2022-09-28: Yozakura
- Log: 2022-09-28- Yozakura
- Cast: Akane Shinjo, Ouka Nagisa
- Where: ?????
- OOC - IC Date: ?????
- Summary: Akane makes a friend.
<Pose Tracker> Akane Shinjo has posed.
It's a rare thing: an argument between Dr. Koch and Dr. Setme. The future of the School is in question after the Axis Shock; the new projects LOGOS brought in are cheaper, have fewer nutritional oddities, and lack such... complicated social dynamics. Subservience is programmed into their DNA -- and indeed, they're built from the ground up to... accommodate, psyche-destroying medication, should the need arise.
Needless to say, this marks a dire threat to the School's continued operation. Unless they can prove the GEIM system within the next five years or prove that memory alteration leads to results that beat LOGOS's Socius class: they're just about doomed. The precise trajectory of research has become a severe point of contention under stress.
"... Aurum class in particular is a failure," audible -- barely -- through an air vent. "For the price of one, LOGOS could furnish another dozen Socius."
"I wouldn't count her out just yet. Alone, perhaps. As a pair class..."
"With what, exactly? A Bronzo pair? An Argent?"
It's a little ominous to be talked about like an interchangeable part, perhaps, seated outside the office while the research team argues about whether you're worth the expense.
Fortunately, Ouka isn't alone in this, at least not for the moment. The other target of the argument is here, too.
'Akane Shinjo' -- or, if you prefer, 'Latune 7.' One of the last undisposed Latunes.
She kicks her feet a little lamely, seated next to Ouka... who must have nodded off while waiting for someone to call them in.
<Pose Tracker> Ouka Nagisa has posed.
Rare though it may be, this situation is familiar for the being designated as Aurum-1. While Dr. Cero may make the frailest of attempts in purporting personhood upon her by giving her the name 'Ouka Nagisa', the elder administrators of The School treat her much in the same way as they do a chair. And why shouldn't they? Should anything they say rouse some sort of undesired reaction within their 'prized' prototype Boosted Child, it was a simple matter of removing the memory of that statement from her mind.
Perhaps then that is why she nodded off. This sort of treatment is not unusual for her. When the voices come in over the vent and rouse her from her brief slumber she doesn't jolt or act surprised. If anything there is only a dim sensation of deja vu. As if this is something through which she has sat before. A discussion on how despite the demand for Aurum-level results, the cost of an Aurum unit in both manufacture and maintenance were simply too high to be countenanced.
This is why it was necessary for other classes to be made. It is why, too, they pushed those other classes so hard. The demand for Aurum-level performance from classes that were cheaper to manufacture and maintain meant that there was no other choice.
... it meant they were all failures. However, in the case of Aurum-1, it meant her continued existence as the 'golden prototype' hinged entirely on that fact. And the fact that should any of her siblings succeed in surpassing her, it would mean her end.
There is a deep, sharp pain in that realization. The reality of that pain being something she dare not share with anyone else. However in this moment alone, unseen by the raised voices on the other side of the vent and not observed by her naive destroyers for whom she has unconditional love yet rational fear, she allows herself to weep.
... but that is where the sense of deja vu ends. There is someone else there? She sees the kicking feet through the periphery of her tear-blurred vision. Her head raises up, and tilts curiously towards the girl beside her: Akane Shinjo. But then from the fog of her mind another name rises unbidden: Latune 7. That strikes her as incongruous. Both Akane Shinjo and Latune 7 are familiar names to her, but for some reason trying to fit them together doesn't cleanly work. Like a pair of jigsaw puzzle pieces that fit, but not enough.
Who would Latune 7 be though, if not her? She can clearly resolve the face, the voice, the warmth and the tears of the girl she called Latune 11. Latune 7 though... no, there's nothing there. Nothing, save that ill-fitting piece: The form of the girl, with lilac hair, named Akane Shinjo.
"Why are you here?" Ouka asks, managing to control all but the slightest hint of an emotional tremble to her voice.
<Pose Tracker> Akane Shinjo has posed.
