2023-03-01: Face Darkness As A Friend
- Cast: Gai Kurenai, Shozo
- Where: Tsutsujidai - Southern Sluice Gate
- Date: U.C. 0097 03 01
- Summary: Awareness drawn to Earth by the psychic distress caused by 2023-02-28:_She_Loved_Her_Baths, Ultraman Orb is caught off-guard by the appearance of a being fundamentally opposed to his Light... But resolves to refuse to greet Shozo as an enemy.
<Pose Tracker> Gai Kurenai has posed.
The Southern Sluice Gate of Tsutsujidai metaphorically represents the limits of the space, and so inherently draws liminal beings like Gai Kurenai.
The strange green-and-blue circuit-riddled matter is still protruding from under the pretension of concrete and grass in places, but the wanderer dressed as a cowboy isn't looking down.
He's looking upward and outward, staring through the transparent polymer barrier at the green-and-blue marble that is Earth, one eye half-lidded as he rubs his temple.
Sometimes being so sensitive to distress is painful.
<Pose Tracker> Shozo has posed.
"Ah! It's Ultraman!"
Standing behind Gai, having climbed up onto one of the sluice gates with a ball in his hands, is Shozo, the alien boy staring at the wanderer with his bizarre alien eyes. In one fluid move, he HOPS off the gate, landing next to him, and looking up, his very essence radiating an uncomfortable strangeness.
"Wow... I've never seen a real Ultra before... Mr. Ultraman, did you come to kill me?" He suddenly looked down at his pocket, pulling out the Battlenizer.
"No Mister, I don't think it matters if I've done anything bad yet. Does it?" He looks back up at Gai.
"Does it, Ultraman Orb?"
<Pose Tracker> Gai Kurenai has posed.
A flicker.
DANGER.
Gai whirls, immediately dropping into a battle stance. His feet move, and in the span of a blink he has cleared five metres between them, Orb Ring in his hand, deep dark eyes staring into Shozo's... unnatural pair.
Tension hangs in the air.
A single leaf, disturbed from its tree by Gai's abrupt passing, touches the ground.
(In the Inner Space, Gai argues with himself a hundred times over... and remembers a young man with a similar touch to his aura who was nevertheless a 'Donshine' of joy and light.)
The Crusader of Light lowers the Orb Ring and forcibly relaxes. "I don't fight anyone who hasn't done anything wrong," he says firmly. "Even if you have... that kind of power, we don't have to be enemies."
"... If you're determined to fight anyway, I'd like to hear a reason for it first."
<Pose Tracker> Shozo has posed.
Shozo tilts his head at Gai, looking visibly perplexed.
"Is that how it works?" He looks down at the Battlenizer again, "I thought you said that any Ultra would destroy- oh. As long as I'm not acting like my father?" Shozo looks back up at Gai, scratching his head.
"There may have been a, um... misunderstanding." Shozo sits on the embankment. "I don't want to fight or anything, I just, um... assumed you were here to destroy me." Under Gai's gaze, the boy looks... very, very small.
<Pose Tracker> Gai Kurenai has posed.
Gai shakes his head, smiling. "I have somebody very dear to me who walked the path of darkness, who chooses now to try his best to help humans in need. ... Well, we also fought, a lot, back in the day, but I think we would both like things to be different, now."
He grins wryly. "If the world were as simple as Light Versus Darkness... Ironically, I don't think Ultramen would be needed."
"I am here in this reality because the space we're standing in was used as a trap for an innocent child, to turn her self-hatred upon herself a hundred times over and make her into a monster. I helped save her. I am here - " he waves to indicate this specific part of the tiny ward - "because it gives me the best view of this Earth."
He sits cross-legged on the verge of the canal. "I would like to hear about you - and, please, call me Gai at this size. It is the name I had before I gained my power, and I'm pretty fond of it."
<Pose Tracker> Shozo has posed.
Shozo nods at Gai's request, looking... a little relieved he's not about to be obliterated by a beam.
"OK, Mr. Gai. Borr's told me about the city a few times now. Alexis is still pretty proud of it..." He stares out for a minute, barely aware of the important names he's just dropped, before looking back up.
"Oh, my name's Shozo by the way!" He holds out a hand to shake, but keeps talking, like he's not exactly sure how a handshake works.
"I'm not sure exactly what you need to know about me, but I'll answer any questions! That's what I'm supposed to do, right?" He looks down at his Battlenizer again.
