2022-11-06: What 'Bad Guy' Acts So Worried?
- Log: 2022-11-06- What 'Bad Guy' Acts So Worried?
- Cast: Ruri Hoshino, Alexis Kerib
- Where: Orb Union Wharf
- OOC - IC Date: 0096-11-06
- Summary: The operator of the Nadesico receives a visit from a friend.
<Pose Tracker> Ruri Hoshino has posed.
The destruction of JOSH-A is horrific news. Could Riika's people have done this? Could the Federation have done this? Neither option feels possible in an optimistic world, and yet like a body cooling with a bullet it is so.
The Nadesico has returned to its home port, parked in that swaying bay. Perhaps someone is receiving instructions.
Not Ruri, though. She steps around the people hauling supplies onto the mobile battleship, and assures Omoikane, quietly: "It's okay... I just want to go for a walk."
< LEAVE IT TO ME >
... but Ruri can tell he's still a little worried, even if he's going to keep an eye on things while she's stepped out.
She steps out into the wharf, and even though she's a teenager now she nonetheless feels quite small, all dwarfed by ships and freighters. Her gold, gold eyes glance left, and glance right, unfitting and unsuited to the wood beneath her feet. She wears Nergal's operations uniform; the bridge is where she feels at home. That they launched from these shores means little, to someone who so rarely sees the darkening sky with her eyes and not a camera array.
(She's afraid of getting lost, but she'd never say that.)
Step, step, step, and Ruri is smaller than the dockworkers, can move around them without much notice. She reaches the edge of the wharf, and hesitates, a moment, before she steps from wooden pier to ground. Crunch go little granules of sand, between the concrete and her metallic shoes. It sounds too real, and for a moment she considers running right back to the battleship.
Ruri shakes her head, and keeps walking. Not far, mind you -- she can still see the Nadesico, berthed out there -- but she sits on a quiet bench, looking out at the ocean, and folds her hands in her lap and her ankles about each other. It's early evening, and the stars have all come out, so there aren't too many people still walking around now she's left the Nadesico and its loading bays.
Her fingers curl together, in her lap.
And she doesn't say anything.
<Pose Tracker> Alexis Kerib has posed.
Alexis has meant to follow up with Ruri for a fair while. He did want to give their previous encounter -- in the between-spaces of the Saint Lance's systems -- a little time to flush out of the system. He knows that never completely goes away, mind -- he's not so naive as to think she's forgotten the knife-twisting he was doing.
But right now, more likely than not, Ruri has bigger fish to fry. (Alexis reads the news. It's a habit he got into when he was first grooming Akane; she was a very doomscroll-prone student and having things to share with her that reaffirm her priors was great.)
"Excuse me," he says, as he approaches Ruri's bench. "Is this seat taken? I wouldn't want to intrude, but it has been quite some time. I would hope you've been well, but it looks like you're struggling quite a bit!" He takes note of her posture -- curled in on herself over and over, from the fingers on out. Each successive, larger part of Ruri has the same shape as the last.
Floating slowly toward Ruri, he asks, "Would you like to play a game?" He remembers 'alien, alienated' and muses: "Rhyming pairs, or perhaps word chain? If it's word chain we could ban ending with E, S, D, and T to keep it interesting -- like in the Japanese version of the game with closing Ns. The young lady enjoys both -- in fact, she usually beats me quite handily."
A beat, before he adds: "Or perhaps we can just talk. I wouldn't want to put you on the spot."
<Pose Tracker> Ruri Hoshino has posed.
The MAGI were almost destroyed by Triple 000... everyone in the area would have died.
As for the pilot of High Tension, he really did die.
All those people in Torrington died, too.
And now Alaska... hey, I wonder what happens when we run out of people who can die?
Ruri's mind -- all several multitrack threads of it, she's done a few crimes to her IFS implants to give her more processing power -- is somewhat occupied. Her eyes widen, when she hears a familiar voice, and her head raises. Blink, blink, glance one way, glance the other... "Mr. Kerib," she remarks, when she sights him, and her surprise is dull and blunted and nonetheless notable for its visibility.
Her shoulders straighten out; she straightens up, in her seat. (She's been warned against him, perhaps.) "I'm fine," she insists, though she isn't. "But I'm surprised you'd want to approach me again. I thought..." The shadow of a frown crosses her face; she thought he was angry with her. She's the one who spoke up in defence of Riika to tell Yurika about the man who advised them both, after all.
She doesn't verbalise the rest of her sentence.
She does look quite interested in the idea of word games -- it's subtle, but there's the little widening of her eyes, the little tilt of her head. But she glances away, when Alexis mentions the young lady, and something like tension crosses over her face.
"Miss Shinjo," she starts, after a moment. "You don't need to hide it, Mr. Kerib, since I've already met her." The fingers of one hand curl about the side of her other, as she looks up to him, with that impassive expression.
