2023-01-21: Confession
- Log: 2023-01-21- Confession
- Cast: Akane Shinjo, Rikka Takarada, Alexis Kerib
- Where: Tsutsujidai - South Sluice Gate
- OOC - IC Date: 0097-01-21
- Summary: After so long spent apart, Rikka finally comes to speak to Akane at last, as she dangles over the precipice. Akane finally makes herself heard -- and then she screams.
<Pose Tracker> Akane Shinjo has posed.
There's only so long you can hide in a few square kilometers, even if you're always moving... especially if, on some level, you might want someone to find you.
She's favoring the far shore and its sluice gate more and more, lately -- drifting further and further from Tsutsujidai itself. Her feet have carried her step after barefoot step along... Tsutsujidai's bus routes. When she wasn't certain where she was going, she stayed along the loops, but...
A bus sign marks the end.
This route would lead out to Sakuragaoka in Nouvelle Tokyo, or so it claims -- a place Tsutsujidai can no longer lead, now that it's a PLANT. (... at least, not directly.) It ends at the limits of Tsutsujidai itself, like everything, though.
The terrain here is inconsistent. Much of it is unreal, computerized 'ground,' overlooking a 'river' that flows out to the PLANT's sea. The floodgate remains as it ever was, though, four signs providing warnings about inappropriate courses of action for such a place.
Akane's fallen from greater heights before... by her own admission, even. Still -- the aura of death clings to this spot in a way Tsutsujidai has never quite felt, even after the deaths of the Venora. It feels like hands could shoot up from the abyss of the river and lay claim to someone, here.
It wouldn't be the first time such a floodgate had claimed a human life. Centuries ago, sluice gates further down a river much like this one became places for bodies to wash up -- an aura of a ghost story has surrounded such places ever since.
Akane's always been preoccupied with places like that. Graveyards. Forests. ... is it a wonder that 'a sluice gate that also terminates a bus line' has become her latest haunt?
Blood still clings to her face, caked-on now despite rain that ought to have washed it away weeks ago. (From the start, she'd never been able to let go of the marks of her violence on the world. She'd even buried herself in them yet again, when someone had tried to take them away.)
So here she sits: Tsutsujidai's God, with her bare feet hanging off the edge of a floodgate. Her gaze points straight down, into the water below.
<Pose Tracker> Rikka Takarada has posed.
Rikka has had several projects going. Setting up her concert, working with the rescue team... but there's always been something else in the back of her mind. During her patrols, while scouting out good locations for the concert, she's always been on the lookout for someone. Signs of her movements. Rumors of where she's been. Little by little, tracing her way through her city - her heart - to figure out where she's going, where she'll be next.
It's in the middle of one of these projects that she realises it. Her eyes settle on a bus sign. Sakuragaoka, it claims. Rikka stares at it for a moment, and then... something clicks. A sign leading outside, to an outside that no longer exists...
...Oh.
"I... have to go." Rikka announces. She doesn't bother with one of her lame excuses this time. She just drops what she's doing and breaks into a run. Her stamina has always been... an issue, but she doesn't let that stop her now. She runs, tracing the signs along the bus route until, eventually, she reaches the terminus. There's a sluice gate here, right alongside it. It... it makes sense. Knowing what she's been preoccupied with. Rikka stops for a moment to catch her breath but as she does, she looks up.
Sitting at the top is a small, lonely figure. Akane Shinjo. ...She's finally found her. Rikka takes a deep breath - just as much to get some air back in her lungs as to prepare herself for what's coming next. She makes her way up the steps until, eventually, she reaches the top.
"I've been looking all over for you, Akane." Rikka says. She walks over to her and then carefully lowers herself down next to her, joining her in sitting on the edge.
<Pose Tracker> Akane Shinjo has posed.
Akane realizes Rikka is here before she even speaks -- but she allows her to take the initiative in the conversation nevertheless. When she says she's been looking all over for her, her first response is a question -- just a single word:
"Why?"
As Rikka settles in on the edge of the gate, though -- the answer occurs to her, like it's the most obvious thing in the world. "... because of what I did to Hibiki-kun?" It's hard for her to keep up the facade of an uncaring god, at this point; the honorific gives much away.
