2025-06-14: Desperation
- Cutscene: Desperation
- Cast: Rikka Takarada
- Where: Nouvelle Tokyo
- Date: 2025-06-14
- Summary: Rikka refuses to see what's before her. She goes looking for another answer, instead.
Officially, Akane Shinjo was dead - killed in action the other day. Seeing the footage, seeing the remains, it's hard to believe otherwise.
Rikka refused to believe it. She had stormed out of the room. And ever since... she's buried herself in her work. She had been offered time to grieve, of course - a reprieve from her work or her classes, but she couldn't accept it. Whether classwork or work with 3G, she's devoted herself to it, focusing on it to the exclusion of all else. It's hard to say if she'd even go home if it weren't for Balam waiting for her, needing someone to take care of him. For all the emotions roiling within her that she doesn't want to face, the restless energy that needs some kind of outlet, he, at least, serves as a grounding point - taking care of him reminds her to take herself instead of losing herself to that endless drive that has overtaken her.
But every time she comes home... she sees reminders in every room. Signs of her in the little touches she's responsible for, in the possessions left lying where she left them last, in the empty places where she should be. It's not that she hates to be alone - their relationship was built on the acknowledgment that they were two separate people who sometimes needed some time alone, just as much as they were a couple together. But here, now, with that overwhelming hurt in her chest... it's almost unbearable.
She doesn't know what's worse, at this point. That... or those looks of sympathy, the endless apologies and condolences, each one like another knife. She accepts them politely, of course, but each one carries with a... finality, that she receives to accept. She can't believe it. She won't believe it.
When she had first heard the news, she thought that part of her had been torn out of her. But it's still there, telling her that she's still there, that she's out there waiting for her that she needs her that she just has to find her. She can't let her last memories of her be charred remains in a crater.
And so - Chief Rikka Takarada sits in her office. She's done all the work available to her at this point and she had been told, politely but pointedly, to take a break or go home rather than taking on more. Her door, though on brighter days open to all who might have need of her, is firmly shut. She knows how this looks. She doesn't want people to lose their faith in her if they stumble in on her and misunderstand. It's difficult enough for her to keep her courage up without people whispering behind her back that she's lost herself to her grief. She'd take the overbearing concern any day over that.
She sits hunched over in her desk. A series of papers are set out across it, carefully organized. On her computer feed, a series of video feeds play out on a constant loop. In front of her, a journal, filled with notes taken by hand.
Reports, filed following the incident with the Nu Gundam on the border. Footage from that day, taken from every source she could get a hold of - central among them, that final recording that had sealed her fate. And the journal, filled with questions and observations. She frowns, setting her pencil down, setting her hands in front of her as she turns her attention back to the monitor. She can no longer count how many loops of it she's watched.
Idly, her thumb play across one of the rings on her ring finger. A gold-and-platinum wedding ring with an orange-brown central diamond and blue stones - the perfect partner to her silver-white ring with its purple diamond and red stones. They sit next to each other. She won't separate them - not until it's the right time..
"What happened to you...?" Rikka murmurs to herself. "Where are you...? Please, help me find you..."
She plays the footage again.
She's always hated to lose.