2023-03-30: ?do you remember the emptiness as i dO
- Log: ?do you remember the emptiness as i dO
- Cast: Akane Shinjo, Yuliana Kafim
- Where: Barcelona Food Court
- Date: 2023-03-30
- Summary: Yuliana chances on Akane in Barcelona, after a shady rendezvous with an old comrade turned enemy. She's content to play with her right up until the point where Akane recognises her emptiness. But her newfound stakes don't make things any better... particularly as Yuliana's story grows too, too familiar for Akane's comfort.
<Pose Tracker> Akane Shinjo has posed.
It's complex to be home, but it's not a bad complex, and it's not a bad home. After some testing of Akane's new... relationship, with 3G's machines, and some time to recover from her internal injuries incurred during the attempt to rescue Hass, she's at last back in the AEU.
(She also has her Tsutsujidai High School transcripts. For better or for worse, it's time to move on.)
Attending Montserrat is going to require her to get comfortable taking the train long distances, alone, on the regular again as just one more person. That, at least, is something she can handle... with a little help from someone she's always with.
Fishing the pass holder out of her bag again as she swipes her card again on her way out, Akane heads out into the wider world, which as it happens looks a lot like a shopping mall right now. Within about five minutes, she's parked herself in the food court with a bowl of donburi and the mall map open on her phone. (It turns out that even in Barcelona, donburi's an option.)
"Hmmmm. C tier," she reflects on the gyudon in front of her. "But like, a good C-tier?"
<Pose Tracker> Yuliana Kafim has posed.
BARCELONA -- TWO HOURS PRIOR
"You can't be here," a blonde woman says, curt. "Even out in the AEU..."
Yuliana lays the cash -- gently -- down on the table. She's already cut the cables to the camera in this booth. "Even so," she responds, smoothly, tilting her head to glance through dark glasses, "here I am. And what I need from you is your intel on Aznable, as an officer."
Captain Lindy Thirtylost narrows her blue eyes. "You're an enemy of both the state and the Federation, these days, last I checked."
"Even so," Yuliana keeps her cool, "you know why I ask."
"It won't bring him back."
"It's more about getting even."
Lindy takes the money. She's a ranking REA soldier, these days.
...---...
AND NOW
International fugitive Yuliana Kafim, wanted by more than one sect of the Federation for more than one reason, is eating Cargols a la Llauna in the food court.
Oh, be fair: she's not immediately recognisable. She has hair, for one, in defiance of the highly-publicised Institute raid footage. She's all rugged up in a scarf pulled up to her chin, for another, and a bomber jacket to ward off the lingering March chill. And, of course: the shades. They're very dark, and very pointy.
She does not appear to have anything strange going on around her ears. Neither does she seem to have any abnormalities about her midsection, though her jacket is closed.
Hearing a voice behind her -- recognisable enough, even given the lack of acquaintance -- Yuliana leans back, a snail still speared on the end of a toothpick. "That's because you're eating Japanese food in Catalonia," she observes, with a loose grin. "Try the paella."
Chomp.
<Pose Tracker> Akane Shinjo has posed.
That the voice comes from behind is one of the things that makes it hardest for Akane to ignore it; her shoulder blades seize up and her neck tilts back, as if someone's slid a gun into her spine and expects her to walk slowly forward.
It takes Akane a second, nevertheless, to figure out how to place the woman addressing her. ... she starts, "I kinda doubt food court paella's gonna measure up to what I've had."
Practicals overtake small talk in short order. "Why are you here?" she asks, not turning to meet Yuliana's gaze; the tension remains in her. "I reviewed your NERV internal file and the news a little after we talked." She doesn't actually know much, in spite of that; she's had other things to obsess over connecting the dots on, and right now Yuliana is so remote from them.
(That could change, of course, as they speak.)
Trying her best to remain calm as she continues facing away, Akane forces herself through the terror to ask what she's been wanting to ask since their previous meeting.
"How do you know Alexis? I half knew he was involved with the Banshee and Puru-1, but we were trying to keep that quiet."
She still doesn't look back.
<Pose Tracker> Yuliana Kafim has posed.
Is it unkind? It's just how the tables are arranged. Blame yourself or fate itself.
Yuliana doesn't get up and rearrange herself when she sees how uncomfortable Akane is. It's tempting to raise her frill and embrace her across the gap between tables, of course, but...
Humans just aren't very understanding creatures.
"There's no reason to turn your nose up at a decent paella," she remarks, lightly, and turns back to spear another snail. Nibble, nibble, chomp.
Her gaze veils over boundless green, as Akane tries to talk business. Her smile creeps a little wider -- a little sharper; one of her teeth is sharper than the others. (Doubled, against the others. Her mouth is crowded, now.) "Oh? I have an internal file? Hahaha... what a gossip that little monster is." And surely it's figurative, the way she always is.