Looking up to Ouka, Latune 7 gives her a slightly sad-looking smile. She scoots toward her, gently putting an arm around her as she stops the weeping.
There's no sense in being dishonest about it. "We're the standouts of our respective classes, at this point. I think they're trying to figure out what to do with us. ... really, the only reason they haven't thrown us away is because they still haven't figured out how to use the rapid aging technology they got from Axis without their new toys falling apart."
Latunes analyze. Akane always excelled at that.
"I was going to say we need to watch each other's backs, but..." A little hint of mischief enters her expression. The bottom has been hit; time for the rebound. "... I had to beg for it -- and lie a little -- okay, so actually, I had to lie for like an hour straight. But I managed to get Dr. Cero to give me something!"
She fumbles in her uniform pocket, and reveals -- !!
... Ouka's dietary needs and maximum and minimum tolerances in her micronutrient profile. "I know you don't want to just run away, and the truth is I don't either. I... like it here. Things are clear. They take care of us. I know they wouldn't throw us away for no reason. But..."
On a construction crane, Akane Shinjo flinches as something hits a little too close to home.
It doesn't last. The tension slowly oozes back out of her body, as she shoves whatever feeling she might have had into the realm of the unexpressed.
Her gaze tracks up toward her partner in crime -- looking almost illusory, half-enveloped by the fog. "Your reach extends terribly far," he muses.
"Yeah," Akane replies, blandly. "Yeah, it does."
"... If they decide there's nothing of value in us..." She trails off. Working up to saying it -- working up to admitting the possibility of leaving, and what that entails...
... well. The care Akane excels most at giving is exactly the care she doesn't think she can have.
<Pose Tracker> Ouka Nagisa has posed.
The role of the First Boosted Child is that of the eldest sibling. To be the eldest sibling is to comfort, not be comforted. To worry, but not be worried about. To protect, but not be protected. To save... not to force others to save you.
Beyond the uncertain recognition she has of this Latune 7, it's the act of her scooting closer, of wrapping an arm around her, of her... comforting the weeping Ouka that sets Aurum-1 into a state of discomfort. That said, such discomfort is easily melted by the warmth of the hug. For someone who is used to giving instead of receiving, starved of the comforting touch, it's hard to deny herself this opportunity.
Is it so bad... being selfish, once in a while?
She allows her muscles to relax, allows herself to lean a bit into the embrace of her younger sibling. (Is she your younger sibling?) She must be, right? How else would she be here? The similarities between her appearance and that of Latune 11 do much to allay her misgivings as well. Those deeply held desires to hold, embrace, and protect Latune 11 did not die with her. They exist as restless loose ends, squirming endlessly within the confines of her mind, forever seeking a person with which to attach and fulfill their purpose.
Ouka listens quietly then to Akane as she explains how they are in similar positions. How they are both stand-outs in their respective classes... well, perhaps it's easier when you are the only existent member of your class, but that is a fact she nor The School's administrators have ever made clear to her younger siblings. Regardless it's a bittersweet truth: The School's failure to utilize the rapid aging technology of Axis and gambit to instead utilize mind wiped war orphans was failing. That The School, as a project, was doomed to failure.
She is shocked to find herself smiling at that. She knows, subconsciously, that such conscious thoughts would ordinarily lead to activating her 'conditioned deterrents': Intense, sharp, sustained pain that would last until she let go of her unacceptable thoughts. But there is nothing.
Before she has a chance to consider the implications of this though, Latune 7 offers her something incredible. Something that she thought she would never see: A notebook, filled with complicated formulae detailing her nutritional intakes.
"This is... Dr. Cero gave you this? How... why did you even know to ask for it?" Maybe she just asked if there was anything he could give her to help her big sister... "If Dr. Koch or Dr. Setme found out he gave this to you, they'd come after him." ... maybe he finally decided that saving his own life wasn't worth watching the ruination of countless others? "This is..."
What? A spark, a light, however dim and in the distance. Part of her wants to question it. Wants to wonder why she can even THINK about trying to escape. Wants to know why the formulae on the notebook seem fuzzy, to shift and slide despite her normal capacity to memorize things at a glance. But no. She KNOWS this is the real deal.