And she asks, directly: "Did you do that to her?"
<Pose Tracker> Alexis Kerib has posed.
"Hardly! Things have simply been quite busy -- it's not something you need to concern yourself with," past of course the extent to which Ruri has already repeatedly concerned herself with it, more than once in his line of sight. "The Earth Sphere has been a terribly busy place, of late."
The fact that Ruri's met Akane -- actually eluded Alexis, so when she cuts in with that, he's genuinely on the back foot. The follow-up question is very incisive, too. ... Honestly, he knows he can't worm out of this one with Ruri, so he'll have to just confront it.
"I did help her to create her world," he answers. "But much of what makes her strange is simply bound up with who she is. She needs me less every day -- though I do take joy in helping her bring her brilliant designs to life."
He decides to bury the rest of this question in specificity. "Everything else, however, has been her choice. I try not to make her do anything; she simply comes to me for advice, and I offer as much in the way of assistance as I can, whether that's information she hasn't considered or bringing her kaiju to life for her."
He translates a little closer, teal panels momentarily mostly 'off.' "Or is there some other 'that' that you mean?"
<Pose Tracker> Ruri Hoshino has posed.
"She acts like a child soldier," Ruri says what she means, without decoration or evasion. "But she isn't aware that she does. Actually, she got mad at me when I said so. But Ms. Subaru said that most child soldiers don't realise they are, so I guess the truth hurt her feelings." Ruri's mind runs on many concurrent processes; she is working on several problems in concert, whenever someone cares to look.
"I understand that she thinks she's the one in charge," Ruri says, and she is specific too, "and I understand that you're just advising her, Mr. Kerib. So I wondered if there was something else I couldn't see -- or someone else. Because Miss Shinjo is escalating further and further. She's even attacking the Earth Sphere, now."
Ruri pauses, for an eyeblink. "She'll die if she keeps going like this."
Akane's one of the many problems she's been solving, in the back of her mind.
"From what other people have told me, you don't really care about that, but I don't think that's right. I think you do care what happens, because you're very old, and you remember a lot of things. But," she sighs, her shoulders sinking a little, "I know you act very suspiciously, too. So I'll ask you directly, Mr. Kerib." She looks at his visor, unblinking. "Are you a bad guy?"
<Pose Tracker> Alexis Kerib has posed.
"Hm? Oh, no -- things have always just been the two of us. Before that, she barely had parents." Alexis is probably giving away a lot more of the game than he thinks he is and that's deeply unfortunate, but such is the way of things. "But -- yes, that's true. One of her creations showed her the true nature of things, and from there things have... continued to escalate, I suppose. You know about the new PLANT, yes?"
Ruri makes a lot of very astute observations back to back. Alexis rarely gets nervous, but here he does, for a moment, start to feel like he's the one being cornered. It's not a very aggressive cornering yet, but Ruri seems to have figured out much of the progression of this exercise, and that's... dangerous.
The question comes. "Hm. I suppose that asks a question of its own: what do you consider to be a 'bad guy'? Akane-kun has a very clear framework on what makes a hero or a monster," or two other categories Alexis won't do the work of defining for Ruri because she'll figure out the whole game if she understands Akane's category logic, "but yours remains... hm. Opaque, to me?"
<Pose Tracker> Ruri Hoshino has posed.
"To be precise, did Miss Shinjo ever even have parents?" And there's a little volume adjustment on the 'ever', a place where some other child might whine or stress the word, the same place where Ruri is too self-controlled to do so.
(The people who raised her --)
"... I know about the PLANT," she confirms, a moment later. "But I haven't asked the Captain to visit. Since Miss Shinjo wasn't really happy about me being there, last time. I thought it would be an unnecessary escalation."
She re-laces her fingers in her lap, one palm over the other, looking down to them for a moment. Perhaps she thinks she's being subtle, about the way she's holding her own hand.
"I," she starts, and pauses, a moment, trying not to feel small.
"... I know that the Captain has warned me about you," Ruri starts, looking up to Alexis again. "So has everyone else who's heard I talk to you. Sometimes they don't say it directly, but I still get the sense they're trying to argue your point. And Omoikane doesn't like you, either. He says you make me sad, and trying to isolate people isn't caring about them."
Her knees press together; her fingers curl. "But... I don't really know what I think," she admits, finally. "I thought killing people was wrong, but we had to kill everyone in the shelter because the Jovians were attacking, and we had to raise the Distortion Field. If the Captain hadn't given that order, we would have died. The shelter would have been destroyed in the fire, anyway. Well, I'm the one who raised the Field, but someone like me should have really forseen that landing on top of an underground shelter was a bad position in the middle of enemy territory... though, it was the Captain's decision. But I don't think the Captain is a bad person, even though that happened. She really cares a lot."