She can hear the terror, of course, but it's not like that's a bad thing. It's positively refreshing, really. Why, the last time she was able to strike fear into one of these people was --
Oh, all right, just back at HaroCon. But Yuliana wasn't able to specifically harass Ranka, so does it even count?!
Chomp. Chomp, chomp.
There's still laughter on her lips, carried through her speech. (Japanese, at present. She's terribly kind.) "So, you're still keeping his secrets..." And she does not turn to look at Akane; she is the very picture of politeness, to hear her tell it.
Chomp.
"If you must know, he was terribly unsettled by my visit to that space junk you left behind -- back when it was more respectable, you understand." Tsutsujidai, before the Chaos Bringer brought it into physical space. She must have come by train. "He went to great lengths to ensure you and I would never meet... and I was willing to extend that much courtesy to someone who knew the emptiness, in a fashion."
She takes a moment to eat another snail. "If you want to know why, come sit by me, if you like."
An invitation to the oblivion beside her.
<Pose Tracker> Akane Shinjo has posed.
"I guess that's true," Akane concedes. "I guess I need to get better at liking stuff that's just okay." It's hard to admit -- that she's spent so long with 'perfect' that she's forgotten how to seek out 'pretty good.' Nevertheless...
"It's not his secrets I'm keeping," Akane answers. "It's whoever he decided is gonna be fun to kick around next." ... she realizes, as soon as she's said it, that she's given away a bunch of new information for free, and scowls. It's a scowl that doesn't last through the next application of gyudon to mouth, but it is a scowl.
Yuliana dangles something at her, though. Knowledge of Alexis -- during his time as Akane's guardian -- that's nevertheless totally new to him. A tiny slice of something that she knows she's better off not knowing, yet desperate to know. She loses her ability to weigh the benefits and drawbacks, a bit.
Collecting bowl in one hand and phone and drink (awkwardly) in the other, Akane moves to sit across from Yuliana. Her eyes remain planted firmly in her bowl, though; she's always had trouble meeting others' gazes.
She sorts through what Yuliana's already given her carefully -- emptiness. Alexis keeping them from ever meeting. That suggests, she reflects, that she thought Yuliana was a threat -- to her, or to Tsutsujidai...
"Well. Guess we're gonna have to hear it, huh!" she announces, all chirps despite her body language.
She opens a different tab on her phone. Just in case.
<Pose Tracker> Yuliana Kafim has posed.
"That's right," Yuliana confirms, still quite airy. "Snobbery is the most futile form of self-harm man has concocted. Particularly in relation to food." Chomp.
(She's scarred up, but they don't all look self-inflicted. Particularly not that gash down her left eye.)
Yuliana herself pouts, dour, at Akane's next answer; luckily, she's facing away from Akane, and Akane is facing away from her, so it's no harm and no foul at all. Because the smile's back in her voice when she remarks: "And yet you've not a whit who they are," she says, and her grin cuts into the edges of her face. "How will you save them from their indoctrination when they could be any sorry wretch at all?"
And if she has any complicated feelings about the Puru's dancing --
She consumes another snail with that same wolfish grin.
"Awfully selfish of you, to keep all that information to yourself, when any one of the people fighting there could have been the one with the power to free them." Nibble, nibble, chomp. "You should thank me for helping them all make the connection between Alexis and the Banshee, don't you think? Though..." Yuliana sighs. "Perhaps I'm wrong. Perhaps this sort of thing is something you should keep to yourself. I'll think earnestly on it."
(She will not.)
But, really... it's strange, isn't it, that Akane can sit beside her without flinching? She narrows her gaze, just so, as Akane asks her so straight-up.
"You're not the girl who made that town whose summertime cleaved to frozen snow beneath my feet," Yuliana issues, tone going to cool assessment, lips rising over one too many teeth. (A fang, hanging over her right side.) Her right fingers drum on the table -- there are wedding bands on her ring finger, there, rich onyx and diamond and emeralds. The purple bracelet on her wrist, peeking out from her sleeve, is just as fine. "Even so, torn edges announce you. What cannot pours from your hide, abjured. Do you not feel nothing?"
<Pose Tracker> Akane Shinjo has posed.
Yuliana describes Akane's snobbery as self-harm, and her foot begins to tap involuntarily -- a feeling she doesn't want to express but which has to come out somehow begins to bubble in her.
"I'm working on that," Akane says, low and angry, as Yuliana asks her a counter-question. "And they couldn't be 'any sorry wretch at all.'" That gets her to look up, in anger -- though her gaze doesn't quite meet Yuliana's, still. "It's someone in 3G, in my house, or one of my friends."