It has to be... this may be the only chance she ever has.
"I don't want to abandon anyone." Ouka confesses, and wraps her own arm around Latune 7 to give her a gentle squeeze. Then with that she rises from her seat and glances up and down the hall before glancing towards the closed room. Her golden eyes look at Latune 7 with determination: "If they find you with that, it will be bad." She whispers softly, "We'll get you to safety. Then we'll find a way to help the others." It feels good, doesn't it? To do what needs to be done to protect others. To not have guardrails hewing you in, at all times. She holds out her hand to the girl she has accepted as her younger sibling, "Come with me. I promise to protect you."
<Pose Tracker> Akane Shinjo has posed.
You don't have to give in to pain, in a dream. Suffering... is a product of reality.
"I said I wanted to cook you a meal!" Latune 7 answers, smiling brightly. "Then I didn't take no for an answer. ... but the truth is, it's not hard to spot. Whenever you hand off food it's usually because you're maxed out on something... I noticed it with potassium, iron, and two vitamins. If we had another year I bet I could've gotten pretty close just monitoring your diet!"
Of course, they might not have had a year, at the rate the School has been churning through classmates. But that's neither here nor there.
"... I don't either," Akane murmurs back to Ouka, playing the dutiful Latune to the hilt. It's truth and lie all at once -- there's pain in the idea of leaving people to an uncaring world, but there's more pain in the idea of living in that world for one more minute. "But you're right. This is how I can take care of you -- and we're both doomed if we don't move."
Alexis looks down at Akane. Akane's gaze remains forward.
"... is she...?"
"The custodian kaiju can accommodate her," Alexis answers.
Was that the question Akane wanted to ask?
She doesn't know anymore.
The dream fades out, and back in. This is a world where Ouka made a different move -- had the chance for a different move. Things have shuffled around.
Without Aurum 1... the School has nothing to show for its hard work. Still -- all told, the result is great! ... for everyone, perhaps, but Aurum 1 and Latune 7. The handful of living subjects have been shuffled into Federation rehabilitation programs. The researchers have yet again been shifted around -- incorporated into some other Romefeller knife-honing station, no doubt.
Latune 7 and Aurum 1, of course, do not exist. No such kindness exists for them, even in this kinder world. Instead: A small apartment in Nouvelle Tokyo. A little over-spacious for one; a little cozy for two.
Akane brings Ouka breakfast. It's painstakingly portioned.
"It's still a little lonely... going through all these program databases is like finding a needle in a haystack," Akane says, taking a long sip of miso. "But in the long run, this is probably for the best, right? No one's going to get thrown away who doesn't deserve it. And even if we don't find them..."
She extends a hand for Ouka's. "We've got each other to rely on, too! Right...?"
It's a beautiful fantasy, isn't it? Ouka, protector of every one of her siblings -- by withdrawing from them. All of them, safe and provided for -- not just in a way that allows her to run away, but because she ran away.
All she has to do... is depend on Latune 7.
<Pose Tracker> Ouka Nagisa has posed.
The world fades, the narrative skips a few steps... and yet the dream remains as vivid and enthralling as ever. The details of how the two managed their no doubt harrowing escape from The School don't matter now, in the present. The present being their everyday life very much on the lamb. There were many individuals, many adults in nice suits with pleasant smiles all promising to rehabilitate the unfortunate Children of The School.
Ouka found it hard to trust them... adults had only ever offered her trauma, or the trauma disguised as false hope. But she needed to believe. For the sake of Akane's hard work.
Then there was the matter of Koch, Setme, and Feff. She has no doubt they had found their ways into more clandestine programs, and would hold a grudge against both Akane and herself. She knew those would-be guardians would be no shelter against their fury. Yes... it was best to hide and scratch out what meager living they could together, until they could find a place of safety. For now Aurum-1 retains her role of protector: Those golden eyes of hers ever watchful, her body ever poised to bring danger for whatever dark shadow should deign to knock upon the entryway of their domicile.