She can't look Rikka in the face... but what might bode well, at least here, is that her gaze moves steadily up. Her eyes no longer point into the abyss.
... but they're not that far out of the abyss, unfortunately. "If you'd just killed me sooner," she points out, "none of this would have happened." Her arms hang limply at her sides, and she admits, "Maybe what I did to Renais, Alouette, and the others wouldn't have happened either."
What I almost did to you, she thinks to herself -- but she can't hide the guilt. It's plain on her face.
<Pose Tracker> Rikka Takarada has posed.
Hibiki-kun. It says a lot that she refers to him that way. It never was that she didn't care, even if she tried to act that way. In lieu of an answer, Rikka looks at her. Akane doesn't look back, but... her gaze isn't quite fixated on what lies below them anymore. It's a small step... but only a step.
Akane continues, then, pointing out that none of this would have happened if she'd just killed her sooner. Yuta wouldn't have been stabbed. Renais, Alouette, and the others would have gone on with their lives like normal. And... Akane doesn't say it, but Rikka can read the guilt on her face. Can read her. It's Rikka's turn to stare down, now, studying the waters below. She clasps in her hands in her lap. …It hurts, to hear her say that. This isn’t the first time she has. This time, though… it feels different. So, she has to ask.
"...Why?" She murmurs. "Why is that all you think about?"
<Pose Tracker> Akane Shinjo has posed.
"..." A brief moment passes between them. Akane takes a breath -- and that's all she can manage, yet. Resignation permeates her voice as she admits, simply: "Can't help it."
There's another long silence. Nothing punctuates it. No new thought presents itself.
... eventually, though -- Akane fills the silence. Emptiness makes her uneasy.
"I think I... was lying," she murmurs. "When I told you what I wanted was for everyone to have a nice dream." It's difficult for her to find the words. But... she's trying, for once. Maybe it's because she feels there's little and less left to lose.
"I wanted them to feel just as hollow as I did. Seeing them keep trying for a world like that made me so mad. I hate watching people hurt themselves doing pointless stuff. And... if you're empty enough, you stop hurting." It takes her time to find the words.
She doesn't even realize that this is just as much an admission she wanted to spare them pain as what she'd said back then. As far as she's concerned, the anger taints it.
Some great, horrid soundless noise is welling up in Akane -- a mirthless laugh, a scream of rejection, some deep, dark hunger to die and to kill. All of these and more crawl over each other, drowning each other out, cacophonous.
Her hand comes up to push her glasses just slightly up her nose. "Pretty much everything from out there is already empty. How can you see the stuff that isn't and not want to strangle it and cut it up?"
... Akane's from 'out there,' too. Is Akane simply asking a rhetorical question about what she did, or... is this a question about why Rikka won't do what she keeps goading her to do?
<Pose Tracker> Rikka Takarada has posed.
Akane admits that she can't help it. Rikka looks down... but she doesn't scold or admonish her for that. There's a long silence. Eventually, Akane's the one who breaks it. She speaks her mind and it hurts to hear... but, these feelings are as much Akane's as anything. If she's willing to, then Rikka is willing to listen. She can pick up on it, though, that admission between the lines... And so, she elects to drag it to the surface.
"...You wanted to keep them from hurting the same way you did." Rikka points out. And then, Akane laughs. A horrible, mirthless laugh. Rikka flinches a little to hear it, but she doesn't try to block it out or cover her ears. Instead, she listens as Akane continues.
"Did you always feel that way?" Rikka asks. But she dwells on it a bit more. Rhetorical question or not, she continues. "I think... just because something is 'empty', it doesn't mean it has to stay that way. It isn't... easy, or simple. It takes time, care, and attention... but I don't think it's a lost cause. It's just... a process."
<Pose Tracker> Akane Shinjo has posed.
Rikka spotting the contradictions makes Akane flinch. Even she knows that doesn't make sense, ultimately, even if it's probably true. Prevent them from hurting the same way she did -- by hurting them the same way she was hurt.
Feelings continue to roll over each other, none of them good -- like so many grasping hands trying to drag her deep into the mire of her soul. Akane gives voice to... at least some of them. But there's so much there. She could read out her grievance forever and loop back to its beginning without realizing she'd reached its end.
