2022-11-15: Immobile
- Cast: Celebro, Yuka Ohta
- Where: Tsutsujidai High School
- Date: U.C. 0096 11 15
- Summary: Hass and Namiko swing by Dr. Ohta's office to take a gander at her collection and perhaps sweet talk the teacher a bit. Hass is unimpressed.
<Pose Tracker> Celebro has posed.
It's after school at Tsutsujidai High, and the fine citizens of Class 2-E have mostly scattered to the winds as highschoolers will do. But two particular ones have come to the Macrobiology lab room for a dark purpose...
...it appears to be to look at the displays. One of them is the bright and sunny brunette who works so hard to cheer up everyone, Namiko. The other is a person who seems to have been generated by running Namiko through a NOT filter, the quiet, wise, long, slightly blue-haired, thoughtful Hass. As usual, she wears a blue blanket like a shawl, and obscures her mouth with a mask.
But there's just something odd about her posture, today.
Namiko flits over to a displayed horn in glass, leaning up next to it with interest. "Cooool..." she enthuses. "You were right, Hass, Doc Ohta has a bunch of cool stuff in here!"
<Pose Tracker> Yuka Ohta has posed.
Of note are many of the books beside the displays. Copies of Yuka's own research, meant to elaborate on where the various 'cool stuff' is from, and what it's for. The horn for example, comes from the Invisible Kaiju: Neronga. While it's labelled as a horn, it functions more as a storage and generation organ for electricity, which aids in powering the beast's natural cloaking field. There's also a note in how the horn can be used, both for technological advancements and, oddly enough, cooking! Of course, normal Tsutsujidai students won't care enough to actually go looking around or reading these details. Certainly won't likely believe it's a real creature. Thus, it's perfectly safe for Yuka to have notes and objects here, that could otherwise be a security hazard.
They aren't alone of course. One paying close enough attention can hear rustling sounds behind a door in the lab. It leads of course, to Doctor Ohta's office room. Now whether that IS the doctor or not inside... who can say? Similarly, what somebody might be doing in the room is a complete mystery. But since they're not being bothered, they're perfectly free to look around a while longer, or... If they wanted to take the risk, she probably keeps the COOLEST, most DANGEROUS displays in that office.
<Pose Tracker> Celebro has posed.
"Wow," Namiko says, delightedly, and points at the Neronga horn to indicate it to Hass. "Lookie lookie, this one sounds cool."
Hass steps over, her head tipping. Her habitually sleepy, eye-lidded expression has an air of judgmental boredom about it, somehow. "Mmm. So they identified the electrochemical capacitation multiplication layer," she says beneath her mask. She sounds like she is looking at The Most Boring Object (tm).
Rather than complete her jab, though, Hass looks to the door as rattling occurs within. Her eyes slowly narrow, past tiredness and into curiosity.
"Check it," she says.
Namiko says, a little dully, "Yeah," and steps past the door. Peeeeks into the window, and if she thinks the coast is clear, starts to sneeeeeeak it open.
<Pose Tracker> Yuka Ohta has posed.
It does look more or less clear, despite the sounds. At least through the window. But Namiko can see exactly why that is the moment she opens the door. Dr. Ohta is wriggling around under her desk. Like she's trying to reach something that's fallen between filing cabinets. Largely because that's exactly what she's attempting to do, with arms that are just a little too short to get it.
Also, this office is a complete mess, and filled wall to wall with kaiju stuff. Artwork, books, displays. Far more stuff than she has outside. "Can't lose that one...!" But they're perfectly free to walk in. She's said as such anyway since arriving, that if people want to speak with her, the door's open any time.
<Pose Tracker> Celebro has posed.
"Wowwww," Namiko says, completely not hiding her presence as she steps on in. "Ahh, sorry for the intrusion!" she thinks to add, afterward. She spins around on her heels, looking about at all the Stuff on display. "We were just...looking around, and--oh, did you drop something, teach?"
Hass enters and says ACTUAL nothing. Her gaze crawls along the wall, like she were assessing each and every individual trophy, token, drawing and and article. "Researcher," she mutters.
"Huh? Yeah! Doc Ohta's really into kaiju and stuff." namiko hass is in every class you have, obviously she knows this, "Which is so funny, right, since we basically never see anything like them around here."
