2022-11-17: Overheating
- Log: 2022-11-17- Overheating
- Cast: Akane Shinjo, Renais Cardiff
- Where: Tsutsujidai High School
- OOC - IC Date: 0096-11-17
- Summary: Akane and Renais catch up poolside at school.
<Pose Tracker> Akane Shinjo has posed.
A nice, normal Thursday. Akane can live with that, even as the need to do something about her last lingering concerns looms large in the back of her mind. She has to... she has to try. Yuta, Rikka, and Utsumi. They need to understand her.
Just... just a little longer. She -- she can't, yet. She needs to have it planned out perfectly -- the perfect scenario, the perfect time to strike.
... she really can't kill much more time here, though. That's a resource in dwindling supply. (International news has finally gotten to her -- and while Tsutsujidai is adrift even from the PLANTs, it's still a little close for comfort.)
... for now, she'll settle for checking in on Tsutsujidai's pool at the end of the day. It's nice for an outdoor pool to be in season year-round, right?
<Pose Tracker> Renais Cardiff has posed.
Arriving at the pool, Akane finds Renais sitting poolside, enrobed completely in a cooling coat, steam rising from her head and pouring in curly wisps out from the front of the coat. Her skin--or at least her face, which is most of what's visible--is unusually pink, and she looks... angry.
Angry at the water.
Angry at thermodynamics.
And, most of all, angry at her body.
She grips her metal wrist tight in her other hand. It's hot enough to sting her palm, but that doesn't deter her; if anything, she grips it tighter.
<Pose Tracker> Akane Shinjo has posed.
Anger's an emotion that's difficult for Akane to deal with sometimes -- but it's fine. She has control, here. Exerting that control wouldn't even require building a(nother) kaiju. She can help.
"Hey," Akane calls, keeping her tone just a little understated as she sees Renais literally steaming; she moves to sit down next to her. (And we do mean next to her. The heat is miserable in a parka hoodie, but when has that ever stopped Akane?)
"Having a hard time?" she asks, glancing between Renais's hands. "The swim team has had really great things to say about you as a coach lately... I'm actually kinda surprised how fast they took to you."
<Pose Tracker> Renais Cardiff has posed.
Renais doesn't answer immediately. She takes a long, slow breath in and out.
"Yeah?" She chuckles half-heartedly, looking over at Akane. "I've been driving 'em pretty hard. Would've expected they'd be moaning and groaning about me, but..." Another long, slow breath. "Well. At least that's one thing I can do right."
"Not doing enough, though," she adds. "I can't stay in the water. Conducts heat okay, but... not enough."
She kicks her leg out of the water, *hard*, sending a splash raining down over the pool. "If I could just... ugh."
Her mind wanders toward Sayla and Guy's offer. Upgraded cybernetics, vat-grown organ replacements... but she'd have to leave...
"I'm glad you're here," she tells Akane, giving her a weak, momentary smile. "Don't want to stew alone."
<Pose Tracker> Akane Shinjo has posed.
"I think maybe they need that kinda thing," Akane says, though she doesn't necessarily sound convinced. "Still, though... it sucks that you can't demo technique for very long. Maybe not a killshot on the coaching thing, but still pretty bad."
So many little annoyances and obstacles. They could make the pool colder, but then the other students might get sick...
... She leans back, letting out a sigh. "Yeah... that's rough. I wish there was something I could do." As gods go, she really is pathetic. Feed the hungry, heal the sick? ... what a joke.
"Hehe... good to be here. You want something to eat? I can get you something cold from the school store. Maybe ramune? I hear that's pretty good for this kinda weather... I usually don't do carbonated drinks though. I like something a little saltier."
She picks up on that wandering mind, though. "Something else bugging you?"
<Pose Tracker> Renais Cardiff has posed.
"Well, they'll be ready for the next competition, at least," comes Renais' reply. GUTS has been arranging intermural events, after all. "We could be fucking 'em up better, though."
"Mn. Some Ramune would be nice," she nods, a little smirk on her lips. "And tomato juice for you? I swear, I've never seen you drink anything else." She sits back a bit, opening the coat to free her arms--and freeing a billow of trapped steam in the process.
Bittersweet, she notes, "I guess I could moonlight as a sauna heater."
"Anyway, I, uh... well. A couple weeks ago, Guy and Sayla came to visit. They didn't push for me to come back or anything, but." She looks over toward Akane. "They told me they'd been talking with some experts, and that they could... well, fix my body. Replace my cybernetics, repair the scarring and damage to my organs... it'd mean leaving--but I couldn't, even temporarily. And I'm probably the most capable fighter we've got, anyway, in case something does happen. I said no."
"But it's been eating at me."
<Pose Tracker> Akane Shinjo has posed.
"I do coffee sometimes!" Akane says, with a little wave. "I guess everything I drink other than tea is pretty red, though..." She thinks about that a bit, but ultimately decides it's whatever. Sometimes you just enjoy the way a drink looks.
"I'll get it in a bit," Akane affirms, before listening to Renais talk about her visit from Guy and Renais. A trip out, to heal...
... Renais wouldn't need that in a world of her own, would she? It's fine. She's just -- deferring changing for the better, that's all. Not... oogh, that's complicated.