But there is peace here too. When Akane brings Ouka her breakfast, meager though it is and painstakingly portioned to provide her with a careful balance of nutrition, the First Boosted Child can't help but smile with genuine warmth at the girl. She has been working so hard after all - not just for Ouka, but for all of their siblings. Combing through Federation records, tying up all those loose ends.
And so too is it in this meal. As Ouka takes a few bites of boiled egg, she still marvels at the fact she can enjoy the simple pleasures of food. The complex flavors as something so simple as an egg were almost overwhelming for her at first... but with time she has grown more accustomed to it. So too did she learn to acquaint herself with the cloying sweetness of honey, and the tartness of strawberry. The meal is simple, and only barely keeps her at her baseline. But it fulfills her in ways no School-modified nutritional slurry ever did.
After she finishes her eggs and begins dining on her porridge mixed with exacting amounts of fruit and honey, Akane speaks to her. Her words echo her own thoughts. A feeling to which she has grown accustomed. "It is lonely." Ouka concedes in a soft, wistful tone. She can't help missing them. "But I think you were right. Where we are now, we can barely take care of ourselves. Feeding Arado alone would have put us out on the streets by now."
She laughs at this fondly, and perhaps a bit bitterly. This world constantly demands these sacrifices of her after all: To protect those she loves most, she must now avoid them at all cost. It's hard to think of a place where the two of them could go that would be safe. ZAFT? Even they have engaged in their own child munching programs. PMCs? They'd sell them within a heartbeat. Maybe in the Macross Fleets once again dispersed they could find a new life there, but that would take them further away from the other surviving Boosted Children than she could even fathom. Is there no place of safety, from which they could still one day bring all their siblings together?
It's at that point that she sees Akane extend the hand out to her. A gentle reminder that she isn't alone in this, anymore. That she has a sibling with her: A capable, resourceful, and loving little sister who has done so much for her already, and would do much more.
All she has to do... is depend on Latune 7.
<Pose Tracker> Akane Shinjo has posed.
The dream feels like it fades into emptiness. Countless wires encircle the space Akane and Ouka now occupy. Something about Ouka's feelings takes on an anesthetized quality that Aurum 1 may well find familiar, by this point.
"See?" Akane asks, sounding utterly pleased with herself. "All you need to do sometimes is pull away."
In one hand rests a box of tomato juice. Akane brings the straw to her lips, and for once, she doesn't practically maul it; she sucks at it gently, then moves toward Ouka.
That much salt and potassium... for Ouka, that'd be a significant risk. Unpleasant in its consequences at best.
Akane slides the straw out of her lips, nudging it to point toward Ouka instead as she offers it. The tip of the straw glistens just a bit, a tiiiiiiiiny smear of pink lip gloss left behind.
"It wouldn't be so bad to indulge yourself a little, either," come her words of gentle encouragement.
<Pose Tracker> Ouka Nagisa has posed.
The dream world fades out, but this time there is no fade in. Only emptiness, and countless wires encircling the space that Akane and Ouka might occupy. Were she awake, were she aware, this might cause her alarm. But now everything seems distant and dim. What is there to be upset about? She is here. Akane is here. Everything is right in the world.
But there is still a small part of her that tries to cry out in alarm. A tiny voice, struggling while buried under a mountain of so much cotton. It's easy to ignore that voice and to instead listen to the words of her sister. Her golden eyes unfocused, not unlike the way they are while under The Moderator's thrall.
Yes... maybe pulling away is better. Maybe by focusing on herself, on her own happiness, she can help not just Akane... but Seolla... and Arado too.
She leans forward, lips parting just a bit, preparing to drink.
"LIES!" A voice. Or was it some raven's call? Sounding all too uncomfortably like words, echoes out of the distance. Within this liminal space somewhere where sometimes consciousness and unconsciousness intersect, sometimes the walls between become thin gossamer veils. From the direction of the sound a figure. A woman? A bird? Bright upon the the strange void Ouka and Akane find themselves in. Whatever it is it was only there for an instant, and then a blink it was gone like it never was.