"Yes," Hass says, flat. "It is hard to nest in a colonial environment."
<Pose Tracker> Yuka Ohta has posed.
There's an abrupt THUMP when Namiko makes herself known, followed by "Owowowowowowowwwww..." When Yuka pulls herself out into view, she has slight tears in her eyes, behind the now crooked glasses. Still, she tries to look more presentable in the moment. A bit late though. "I just dropped one of my notebooks. It's got information on a special kaiju I've been studying." Specifically, one she's studied since her childhood.
"And yes, I used to lead research and development at a kaiju studies lab before taking up teaching." There's no harm in telling them this was something she did. It's not like any of them are going to go back there.
And definitely nobody in this room is an amoral monster who has a personal problem with that particular lab in question.
"I've seen almost every kaiju catalogued in these notes myself." Not all of them. No, it couldn't be all of them. But definitely all the ones with displays accompanying them. Which is still a particularly large number. "Is there anything about a particular specimen you'd like to learn more of? I tried to make the display notes easier to understand, so I left out my more... hypothetical research avenues from those copies."
<Pose Tracker> Celebro has posed.
"Oh yeah? I think you said that before, right?" Namiko chatters, and then laughs, social and friendly. "Hehehe, I'm trying to be better at remembering stuff." Like teachers' biographies?? She scampers up to the displays, looking over them with curiosity. "Gomess...kind of just a big lizard fella, huh?" she giggles. She laces her hands behind her back and stretches her fingers as she bends over. "And Telesdon...wow, those teeth look nasty!"
Hass says Nothing Whatsoever about STORAGE, though the statement causes her eyes to briefly rake across Yuka with a slow, judgmental scan.
"Guigass," Namiko says. "He looks kinda interesting...Like, he has super ice shoulders!"
"The build is deceptive," Hass says, from behind, where she Suddenly Just Is. "Its stamina is low."
She...when...did she have time to get Yuka's notebook out from under the desk?
Because she did. Because it's open in her hands right now. "Wild Fierce Monster," she says. "Horoboros."
<Pose Tracker> Yuka Ohta has posed.
Namiko starts getting curious about the displays, and of course Yuka can't help talking about them. Providing stories and anecdotes about their capabilities. "Yeah, Gomess has pretty good burrowing and tunneling speeds though. People don't realize... but there have been a few railways made from the paths they leave behind. Telesdon though... its teeth aren't the real threat. It has a flame sac in its stomach, that they can use to shoot fireballs or sustained flamethrower bursts." She's been known to use that exact organ for certain steps of her cooking.
"Guigass isn't espe..." She's cut off by Hass speaking up out of nowhere. "Oh, y-yes actually. Despite their looks, they're rather... not especially fast OR powerful. Outside the special abilities." She stares at the book in Hass's hands. "When d... no, nevermind. Thank you for retrieving that for me." Yuka bows deeply enough her glasses fall off her face, into her hands. And then she says its name. "O-oh yes. This one is something I'm especially interested in. So I've spent a long time gathering every detail I can on it." And making plushies and models of it. And molds. It's an obsession really. But then... it IS her hometown's kaiju after all.
<Pose Tracker> Celebro has posed.
"Oh wow, you wouldn't even think of fire looking at it!" Namiko enthuses. "And tunneling, I didn't even think of that..."
...frankly, she sounds like the kind of person who would be equally enthusiastic if these were pictures of prefectural mascots, but at least she is indeed enthusiastic, and it doesn't seem all that put on. Just a conversationalist, yo!
Hass meanwhile is now a child from the Shining because she is looking
DIRECTLY
at Yuka. She blinks, so slowly it's more like fully closing and then opening her eyes. That pretty sea-blue hair hangs down over her shoulder, looking a bit like it hasn't been brushed lately. "I see. It is personal," she says. "Its traits are interesting."
She takes a full ten seconds too long to hand the book back.
"Its time will be soon," Hass says, and continues to look at Yuka with piercing totality.
Now it's Namiko's turn to suddenly not matter, as if there were nothing unusual at all about Hass' behavior.
<Pose Tracker> Yuka Ohta has posed.
