I'm proud of you Anti. You've come a long way. And your answer tonight proves that."
A pause... then...
"What would you like for dinner? I'll make anything you want tonight."
She knows that Akane rewarded him when he did good, and punished him when he did bad. In the end while she wants him to move past such associations necessarily, right now...
... she wants the world to be fair for him, and he deserves a reward.