"It doesn't matter if I always felt that way or not!" Akane cries, shouting it to the river as if she's pitching it off the edge. "If I felt better than that, it's because I was too dumb to know better."
When Rikka tells her that empty things don't have to stay that way, though -- all she can do is stumble. Her mouth opens and closes soundlessly, twice, as if she's trying to find a way to say how ridiculous she thinks that thought is.
... but she knows better. Because Rikka's made it clear that she can do that. For all she'd been desperate to undercut it during their last meeting... Rikka really is a hero.
"Even if that's true," Akane starts, "I don't know why -- well, no." She pitches forward just a tiny bit... but it's only to lean back again. "... if you really feel that way," she says, "you could probably do a lot of good out there. Lots of empty people for you to fill up. But eventually you'll empty out too. And they're not going to see you as someone who needs the help back."
<Pose Tracker> Rikka Takarada has posed.
Akane flinches, and Rikka notices. She studies her for a second. Had she noticed it before then? Or was that her realising it for herself? ...It's a start, either way. She tucks that away for now. Akane cries out, her shout ringing in the air. Rikka frowns.
"...It does matter." She asserts, before her gaze softens. "...You're not dumb, Akane. You weren't then, and you aren't now. Something happened."
Akane stumbles and Rikka doesn't interrupt her mental stumbling, letting her work her way through it as she tries and fails a few times to respond. Eventually, she does. Rikka considers her for a moment, before looking back out to the water.
"...That's a possibility." Rikka admits with a nod. "But if that happens... I know I have people by my side who will be there to pick me up. I don't plan on shouldering the world's burdens all on my own."
...After that, though, she shakes her head.
"...But... I'm not worried about everyone outside right now. Right now... I just want to help someone I care about more than anything." Rikka murmurs.
<Pose Tracker> Akane Shinjo has posed.
Rikka admitting that she could be hurt -- emotionally, rather than just physically -- actually startles Akane out of her mental rhythm. It's not the only thing that keeps her out of it, either.
Akane's not used to questions like this -- not with this kind of clarity in what's being asked, and what it implies. It makes her uneasy, but not because she doesn't want to answer.
If anything, it's the opposite. She wants so desperately to answer, but the idea of deserving the care that'll come from answering...
... it upsets her enough to stand up. At the very least, it means she's not sitting on the precipice anymore. "You don't need to help me!" she practically pleads. "This doesn't have to involve you at all!!"
The offer of help still stings. Even if it's coming from Rikka -- no, maybe especially if it's coming from Rikka -- it feels so meaningless.
She hates watching other people do pointless stuff.
"Just -- go find Sayla, or 3G, or -- SOMETHING!" Akane cries, turning her body away from Rikka. "This doesn't have to be this way! Not for you! It's why I tried to get you to le --"
Talking about all these topics like this rapidfire, instead of just pushing Rikka away bit by bit... leads to something that trips Akane herself up. If she really thought the outside world was so unnavigable and cruel -- why has she tried to throw Rikka out into it, time and again?
"You found stuff you could love out there! The first time you left -- that Sheryl Nome concert --" She knows what she's getting at, but putting the words in order has gotten difficult. "Every time you went out there you found something new!! You could just stay gone! You'd be happy!!"
Her hands ball up into tiny little fists. "Asuka was right," she mutters. Then, more loudly: "I screwed you up bad."
<Pose Tracker> Rikka Takarada has posed.
Akane stands and pleads with her. She doesn't need to help her. This doesn't have to involve her. Rikka stares down, quietly.
"...It already involves me. How could it not involve me?" Rikka asks, shaking her head. "I'm not going to just - leave you."
Akane shouts at her, cries out, for her to find Sayla, 3G, or something - anything else. She catches herself in a contradiction, and Rikka takes that opportunity to stand, looking back toward her.
"You're right, I did. I experienced so many things, met so many people, made great friends, but..." Rikka shakes her head. "...I'd never be happy - not if it meant leaving everyone I love behind here. Leaving you behind."
Akane continues, her hands balled into fists. That one - that one actually hurts a little. Rikka breathes in, and for a moment she's without words.
"...Did she... actually say that? Do you really think that?" Rikka asks. "...No one... no one 'screwed me up'. There's nothing wrong with me. This is who I am."
<Pose Tracker> Akane Shinjo has posed.