Another reaction -- and another piece of information given. Dammit.
The more frustrated Akane gets, the more things begin to feel... off. There's a way in which things flow, in the heart of a kaiju, between hearts, when frustrations build and go unexpressed.
It's not present. Nothing moves. The world doesn't flow and neither does Akane.
That gnaws at her. "I'm not," Akane can't help but agree, as she finds the world increasingly still in a way she doesn't expect -- a familiar way. That stillness feels so recognizable, how -- and the fact that it uneases her only affirms Yuliana's words.
"I used to feel nothing a lot," Akane answers Yuliana. "Sometimes it creeps up on you." She looks off, still avoiding meeting Yuliana's gaze, and then admits... "... I miss it sometimes. But I hate it, too."
<Pose Tracker> Yuliana Kafim has posed.
"Interesting," Yuliana smiles, when Akane narrows Puru-1's identity down.
She'll remember that, later.
For now, she can take some satisfaction in the unease which finally takes hold of Akane's manner. But...
"You did, did you?" Yuliana issues, with all the chill comprehension of a snake calculating the strike. "You know this? You miss this?" There's something almost a shred disbelieving, to her, as she volleys those questions.
"No... no, of course." She thinks on her feet; her fingers drum a shade faster. "He digs a different hollow. You are not of me, and so the Void repudiates your existence. Of course you would think to react to this purification with hate, misguided as you are."
They're drumming to the quickening beat of her heart.
"Look at me."
Her eyes are strange; her smile too sharp. In the anonymity of the food court, everyone occupied with their own lunches and problems, there is the sound of sliding flesh. Her ears shift forward, as something wriggles out from behind them. One, two, three... four tentacles, all joined with webbing between them, a little like fins and a little like wings and a little like the frill of a horrific dragon.
On the other side of the food court, a man drops his bowl of pollastre amb llagosta to the ground, and curses. A woman goes dead silent as her companion continues to chatter. A chill goes down a child's spine, and he begins to cry.
No one else notices.
And Yuliana takes no notice of them.
Sharp to madness: "Do you know? Do you? Do you?"
<Pose Tracker> Akane Shinjo has posed.
"When Tsutsujidai was my city, it felt like this. So quiet."
It's the first time Akane's managed to put 'was' and 'my city' together. It's heavier than she thought it would be -- to admit both the connection and the separation. As much as she'd hope it would liberate her, the feelings actually end up an order of magnitude more complex.
She looks up to Yuliana when requested. Under any circumstance but this, it would be difficult for her to do so -- but so isolated, she falls into the habit of falling into other people's traps. Those fins catch her attention immediately.
... Another kaiju disguised as a human. Or maybe a kaiju that was once a human...?
Either way -- an existence not so unlike hers. As the world gets quieter and people mourn the quiet they're forced into, Akane...
... flinches. In the silence, those cries, that dropped food -- it's too much. "It's -- suffocating," she answers Yuliana, at strain. "But... nostalgic. I remember how it felt. For almost everything to just be quiet."
Perhaps her city was like that, before it opened to the world. It would mirror the unknown hand in the work, wouldn't it?
"What happened to you? To make those?" she asks, and there's a genuine curiosity there, rather than anything hostile.
<Pose Tracker> Yuliana Kafim has posed.
She remembers; she cannot remember what she has never known.
Yuliana takes a breath, as her fingers curl to a fist, on the table. She makes herself pull into herself again, and just as it began it ends, as those horrible fans fold up behind her ears, invisible again. (It doesn't look like it should be physically plausible. It isn't.) The crying peters out; that conversation resumes.
But the chicken and lobster is ruined, forever.
And Akane cannot escape the emptiness so easily, sitting by her, though the intensity of that consumption has narrowed back down to Yuliana's horrific set point.
"The Republic made me this way." It is Yuliana who breaks her gaze this time, looking down at her hand; she sets her toothpick down on her more-or-less empty place, and her left hand holds the right, pinky sliding over her rings rhythmically. Her voice grows more muted, less theatric; as ever, there are no vague emotional cues to suggest their veracity. "Injected my central nervous system with alien cells, as they tried to make violations of us all... I'm the only one who survived it. Ever on have I known the joys of silence, and seen the transgressions you would press upon your fellows."
She sounds sad, at least.
"I was... created to be an anti-Newtype operative, in an independent project from some Titan who hid beneath our rocks. And I was the best, for a time. Given the effects NT-D has on those wretched creatures, I doubt you'd disagree I still am... it is no agony to me to hear nothing." She says it doesn't hurt, so why doesn't she sound as animate as she was, before? "But it wasn't enough for my country. I -- wasn't enough."
