2022-04-02: Stopgap

• Cutscene: Stopgap
• Cast: Akane Shinjo
• Where: Tsutsujidai - Akane's Room
• Date: 2022-04-02
• Summary: Akane takes a crack at something she's never tried before. She wonders, a little, why she bothers.

---

The days pass in Tsutsujidai. So much stays the same.

The "psychic rupture" remains open. Akane has had a lot to gnaw on over the last couple days.

Frustration. Resignation. Fear, target: Vessels of Light. ... other feelings below detection threshold.

Stronger feelings make for stronger kaiju. And the feelings the kaiju carry... are hers. Why is Alexis even involved, at that point?

---

Is it so easy? Does it simply boil down to -- say the words, receive the kaiju? Kaworu had said that Alexis claimed she needed him less every day. At the time, she'd insisted Alexis was just talking her up, but...

She looks at one of the wireframe skeletons on her desk. It's worth trying, she thinks. She holds up her hands for just a moment, moving the left two fingers away from the right two in a "V" shape and snipping a few times. (The original Nalgus had only two 'fingers.') "Let's see..." She sets to work.

Hm, she thinks -- the Venora didn't really make sense as a 'maintenance' design, that was Alexis's mistake. If she wants a monitoring and repair kaiju of her own creation, that's... Grellon -- no, that's not right, Grellon grows but it doesn't really... repair, and it's barely aware. Terzu... well, that *was* the first dimension-themed kaiju. And maybe Bantar -- the first kaiju to be seen observing in an earlier episode before a fight...?

Those are both old... this is gonna be a real simple looking kaiju, she reflects. It almost feels like a shame, after Go'yavec and its painstakingly-sculpted greenery, its lovingly-crafted volcanoes. But this is an important element of kaiju design, too. Bantar's in her top five and it's *literally* a prop boulder hollowed out into a suit with half of a kitchen set as 'monitoring dishes.'

Simple is best, sometimes.

---

Akane looks at Psifitter, the Quick-Fix Solution Kaiju. With torso armor plates that double as dimensional monitoring devices and a dimensional 'glue gun,' for lack of a better term, it's... ill-suited to all but the smallest battles, but it might at least find out what the real deal is with Tsutsujidai's sudden, persistent openness.

This doesn't seem like the kind of kaiju that'd excite Alexis, though. Maybe she can just... do it on her own. Everything's telling her she can. He's not on the monitors, either.

"... Well, here it goes," Akane says. She takes a step back. Rolls her neck. Gives one final round of Nalgus-hands.

"Instance --" she starts. *That* does something, though what it does is primarily make her stomach lurch a little bit. She finishes out just fine, though, with a firm, "-- Abreaction!"

...

...

...

Nothing happens. Steeling herself, she tries again.

"Instance Abreaction!"

There's that same split-second strange feeling -- but still nothing.

Akane stares at the sculpture for several seconds. "Welp. This thing sucks anyway," she concedes, with a shrug. A kaiju to *repair* something, to observe a world? That's a joke, and not a very funny one.

Alexis was definitely just pulling Kaworu's leg, Akane affirms to herself. She definitely still needs him.