The enthusiasm, in any other situation, would be something Yuka lives for. The kind of thing she tries SO HARD to bring out of students in class. To... mixed results really. UNFORTUNATELY, Hass is staring straight in her eyes. In a way that is just. So, so very inhuman and unsettling. Even the way Yuka is right now, it sends a chill racing up her spine and causes her to have this... feeling. Like something directly squeezing her brain.
Her body is telling her to RUN. And yet all she can do is stare back. Accepting the book when held out. She stumbles over her words, struggling as she is just... So completely off her game right now. "It... is. Yes." ...Incredibly soon in fact. Something feels off about that. But she can't place what. Nor does it rate as even... worth thinking on, compared to the person directly between her and the door.
There's just one. Small issue. Yuka is herself so very... odd. She thinks on it a moment. Namiko doesn't notice anything wrong, so this is probably a prank they wanted to pull on the new teacher. Try to creep her out. That... slightly calms her. So she's able to return a frighteningly manic stare. The same kind that makes military officials want her to stay far, far away. But in this case, the dim, borderline dead and soulless eyes make it so much worse. "Some of my most in depth notes have come from dissection of the creatures and organs... And a few cases of vivisection."
<Pose Tracker> Celebro has posed.
Namiko has, notably, not BEEN this enthusiastic previously, but, well. ...some people are poor classroom learners, you know?
That is probably another thing Yuka's not thinking about on account of Hass giving her the weirdest stare of her life. It's not threatening in itself, but the intensity is simply....not...normal. Indeed, the impulse is to back away. But right now, the both of them are between Yuka and the door. A prank...? But Hass' stare is totally unflagging. And Hass, although a quiet girl, has never been THIS kind of joker.
Namiko is reading the entry on Telesdon, murmuring, "ohhhh," with attention. "So it mixes those two? Heh heh, mixing I know about," she asides, proudly.
Tea club.
But Hass...continues to watch her, even as Yuka attempts to rally. "But not this one," Hass says, and her head tips to the other side, as if attempting to worm into Yuka's soul through her eyes. "You couldn't imagine it for this one...and certainly not as you are now."
<Pose Tracker> Yuka Ohta has posed.
Of course it's possible somebody put them both up to it. Bribed them with something, only needing them to prank the new teacher. Just a little. But she's starting to get the feeling that's not what happened here. Unfortunately. There's a lot of things completely on hold from Yuka's normally active mind right now. Both for this reason and... others.
Knowing their records and club histories isn't helpful either, as this is all so far out of left field. What Hass is saying doesn't help either. Like a laser-guided shot right through her. Pinpointing something she has no way of voicing.
To her, nothing is wrong after all. It's... okay to have given up. ...Isn't it? So what is that pain inside her. Staring into her soul is both easy and difficult at the same time. There's the surface level of course. What anyone can see. And then there's what's buried under the emotional trash right now. Suppressed and imprisoned thoughts the size of a mountain range. All her most dangerous and interesting facets. The way she is now... she's not remotely a threat.
But still, the words shake her to the core, making her slide back to her office chair, so she doesn't just fall over. She's probably going to cry. For what reason? Well, if she doesn't know, why would anyone else?
<Pose Tracker> Celebro has posed.
Namiko looks up. "Eh? You good, teach?"
Hass looks at Yuka like she were looking at an especially uninteresting rock. "...pacified. How boring. You're hardly even a mob, anymore." What...does that mean
She doesn't explain. She turns and walks out. Namiko blinks, and then follows after, trotting like Yuka's wellfare just dropped directly out of her head. "Whatcha mean?" she prompts Hass.
The girl in the blanket stops at the door, and by coincidence finds a mirror to peer at Yuka with in the corner.
"...it means she'll never do anything interesting," she says, and leaves.
Namiko follows, with a big smile and a "Sorry to intrude!" as if the exchange were entirely cordial.
<Pose Tracker> Yuka Ohta has posed.
It's not like Yuka doesn't hear her. The weird WAY she says it goes overhead a bit. But she gets the idea. And every word stabs at something. In her eyes it's obvious even as Hass is leaving. Something in there is cracking. Fighting back maybe? ...But it's an uphill battle. So the odds are she's right.
Yuka, how she is now. Can't do anything of interest. The genius who designed two functional anti-kaiju mecha is just a hollow doll. And nothing is likely to change that. As she sits. Absently watching them leave.
Caring is just too painful. As 'Hass' has so kindly reminded her again.