Every word hurts more than the last. It's hard for Akane to feel like this is anything more than her having forced Rikka to be the sort of person who can handle the 'world the gods come from' -- a cruel, messy world indeed. Better to be someone kind and helpless than someone able to adapt to -- that.
... it's hard not to be honest about this. "Yeah. We talked about that after I attacked the school festival," she answers. It seems like she's starting to level off -- if only a tiny bit. "She said when I told you I made all of you, I wrecked everything. She asked me to make someone whose only purpose was to love me, to prove I could do better and fix things. That I was just some stupid sad girl if I couldn't. And she's kind of right."
The part of her that just wants to grind her own face in her sins until she breaks seizes on that. "It's why I made her be that someone when I had the chance. I didn't want things to be better for her! I just wanted to RUB HER STUPID FACE IN IT!" Her arms move in toward her body, just a bit, at the elbows.
"What's that," Akane murmurs, "if not someone who screws everyone around her up?"
<Pose Tracker> Rikka Takarada has posed.
Akane talks honestly about what happened, about her talk with Asuka after she attacked the school.
"...That's sounds like something she would've said. I'm sorry, it sounds like she really hurt you..." Rikka murmurs sympathetically. It must've struck deep - was she concerned about them...? ...But, Akane tries to punish herself over it and Rikka frowns, taking a step closer toward her to try and head it off.
"...I don't think that's true. If spite was your only motivation, I don't think it would've worked like it did." Rikka says. "...And I don't see you that way. You shouldn't... think about yourself like that, either."
<Pose Tracker> Akane Shinjo has posed.
Akane lets out a ragged half-sigh as she gets that apology on Asuka's behalf -- and actually flinches when she's told she shouldn't think about herself like that.
"... can't help it," she admits, for the second time. Her shoulders slump a bit.
Akane doesn't turn... but she doesn't move away from Rikka either, this time. "Don't follow me," she begs -- having Rikka get closer to her feels so heavy, here, now. 'Terrifying' might be closer.
"Did you already forget -- the last time someone tried to get close to me because they were worried about something like this?" she asks, a little halting but starting to build to that same place of self-frustration. "Hibiki-kun is dead!"
She still doesn't know.
<Pose Tracker> Rikka Takarada has posed.
'Can't help it', Akane admits. Rikka nods quietly. ...But, she begs her not to follow her. Reminding her of what happened last time someone tried to get close to her. Seeing her like that, though... how could Rikka possibly not follow her?
And... all this time, she still thought she killed Yuta. Had she been living with that pain this whole time...?
"Akane... Yuta, he's not dead. You didn't kill him." Rikka says, making sure to stress the second part for her sake. "After you left, we were able to stop the bleeding and get him to the hospital. There are... a lot of good doctors in Tsutsujidai, now."
"...I'm not afraid." She murmurs. She takes a step forward, but takes a moment to gauge Akane's reaction before getting any closer.
<Pose Tracker> Akane Shinjo has posed.
"What...?"
It wasn't that long ago that she'd informed Alexis that Gridman was dead, and he'd simply accepted that. Said that Anti had become the next Gridman in line.
"But... I stabbed him," she says, as if it wasn't part and parcel with Rikka's answer.
Those horrible feelings in Akane... stop crawling over each other for a bit. The grasp of the abyss... doesn't let go, but it weakens. Rikka's lack of fear, though -- that's...
"Of course you're not afraid of me!" Everything comes roaring back. "I set you up to be that way! I made you think we were friends! Everything here is set up just the way I wanted --"
If that were true, why would she have needed kaiju, even before Gridman's arrival?
If that were true, why would her world have had imperfect people in it at all?
If that were true, why would she be so desperate to end a world she wanted so very badly to comfort her?
Akane finds she has no answer for the contradictions, again. Her mouth stays open for a few seconds after she cuts herself off. Air escapes her throat with a low, cracking, dehydrated noise, as she struggles to say anything further.
<Pose Tracker> Rikka Takarada has posed.
Rikka takes in Akane's surprise and disbelief as she registers what she said.
"He's okay now." Rikka reiterates. She has to let her know. But... Akane lashes out at her. Rikka watches her, lets her get out everything she needs to get out. When Akane stops, her mouth hung open, Rikka takes another step forward toward her.