"No, I don't think he's from the Land of Light. His shine seems different from how you described them."
<Pose Tracker> Gai Kurenai has posed.
"Shozo." Gai shakes the offered hand. "It's nice to meet you!"
"I don't need to know anything about you, but... I like to get to know people." He smiles warmly. "How long have you been here in this place, for instance?"
Ah, yeah, he's definitely talking to his transformation item. Gai's seen stuff just as unusual. "I got my power from Crusader's Peak on Planet O-50," he says, answering the implied question. "Several realities ago, now."
He tilts his head. "You have access to a database, huh? Knowledge about Ultramen? When I first got my powers I suddenly knew a bunch of stuff I didn't before."
<Pose Tracker> Shozo has posed.
Shozo shakes Gai's hand, smiling now.
"Oh, I showed up here... a few weeks ago? It feels longer. I've been staying with Borr since I came here!" His smile widens, thinking of his caretaker.
"It's been nice, learning how to be a person."
At the mention of O-50, his alien eyes sparkle. "Oooh, I've heard of O-50! It's the place where anyone can become an Ultra or a kaiju if they make it to the top, right?"
At the mention of a database, Shozo tilts his head again.
"Uh... Sorta? When my dad made me, he put some stuff in my head for him to use when he was going to be using me, but he didn't really get the chance, so I just have knowledge floating around in my head." He lifts the Battlenizer again. "Mister here helps me process n' figure out what I'm seeing sometimes."
<Pose Tracker> Gai Kurenai has posed.
"Oh, I know Borr. They're a good being, if a little violent." He grins, nodding. "Only a few weeks... Mm. Learning how to be a person is very important." Or re-learning it, as the case may be.
"Yes, that planet. It's where I and my dear partner got our powers. I wouldn't recommend the climb, though." He grins a little.
"Who is your 'dad'? The one who made you?" He's keeping his eyes on the young being, seemingly fascinated.
<Pose Tracker> Shozo has posed.
Shozo cringes ? finally, someone has actually asked. Nobody has bothered to inquire further about his parentage up to now, and that's made it a bit easier for him to not get... assaulted by the people who have up to now been very nice. Alexis clearly knew, but... Shozo doesn't want to think about him at the moment.
"My father..." He uses his words carefully, as though he were synthesizing a sentence the way he did when he first arrived at Tsutsujidai.
"I have two creators. One was the Otherdimensional Demon Yapool, who created my body with intent to use as a tool. The other is the Ultimate Life Form Alien Rayblood, who altered my body. Both of them intended to possess me, neither were able to because of one another. As such, I am here. I call them my fathers because I don't have a better thing to call them. Creators doesn't feel right."
Yapool. Rayblood. Two of the most monstrous entities to ever scourge the multiverse. No wonder a shade of Riku can be seen in this child -- he's the child of the monster that corrupted Belial.
<Pose Tracker> Gai Kurenai has posed.
"Yapool and Rayblood." Gai nods. "That certainly explains the feeling I get from you. I didn't know such a thing was possible."
He smiles reassuringly. "Do not be afraid. As I said; I do not fight without good reason. As long as you do no harm, we do not have to be enemies. Besides - it would be hypocritical of me to judge others for being powered by darkness."
He slowly opens the holster worn on his hip, drawing a card from it and flipping it to face Shozo. A flash of purple energy, and the leering snarl of Ultraman Belial projects from the card. "Belial-san has given me strength in my lowest moments, and helped me to understand the darkness in my own heart."
Slotting the card back into the holster, he relaxes. "What are the extent of your abilities?" He looks back out, up to Earth. "Can you... feel that?"
To those attuned to the psychic plane, a smog of nightmare clouds the planet - possessive hands wreathed in purple, trying to lay claim to people it desires, drawing back to a single source.
"Someone is crying out for help."
<Pose Tracker> Shozo has posed.
Shozo looks relieved -- the look in his eyes indicated that he was waiting for /some/ kind of punishment, that will now mercifully not come. As Gai shows him the Belial card, he lets out an involuntary "Ooh!" and leans in to look at it closer.
"It's got some of my father's power in it. Does it let you control monsters too?" As Gai points upwards, into the sky, Shozo looks up at the writhing cloud of possessive darkness and nods.
"Yeah, it feels the place I came from. I don't know that I see it the same as you, but there's something big out there, huh? What is it?"