Ruri, notably, frowns. "I don't like dishonesty, either. But I'm hiding, and I'm hiding Omoikane, too. So is it fine if you're trying to protect someone...? But to say it's fine if it's for a good reason is complicated, too. Because ZAFT thought they had a good reason to attack Torrington and JOSH-A, too, I think. So actually, I'm not sure how to answer your question, Mr. Kerib."
<Pose Tracker> Alexis Kerib has posed.
"Hmmm... well, she might be upset for me to tell her story, but at one point, yes," Alexis agrees. "Depending again on how you define the terms, she still does." He decides to leave the question of whether he's inserting himself into that role opaque for now.
Ruri walks through her answer. It's long, and it boils down to context, heavily; right now that lack of certainty is fertile ground -- but it's also dangerous, because it suggests the young lady is developing her own good judgment. That gives him a little pause; he genuinely has to think about how he's responding.
He continues to move slowly closer, which draws the difference in scale between a standing Alexis and a sitting Ruri into full view.
"In that case -- does there need to be an answer?" he asks, at least sounding genuinely curious. "Your answers suggest that doing it in the interests of caring for someone is a kindness -- and certainly I do serve as Akane's caretaker. So I suppose I'm like you or your captain in that respect!"
He lets that hang, and instead asks: "How, then, do you classify someone like Akane? I think 'child soldier' may be a little unfair to her -- it does suggest a hidden third party."
<Pose Tracker> Ruri Hoshino has posed.
"Not necessarily," Ruri answers Alexis's last point, first. "If your advice is an order pretending to be optional, it would make perfect sense." She's vulnerable, but it may be achingly, overwhelmingly clear that Ruri's best friend is a supercomputer, in this moment.
And that Ruri can keep up.
"But... I guess it is strange to say something like that about her when she isn't associated with any military force," Ruri cedes, a moment later. Her shoulders lift; she sighs. "Not like I am, anyway." Her brow creases; her lips thin, as they press together. It bothers her.
"My answer doesn't really change, though. Miss Shinjo is being victimised. By you, I suppose, but I don't think you were the first one to do it, if that's how she grew up." Ruri takes another breath. "Well, it's confronting to say something like that, but objectively speaking it's true. She's only a few years older than me, but she's making herself a target by attacking everyone. I guess she thinks that means she can't be the one being hurt, but that's really just sad. She's making a fool of herself." And if she's being a little vicious about it, in her stoic way, well -- maybe it's not, entirely, about Akane. Ruri can add, at least: "I can't really say it's her fault."
She shakes her head. "Anyway, I think you do care a lot about this, Mr. Kerib," she says, "though I'm not sure you realise just how much you do. I'm not sure if you're trying to make up for something which happened before, trying to get something right which went wrong when you were working in the office, or if it's something else... but you've put a lot of effort into helping Miss Shinjo. I wonder why?"
<Pose Tracker> Alexis Kerib has posed.
It's in this moment that Alexis goes from 'I think she's onto me' to very distinctly 'I've been made' and has to react accordingly. It's... unwise, for him to make a 'real move,' in this moment. But he probably can't press this thread any further for now.
"Victimized by me...? Oh dear. It seems I've given the wrong impression..." It's her second set of comments -- the ones primarily about him, and about his past -- that genuinely upset him, though.
... and in some ways, well. He really is a lot like her.
"I suppose helping her does help to set something right in my own heart," he muses -- though it's vague and affectionate-sounding, at least for now. "Still -- I think I've taken up a bit too much of your time. It was good to see you again, but I'll leave you to it, for the moment." Being zeroed in on is an unpleasant feeling -- and more than that, one that makes him think the current conversation simply won't be effective. "I apologize that I couldn't spare as much time tonight as we'd have hoped. I hope your duties on the Nadesico continue well, Miss Hoshino."
He starts to float away, albeit slowly. "... Though I could spare a few minutes for shiritori, if you'd like," he thinks to add. It wouldn't do to leave her feeling like this was strictly a horrible conversation about the worst things the world could offer.
<Pose Tracker> Ruri Hoshino has posed.
"I suppose it's possible I have the wrong impression," Ruri allows, with that same neutrality she always wears. "I'm not really sure what to think about it. I'm still trying to figure it out. And you're not really someone who always knows how to talk to people, either, so you might look worse than you are. That's why I asked you directly." She chides him: "You should be more honest with people, Mr. Kerib, because you reveal things about yourself either way."
(Whether he's so revealing to someone who doesn't have Ruri's combination of brainpower and vulnerability isn't really a question she's equipped to answer.)
She pauses in giving him a piece of her mind without any care for the consequences, though, and she's not only a genius.
She's also...
... "I'd like that," the lonely heart of the Nadesico admits, even though she's been so critical of him.