Yuliana's envy-green eyes screw shut, for a moment; her lips curl upwards and her nostrils flare, as she takes in a sharp breath. "My own desires grew too troublesome for them... so they abandoned the pretence of my agency. They took me back, though I didn't wish to go. They ensured I'd wish as they willed. And then they asked me to lie down, and I did." She grows pale; she pauses, for a moment.
If her eyes are damp, perhaps it's another act.
"The Orchild Cells inside me were still nascent. In order to bring about their Renascence, they... injected me with an accelerant of a kind, I suppose. The cells would mature... but they didn't come from a human. And I was still -- still mostly human. My brain would boil to sludge. But they would not let me die. They placed their tubes, their wires, their needles... they meant to keep my body alive and harvest those matured cells from me." Should she tell this to a teenager? No matter; she is speaking.
"So that they could replace me with as many of me as they wished... more compliant and less troublesome than I ever was, I'm sure." And in the distance of her voice, her derision still shines through, saying that. "Mass-produced anti-Newtype weapons... in the flesh. Quantity over quality."
Disgusting.
"But as they profaned me so, the veil grew weak, and She heard my cries... in Her embrace was I changed, given weapons to defend myself." Yuliana does smile, again, finally; a gentler and quieter thing than her ravenous grins from before. "And my dearest wife came to save me... she'd developed an antidote to arrest the process, make it gentler on my flawed mortality. She saved me... oh, she killed them all." And Yuliana reports it so warmly.
"... so am I now. The Republic's crimes are written on me. Even so, I am more perfect. I have been remade, stronger, to bear the burden I must bear." And oh, she believes.
<Pose Tracker> Akane Shinjo has posed.
... another Federation weapon. But maybe more to the point, another weapon at all.
Having seen what, presumably, Yuliana intended her to see, Akane briefly turns her gaze toward the crying, and then to the chicken and lobster. ... part of her wants to replace it, but... ... she needs to let herself not feel responsible for all the pain in the world.
Besides: there's someone in front of her.
"... Turned into a kaiju by someone who thought you'd make a better weapon than a person," Akane reflects to herself, and it seems like there's some actual recognition of the self through the other, there.
Indeed, the distressing thing is that each step of it seems more familiar, rather than less. As the specific gives way to the general, as Akane thinks about the ability she has as a kaiju that she never possessed as a god, let alone a human -- the ability to want and to take.
'She saved me,' Yuliana says, and for an instant there's a look of recognition.
'Oh, she killed them all.'
It gives way to... is this worry? For a relative stranger, for this once weapon of the Federation now turned against it...?
She looks up to Yuliana, opening her mouth to speak. Nothing comes out -- just a breath. She tries again, and still, nothing greets her.
A third time, and finally -- something spills out of her.
"... that's not far off from how it went for me," Akane admits. "It wasn't the Federation, but it was still the same kinda deal." That thought -- that she could be Yuliana, that she is someone like Yuliana -- makes her blood run cold.
"You're gonna want to figure out what Alexis really wants out of hanging out with you sooner than later," she suggests. She moves to stand, and says, "I should -- really get going..."
<Pose Tracker> Yuliana Kafim has posed.
"I would have fought for them as a human," Yuliana reflects, and it saddens her. "I came of my own free will... agreed of my own free will. I wanted to make things better..."
She blinks her eyes, and finds her lashes damp. "All will be well," she invokes, and smiles, again. "In the end, I get what I want."
Wanting -- the domain of the kaiju.
Wanting, and taking.
Isn't that right?
Yuliana smiles, serene, to Akane.
"Don't worry," she assures her.
"My Elisa would never allow him to bring me to harm."
Is it reassuring?
Yuliana's expression cools when Akane stumbles over her sentence, standing. "Run along, now," she grants her permission, as she lifts her hand to admire her ring. "I'm sure your little friends would hate to see you linger here."
Here, in this place she is so quick to leave, though she knows the pressure on her soul.
"Since there's a distance between us which cannot be bridged..."
And there is distance in Yuliana's voice, just the same, as she occupies herself with admiring her decorations -- her markings. Displays have purposes, in nature. They warn of poison, or venom; they seek community, or companionship.
Or affection... or affiliation.
Yuliana belongs to Elisa.
<Pose Tracker> Akane Shinjo has posed.
Yuliana's reflection makes it closer to home, not further away.
Maybe it's that, that sees 'My Elisa would never allow him to bring me to harm' significantly accelerate Akane's movement toward escape. It's hard for her to decide what that information means to her life -- and so she elects not to grapple with the hard question here and now.
At least she remembers to take her little paper bowl of gyudon with her. (Living in this world, unfortunately, means eating.)
Three minutes later, Akane curls up in a toilet stall.
It's as big a world as she can stand right now, and she doesn't want to open the door.