"Of course I'm not afraid of you." Rikka repeats, confirms, with a nod. She doesn't take issue with it. By now... She's okay with it. After all...
"You and I are friends, Akane." She insists. "...I don't need any other reason to be born than that."
'Just the way she wanted', huh...
<Pose Tracker> Akane Shinjo has posed.
Akane tries to find some answer for Rikka.
Every one of them dies in her throat. She's left speechless.
Rikka keeps challenging her, every step of the way -- but not in a way that feels cruel, or thoughtless. She's a far cry from 'someone who'd be easy to be friends with.'
That thought turns over in Akane's head. How much control does she have? How much control did she ever have?
... and if she never really had any -- what does that say about the undercurrent of fear in their interactions from last spring to now?
She turns. It's not all the way yet. It's impossible to bring herself to face Rikka, even now -- but she might be entertaining it.
If she didn't kill Hibiki, and she never really had any power over Rikka... the only thing in her way is herself. Just as it always was, of course --
-- but how do you oppose 'God' with just your feelings?
Her body shifts just a little further. ... it's all she can muster.
<Pose Tracker> Rikka Takarada has posed.
Akane is left speechless. Rikka doesn't try to overwhelm her. She waits to see if there's anything she wants to say.
Akane doesn't say anything. But... she does shift a little. Just slightly. It's not a lot, but... it's enough. Rikka smiles, gentle and understanding.
...She gets it now, she thinks. There's a question that has gone unasked. Maybe she was afraid of asking it before, afraid of what the answer might be. ...But as she said. She's not afraid, now.
"What do you think of me, Akane?" Rikka asks. She doesn't ask anything further of her - lets her approach the question however she feels like.
<Pose Tracker> Akane Shinjo has posed.
Akane struggles to find the words, and has to wonder if she'll ever have them -- but she's stuck on the question. The question demands that she say something in response.
It's so simple. It's just... the littlest bit of a different angle than the questions she always gets about why she's doing things, or the offers of help she receives. The way she's been shown she could be loved has been, over and over, the way she, herself, does -- by offering care. This isn't an offer. It's a request, and one she can't ignore. All it requires from her is to want.
A kaiju is a creature of so much unaddressed want. When you fancy yourself a kaiju -- a creature that carves its unaddressed want into the landscape, sixty meters high and more, and not sixty inches and less -- isn't 'expressing those wants' just second nature?
There's no way for her to make that question into a different question. It's not about anyone else, and it doesn't ask anything of her that leaves her feeling incapable.
So why won't it come?
She thinks back to even before Gridman arrived. She'd wanted so badly to get close to her. They'd definitely connected -- at school, before Gridman arrived... Akane had been really trying for Rikka's sake, in ways that weren't always obvious.
She's never been one for photos, and had to shove a balloon halfway in front of her face to manage it... but there is a photo of them together, during Namiko's birthday party during first year. It had been so important to her to have a picture of the two of them, together, visibly smiling... that she'd sucked it up and done it.
... maybe that's a more important memory than everything else that comes to mind. More than the horrible things she's done since then. Rikka's always been someone who could get Akane to suck it up and try.
That's a far cry from a friend who'll never challenge you.
The cacophony within Akane subsides. The loudest thing in her -- in a way that hasn't been true in more than a year now -- is her own small voice, and it says, as she starts to turn again --
"I --"
<Pose Tracker> Alexis Kerib has posed.
What greets her is not Rikka's gaze.
Alexis has placed himself between them -- at strain, to be sure. Moving within a gaze line is always much, much more difficult. But for this?
Of course.
"Please, allow me to interrupt this pointless conversation," Alexis announces.
He remains still, having cut through the moment. "Please hurry it up, Akane-kun. You're needed after all; there's much more than I can deal with with what I have on hand, with so many representatives of the Federation and the friends of our dear Doctor Mass present."
<Pose Tracker> Akane Shinjo has posed.
Akane stares up at Alexis. Her expression flattens out.
She can't keep the fear out of her voice, though. This is not the bland, flat tone she's taken with Alexis before. Nothing could hide the way her voice wavers. She looks so impossibly small.
"I can't make kaiju anymore," she says, weakly. Please, she thinks. Let this end. Just let this end.