"It's good that you're sticking around," Akane says. Not 'thank you,' not 'sorry.' Certainly nothing that raises the spectre of helping and being helped. "I'm surprised, though! I thought you were kinda stuck like that. Cyborg stuff must be changing out there." Only 'out there,' though.
<Pose Tracker> Renais Cardiff has posed.
"Because I needed to be," replies Renais. "I've needed to be strong. Able to fight. But... now, I keep wondering..."
She's quiet a long moment. "You know, if I hadn't been healed by 000, if it weren't for those five years we all lost... if not for all this, I'd probably be close to my expiration date. Dad could only put in so much insulation, and that kinda heat..."
And she's still pushing herself, even now, more than her body can handle.
"Maybe they can figure out a way to do it in here, so I don't have to leave..." She shakes her head. "I'm not too worried about it, though," she lies.
<Pose Tracker> Akane Shinjo has posed.
"I mean, if it came down to it, I bet they'd bring doctors here." Akane looks thoughtful. "Guy and Sayla seem like those kinds of people, you know? They wouldn't just give up on you."
A thought bubbles to mind again immediately -- and just like with Alouette, Akane decides to pose it. "What if you had your own world, though? Then you could make it whatever you wanted. Whatever weather, whatever tools you needed. You could even have a whole new body. It could look just the way you wanted it to look. Work just the way you want it to work."
That's... a little close to too much information to give up freely. "And it could have... any kind of person you want. Someone to help you. Someone to understand you."
Her expression flattens out bit by bit -- so slowly she doesn't notice it's happening.
<Pose Tracker> Renais Cardiff has posed.
The idea seems attractive for a moment, but...
"Honestly... I already have most of that. What's important, anyway." She chews her lip thoughtfully for a moment. "You just said it yourself, they could bring the doctors here, right? And I've got people. People here, people outside... I thought I'd be leaving the friends I made behind, but they're still around. People who want to help me, who want to understand me..."
She gives Akane a look, eyebrow raised. "Like you. Things were rough, but... when it came down to it, you gave me a hand. Brought me here, when things outside got to be too much. It's fucked up to leave you behind when you didn't leave me behind."
<Pose Tracker> Akane Shinjo has posed.
A knot forms in the pit of Akane's stomach. She can't take care of everything for everyone forever -- but no one wants their own world. Akane remembers what Asuka said about how badly she screwed things up for Rikka... which means she shouldn't just start screaming at Renais to leave.
But.
"I guess so," she agrees, though she's slow to work her way around to anything more. Instead of pressing on Renais's thoughts, though -- too close to bone, too painful -- she thinks back to France, and...
"... You said you thought I was helpless, in France," she muses. "Do you still think that?" Her eyes scan over Renais slowly...
<Pose Tracker> Renais Cardiff has posed.
This is an answer Renais doesn't need to hesitate for.
"No," she replies, with total certainty. "If you were helpless, you wouldn't have been able to do all this. I..."
She does pause for a moment, here. "I did think you were. And was angry. Desperate, wanting to... get at your heart, whatever way I could. Getting you mad... maybe getting something stuck in your craw, something you'd have to think about."
"So maybe you'd see what he was doing to you."
She chuckles. "But I haven't seen him since I moved in, not once. Don't know what you did, but... I guess I was wrong, huh?"
<Pose Tracker> Akane Shinjo has posed.
Akane giggles a little bit. That answer, she likes. Yeah. She's not helpless. She doesn't need...
How could someone helpless turn Renais into someone so helpless?
"Ahaha, yeah. It's not like he isn't totally around at all," Akane says, pivoting to Alexis. "He is still helping me a little. But he usually gives me space whenever I'm not... reaching out to someone. We definitely spend a lot less time together." Something about that makes her uneasy. What is Alexis doing, while Akane seizes control of the situation...?
Uugnh, she got the answer she wanted but it's raising so many questions. "I'm glad you're not angry anymore!" comes Akane's enthused answer. "It's actually kinda because of the first time we talked that things are going this way now. Remember when we talked about the Tarabaman suits?"
<Pose Tracker> Renais Cardiff has posed.
Well, that's good, at least.
There's an itch in the back of her brain about him--shouldn't she be more worried?
Her brain slides off the subject.
It's fine.
It's Fine.
"Oh, yeah?" she asks, sitting back a little, "I remember we talked a lot about Powered, didn't we? About how raw the fights were at the start, until they fucked up the suits and had to change direction? Honestly, I gave it a re-watch a couple months ago, they handled the shift *really* well."
Ahem. "Anyway, what's all that got to do with this?"
<Pose Tracker> Akane Shinjo has posed.
"Alexis and I talked about that a little, and we figured out that... kaiju can help you understand other people, too." Akane giggles, starting to pull herself back up -- and gesturing for Renais to do the same.
"I got Alouette to watch with me, too," Akane says. "She liked it too. Anyway -- we should get you that Ramune, right? Help you cool down." Those topics... should stay where they are, for now. They're better off if they just -- get something to drink and start heading home.
"C'mon! I think the school store is gonna close soon..."
How is she going to handle this...? She -- she has to move faster. She has to do something. ... maybe tomorrow night.