<Pose Tracker> Gai Kurenai has posed.
"No, it lets me draw on some of the nature of Ultraman Belial himself, if I use another card to balance it out. With Zoffy-san's help too, I can borrow the powers of Darkness and Light."
"Mm. Pain and possessive grasping, but... it feels forced, somehow. Perhaps if you... concentrate, you can hear the hearts of the people it's affecting?"
"I don't know exactly how the powers you've inherited would interact with this phenomenon. What does it make you feel, other than it's like home?"
<Pose Tracker> Shozo has posed.
Shozo crosses his arms, trying to parse what he was experiencing.
"Mmm... Hearts are hard, but... it's an immense unbalance, y'know? Something that was meant to be gone by now, dragging its way back into reality..." His eyes unfocus as he continues to speak.
"It still has tethers, in the souls of those who it touched -- or perhaps wounded. It would sooner drag everyone into the void than allow itself to accept any sort of light." He looks over at Gai, and the Ultraman can see something from far, far outside reality in his gaze. "It hates for the sake of hatred now. My father would love it."
<Pose Tracker> Gai Kurenai has posed.
It is deeply unsettling to see that strange unworldly energy in Shozo's eyes - the Light within him cries out to protect himself - but Gai steels himself, nodding grimly. "It comes and goes, at regular intervals. I dread to think what that means. Every time I feel it I try to observe it, to get more information, but I fear I'm too far away."
"I feel as though you are not wrong, that it's latching on to the people it's hurting to hurt them all the more." He stands up, starting to pace carefully. "I promised my partner I'd watch over this place for him, but this..." He's now not looking at Shozo at all, fixated on the distant planet.
A moment passes, then he forces himself to turn back to Shozo. "I'm glad you're taking time to learn about the world, even as messed-up as it can be."
<Pose Tracker> Shozo has posed.
The Shozo Gai had been talking to returns, along with a sense of... something like sadness.
"I like the world. I think it's a wonderful place, and I think I would one day like to be part of it." The words don't quite sound right coming out of an innocent face like Shozo's.
"I'm sure your partner knows you're doing your best. He's down on Earth, right?" He points to something invisible next to Gai. "There's a tether connecting you to someone, I assume him. It's the biggest and brightest I've ever seen."
<Pose Tracker> Gai Kurenai has posed.
"You're already part of it, if you're feeling the grass under your feet and breathing the air - even the recycled air of a colony. It's just a question of connecting to people." He chuckles. "It's a scary thing to do, sometimes! To open yourself up to an unknown soul and learn about them, but it's the most important thing to keep trying to do."
Shozo speaks about his tether, to the wild vagabond still down on Earth, and Gai's face blooms into this warm, tender smile - a fondness for someone close to him who is far away. "Yeah. We've been through a lot, and that... changes things. But he is still... Very, very dear to me, and I have faith in him still."
He grins. "Another precious risk, that."
<Pose Tracker> Shozo has posed.
Shozo shrugs.
"I'm only half-here. The rest of me is, well..." He taps a knuckle on nothing at all, and Gai can see the sky next to them crack, red spiderwebbing out for a moment before returning to healthy space. In that moment, however... The malice leaking through those cracks was unmistakable. Perhaps not Shozo's, but the occupants of whatever was on the other side were seething with hate that seemed to reach for Gai's heart for the moment they could peer through the cracks. Shozo notices immediately, and bows in apology.
"Ah, sorry! I've never done it with an Ultra nearby... I'll be careful.
At the discussion of Gai's partner, the smile returned to his face.
"I think the feeling is mutual. The light of care is shining in both directions, y'know."
<Pose Tracker> Gai Kurenai has posed.
Gai tenses up immediately at the malice-filled phenomenon cracking reality in front of him, energy crackling in his palms for a moment - and then Shozo apologises and seals the breach and he relaxes again.
"I see. I understand why what's going on over there reminds you of your home, then."
He exhales, smiling as Shozo describes the bond flowing two ways. "I know. It's a thing that we have to rebuild.... But we'll get there, I'm sure."
He stretches, looking back out at Earth. "Right, I'm going to head out and patrol the city some more. You can tag along, if you like!"
<Pose Tracker> Shozo has posed.
jumps up to his feet, eyes sparkling -- alien as they are.
"Can I?!" he chirps excitedly. He's still a kid after all. "Thanks, Mr. Gai!"
Forget what his father told him, Ultras are cool.