The roar of the monsters inside her surges back, louder than ever --
<Pose Tracker> Alexis Kerib has posed.
Perfect.
"Ah. I think there's been a misunderstanding," Alexis declares.
There's no anger in his voice, no insistence -- but his tone has gotten much firmer than the hapless face he's shown before. The kindly uncle facade is gone.
"I'm fine with you becoming a kaiju yourself."
He looks down at the unmoving form before him -- the one that has spent so much time carving kaiju from clay.
Every teal panel on his face lights up in a rictus smile.
He, too, knows what it means to carve something into a better vessel for your malice.
"Instance --"
<Pose Tracker> Akane Shinjo has posed.
-- coalescing into a scream, a single word --
<Pose Tracker> Alexis Kerib has posed.
"ABREACTION!"
The floodgate alights in a bright crimson starburst -- blinding. Visible for miles.
The world around Akane quakes violently, enveloped in the madder tone of her heart.
<Pose Tracker> Akane Shinjo has posed.
"NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO --"
Her eyes open impossibly wide, her pupils shrinking. Part of her feels like it's being torn out through her eyes, through her mouth --
"--OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!"
A creature takes shape at the heart of the city, rising as if from nothing. Her cry twists into its cry. It dwarfs most of the kaiju Akane herself has made --
-- which also begin to appear at the other end of the city, twisted into some horrible new shape, with countless heads. The wreckage of her malice now has a new sense of shared fate.
<Pose Tracker> Alexis Kerib has posed.
Alexis elects to appreciate his handiwork. He doesn't seem to notice Rikka at all.
<Pose Tracker> Rikka Takarada has posed.
Akane takes a while to find the words, but that's okay. Rikka is fine with waiting for her. She'll wait as long as it takes, give her as much time as she needs. And, right as Akane starts to turn, right as she opens her mouth to speak and the chaos within her begins to subside...
He appears.
"Alexis!" Rikka gasps. She has to move to see Akane behind him. She looks so small, and there's fear in her voice... and Alexis, any semblance of kindness is gone from his. She realises what he's planning as soon as he says it. It's not something she realised could happen. Before she can do anything... Instance Abreaction. Red light fills the world.
"Akane!" Rikka cries out, reaching for her - but she is no longer here. There is, instead, a kaiju - echoing her cry. Rikka stares out, in pained horror... and then, she whirls on Alexis, anger in her eyes. "How could you...!?"
<Pose Tracker> Alexis Kerib has posed.
Alexis muses aloud, "A human that can make kaiju is surely a strange beast (kaiju) themselves," looking out toward his handiwork. His mask allows no glimpse into what he's feeling... but he does seem to be having a good time entertaining himself with wordplay.
Rikka turns to face him, demands some answer -- and at first, he elects to play coy. "My, my. Such anger..." He trails off, head canting very slightly to one side as he looks her over.
"Um... who are you, again...?" he asks, and for an instant, it sounds sincere.
... it's apparent that Alexis is a creature sincerity has long left behind, though. There's no feeling in anything he says, anything he does -- just a void.
<Pose Tracker> Rikka Takarada has posed.
Rikka hears Alexis's musings. She looks up at him, at that expressionless mask. He addresses her, then. Commenting on her anger. Rikka exhales. ...Right. Anger isn't going to help when dealing with him. She's still angry as hell at him, of course. That's not likely to change. She just can't let it guide her into doing anything stupid when there's more important things at stake right now.
"...Rikka Takarada. I'm one of Akane's friends." She reminds him. She wonders if he actually forgot, or if he's doing it on purpose. She wouldn't put it past him. His tone isn't telling - and nothing else about him is, either.
...It's a little unnerving, now, when she's become used to so much more.
<Pose Tracker> Alexis Kerib has posed.
"A friend, hm?" Alexis asks, his tone... smug. "One of many, come to hope she'll change for the sake of a love she doesn't feel?"
He doesn't chortle. But the way the teal panels of his face light up... it's obvious he'd LOVE to.
"Wouldn't that be nice."
He luxuriates in that for a moment, as the kaiju he's created -- and recreated -- continue to get their bearings. "A counterfeit human, born of kaiju created by Akane-kun. A fabricated human. 'Repli-Compoid.'"