But it was enough to shake Ouka's consciousness, to pull back sharply. Her eyes are focused as she looks at Akane. Her heart seized with fear, with anger. She begins pushing back against the wires that encircle her. The strength of her will is obscene. The strength of someone who... despite suffering the worst The School has to offer, somehow manages to Be.
Just as it seems like all is lost though, Ouka's subconsciousness reasserts itself. One can see the war taking place in her eyes - two titanic forces, equally matched, wrestling for control over their own mind. Her focus fades in and out, and tears that begin to stream down her face. The wires one by one begin to tighten their grip within the space Akane and Ouka both share. "It hurts..." Her voice murmurs, "... the world, it hurts so much."
She feels then something else pressing into her mind: The circlet she wears, both a recorder and a tracker, sensing the turmoil in her conscious mind and setting about to lock her down. All she would have to do to escape Akane's grasp now would be to do nothing. The School would come for her. They would put her in the Moderator. They would Fix her. Plant more lies into her head, and force her to suffer and watch her siblings suffer.
If there must be lies... at least let those lies be sweet.
With one smooth motion Ouka takes the charm from her forehead, ripping the circlet free. A motion likely copied in the real world. Only here she offers it to Akane, almost pleading for her to take it so that it will no longer tempt her.
Meanwhile, so long as it would still be offered and with minimum hesitation, she will take the straw of the tomato juice into her lips and drink deep. Her own lipstick mixing with that of the lip gloss, the nightshade fruit mix filled with minerals that could very well kill her running down her throat.
<Pose Tracker> Akane Shinjo has posed.
Oh, hm. A runner at this late stage -- and an unexpected sound. Akane watches her, a little startled herself -- but she maintains her current position. She's confident in herself. What she's offered is a kindness compared to the world Ouka faces -- a world that Akane thought was dead but knew better than to really believe was dead.
She's right to have that confidence, too. She sees Ouka give up. Yeah, Akane thinks to herself. Everyone's exactly like me.
"Yeah," is all she offers to all of it. To the accusation that what she's presented is a lie. That everything hurts. "That's about the long and short of it, no matter where you go."
Even 'Akane Shinjo' is a lie -- a set of presentation choices Akane knew could and would be loved. And one she adopted because the world offered pains great and small and above all else lonely.
She watches Ouka drink deep. She gives her a content smile. "I'm sure you can find your way up here," she offers, with a pleasant smile, walking away. "See you soon."
"Well, that's a better-than-expected run," Akane muses to herself. "These are definitely getting easier each time." It feels like she buys into the premises a little more, and... it's clearly working, now, and working again and again.
<Pose Tracker> Ouka Nagisa has posed.
Everything hurts.
There is no truth.
Pick your pain, choose your poison.
Even within her heart, the divisions between what she has been forced to believe as true and what she has seen but been forced to forget grind until they are red and raw. She ignores it as best as she can. She has to - not for the sake of those who hurt her, but those who would be hurt worse should she falter. It's only now, as she drinks deep from the proffered straw, that she is aware just how deep that pain goes. Only as it ebbs, or more accurately, grows numb is she able to able to fully appreciate the burden she carries.
Latune 7 saw that burden though. Saw it, and told her it was ok - better even to put that weight down. As the world around her begins to fade she is left with a smile, and a promise: 'See you soon.'
Golden eyes open, peering out into the darkened quarters to which she was assigned during transport. Even with the lights turned out, the light strips along the floor allow her just enough to see the dimensions of the room in washed out tones. Her left fist is clenched, her palm burns. When she raises her hand up to her face and loosens her grip, the chain of her circlet dangles from between her fingers. The golden emblem - stained with her own blood from where it has cut through the skin of her palm, glimmers cold in the darkness.
A distant voice screams in her mind, trying to warn her of the danger. That something is wrong. That these thoughts and feelings are not to be trusted. That while The School is bad... at least it is familiar in its cruelty. Replace the emblem on your forehead and...
... the emblem clatters on the floor. Next a pair of bare feet descend beside it as she stands to walk to where her battle dress uniform is stored. Her mind is made up - was made up before she even opened her eyes. It is time for her to find her sister.
It's time for her to find Latune 7.