The monster Alexis carved screams -- and even twisted around like this, even as that scream topples buildings... there's some part of it that's very human, and all it can say is:
'No!'
"You, a creation Akane-kun made for her own benefit. A creation who thinks she's human. A creation who believes her God is her friend."
Still... there's part of him that wants to hear more from her, in spite of it. This beat in his own story, after all... is one for which he remained on the sidelines.
"What do you think, then, as her 'friend'? Of this... Hm, no." He pauses. No, that's not quite right.
"Of the two worlds you know. Of this tiny city, with its rotting husk of a god -- and the world that drove her to make this one." ... You know, why not place his thumb just a little on the scale. "The world she was so desperate to spare you -- only to see every one of its worst excesses visited upon you within hers."
<Pose Tracker> Rikka Takarada has posed.
Alexis's smug tone... Rikka hates it. She doesn't know him well enough to know what the movement of his face panels means for sure, but his words and the way he speaks give her a pretty good idea.
"...I don't think you know her nearly as well as you'd like to think you do." Rikka replies coolly. Alexis lists off things that she is. She knows them already. She's okay with them, now. In the distance, Akane - the kaiju she has become - moves. She screams and Rikka is distracted from Alexis just briefly, her eyes softening in concern before looking back to Alexis as he asks a question of her.
"Don't talk about Akane like that." She insists, before continuing.
"I think... it's all too easy for you to see the worst in things, isn't it? To only view them in the worst possible light." Rikka replies. "I'm not naive. I don't think the world is wholly... good. It needs work. It could be kinder - should've been kinder to her. But while I might have seen its worst, I've seen its best, too. Both worlds have given me so many precious, irreplaceable memories. You could see it for yourself, too, if you looked."
<Pose Tracker> Alexis Kerib has posed.
"Do you honestly think that if she had simply -- been treated more kindly, things would have changed?" Alexis asks -- though there's part of him that's left to wonder at her last words. Something he could see for himself, if he looked...
... it draws his thoughts backward. "Don't presume to know what and how I see," he says, and for an instant, he sounds... it's difficult to parse out whether it's vicious anger or well-restrained hurt. There's something there, though.
... but he moves past it. "If you're truly so desperate to prove me wrong, though, by all means. Try whatever you like. Humanity cannot be saved by something born of the human heart. Akane-kun hasn't changed in the time you've known her." He muses, "It's my favorite thing about her."
He seems to slide through the world -- ceding space to Rikka. "... How unfortunate for you," he muses. "Thoughtless, foolish, and shallow -- to come to give a simple, flat feeling to someone hollow, shallow, and superficial, all for the sake of a world with no substance." It's hard to be sure which world he considers so empty.
Fully facing the chaos as it blooms, he says, "I look forward to seeing what you do -- with the transparent emotion of a fool."
<Pose Tracker> Rikka Takarada has posed.
"I think it would've helped. But... in the end, you're the one who made her this way." Rikka accuses. Is that a moment of hesitation from him? And the words that come next... Something seeps into his tone. Anger or hurt - either way, it's proof that he can feel something, and that her words have an effect.
"...It's hard not to. For someone wearing a mask, you make it pretty easy to see your face for someone willing to look." Rikka replies. He proceeds. Akane hasn't changed - and that's his favorite thing about her. ...Huh. Rikka shakes her head. If he's going to challenge her, then she'll take him up on it.
"Then I'll prove it. We'll show it to you. Even if that's the case, we'll change her." Rikka declares - promises. He cedes some space. She doesn't pursue. She could lash out at him again with her words, but... she doesn't. Instead, she just tilts her head.
"...I think it's up to us to decide if that's unfortunate or not." She replies. He turns to look at the chaos unfolding and she turns, looking back at him just briefly.
"...Good. Keep your eyes on us, Alexis Kerib. Don't look away. We'll show you what the human heart is capable of." Rikka replies. She turns to leave, then, unless stopped. She can't stay here indulging him when Akane needs her. She knows what she has to do, now - and it's something only she can do.
<Pose Tracker> Alexis Kerib has posed.
"... Even still, hm?"
Alexis watches Rikka move away.
"Try as much as you like."
He, too, has places to be, better vantages to watch from than these -- so once she turns away and he's said his piece, he, too, is gone.