2022-04-11: Shelter

• Log: Shelter
• Cast: Anti, Sousuke Sagara
• Where: Tsutsujidai
• Date: 0096-04-11 (2022)
• Summary: Sousuke stumbles across the place Anti sleeps, and gives him some more advice. This still does not involve exchanging names. What bothers Anti, anyway?

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<Pose Tracker> Anti has posed.

        THE PARK, IN TSUTSUJIDAI:

        It's a big place. It has plenty of paths and nooks and crannies; plenty of benches and gazebos, and even some water features, to keep things interesting.

        The fact that one of those trees is lived-in is difficult to discern. Nothing's really been done to it; it just happens to have a particularly thick canopy, good for shading out the sun and keeping out the summer rain. The most noteworthy thing about the bushes beneath it, aside from the patch of grass flattened by repeated naps, is that someone's thrown out some trash underneath there.

        Trash like half a packet of dry cookies, and some expired hard cheese, and three crackers just kind of piled together on the dirt.

        It's definitely trash.

<Pose Tracker> Sousuke Sagara has posed.

Sousuke Sagara has taken to coming by Tsutsujidai periodically. He has several reasons. One is that the Gridman Alliance seems untested, and given the severity of their foe, he thinks it well to keep an eye on things here as best he can. The other is that Captain Testarossa ordered him to monitor someone here, and every so often you have to swap the SD cards.

It is on such an expedition that Sousuke comes across an unusual sight, on his way through the park.

He slows, squatting down next to the pile. "Hm," he says, thoughtfully. Having seen the trash, other things become more obvious, the particular suitability of the shade; the ground, flattened out by a person's weight. "Stakeout?" he says to himself.

<Pose Tracker> Anti has posed.

        It's a valid interpretation. But...

        Tromp, tromp, tromp. Footsteps, through the grass; someone walking off the trail. Hands all jammed in his pockets, chin ducked low over his neck, Anti slouches forward back towards the place he's ended up sleeping, recently.

        He stops, several paces away, when he sees someone in the spot he's staying. (He isn't trying to sneak up on Sousuke, which is lucky, because that means he doesn't have to fail.)

        "...", Anti says, eloquently, lips parted without sound.

        Eventually, he settles on: "It's you." His voice is still gravel-gruff low, difficult to match to the screaming he engages in battle. His eyes are intense as ever.

        He does not explain the crackers, because he doesn't think he needs to.

<Pose Tracker> Sousuke Sagara has posed.

Without his usual charges around, Sousuke's alert level drops enough that someone walking up doesn't get him to bolt upright. He turns more slowly, instead, and rises by the time Anti has worked around to speaking. "And you," Sousuke says, in a simulacrum of a greeting. "I see. So you've been resting here." Sousuke had taken the boy for a vagrant, before, but...no, there's something more to him. A mission you can't fail...

But rather than broach that topic, he says, "You've been eating. That's good."

<Pose Tracker> Anti has posed.

        Anti grunts, head inclining a little more, in a nod. It's him; he's been sleeping here. Both true.

        Without moving his head, his eyes track to his cache of food, under the bushes. Back to Sousuke. "It's reserved," he says, the words wavering little from his burning-ember presentation.

        He's referring to Sousuke's earlier advice, of course; apparently, he doesn't feel the need to remind Sousuke about the context, or anything as complicated as that.

        Exactly thirty two seconds of silence pass. He blinks; his lips thin, a little, as they press together. These little movements are notable for how still he is, otherwise.

        "It helped," Anti says, finally.

        Keeping food in reserve?

        (That, but Sousuke's specific CalorieMate bar, too.)

<Pose Tracker> Sousuke Sagara has posed.

"I see," Sousuke says, seriously. Yes, of course. If you have no place to put it, where else would you? Hm. Could he hide it somewhere better? Should he? Well, maybe save the lessons in hiding spaces for later--

It helped.

"Good," Sousuke says, getting within the ballpark of Anti's meaning, if perhaps not the precise center. "In the field, remaining alive is your first priority. Your mission will never be completed if your body fails you." He nods, firmly, to this wisdom. He said something similar before, but it's maybe the most important thing he can impart to this...person. Who probably needs help or something. Sousuke's a helpful guy, see.

"It's advisable to find concealment for your belongings, as well. In a survival situation, even the animals can be an enemy, seeking your precious provisions."

<Pose Tracker> Anti has posed.

        Anti frowns a little deeper, as Sousuke says he'll never succeed if his body fails. His body failing, in fact, is one of Anti's biggest problems. Of course, it has to do with the lamp on his forehead flashing and reducing him back to this form which can't kill Gridman, but...

        That's basically what Sousuke is talking about, probably.

        He looks back to his storage bush. Back to Sousuke. "It's not hidden?" He asks, as if he thought he had. Being fair, they are... under a bush. Which might hide them from passers-by.

        Definitely not from raccoons, though.

        Anti has had Problems with raccoons.

<Pose Tracker> Sousuke Sagara has posed.

Admittedly not much is going to keep raccoons out short of... ...nothing, really. They are devil creatures from hell andor Britannia and absolutely nothing will stop them.

Sousuke nods thoughtfully. "The bush will hide it from passers-by, but an elevated position will help against people searching intently, and provide some protection against groundbound animals as well. Of course, tree-dwelling scavengers will be hard to dissuade in general." Hum. He cups his chin. "But, you're right. An agreeable first effort."

<Pose Tracker> Anti has posed.

        "Oh."

        Anti steps forward, but he's not going for Sousuke as much as the food he's cached down there. He picks it up, and tucks it all neatly into a hand. Old cheese stacked on dirty crackers stacked on top of forgotten cookie punnet.

        From a dead stop, his legs bend, and he leaps an easy six feet up into the boughs of the tree. He manages to catch himself with one hand, too.

        Scrabble, scrabble, he finds a nook between two branches to jam his ill-gotten goods in. He pokes it, to make sure it doesn't fall down. Miraculously, it doesn't.

        He looks down, from above. His hair hangs around his face. His scarf dangles down, much lower than the rest of him.

        "Like that?"

<Pose Tracker> Sousuke Sagara has posed.

Anti understands immediately. Sousuke watches him climb, and nods. "That should do nicely. Over time, you will find which is more suitable to your needs and environment. The more skills you have practiced, the more effectively you may deploy the best to your situation."

He observes thoughtfully for a long moment.

"You expect to be surviving this way for a while, then?" he prompts, because, Sousuke is kind of a weird golem boy but even he wonders what is up with Anti, the even weirder golemier boy.

<Pose Tracker> Anti has posed.

        Anti nods, when Sousuke confirms he's learned the lesson correctly. He re-settles his perch, only to spring up -- through the canopy of the tree, to land on the ground again. Evidently, whoever let him loose didn't bother with too many lessons about looking normal.

        There's a twig in his hair, and another one stuck in his scarf. He doesn't bother removing either of them.

        He's perfectly happy to stand quietly here, because Anti is a kaiju, and doesn't understand what an awkward silence is.

        When Sousuke does come up with a question, though, Anti's still quiet, a few moments more. His frown deepens.

                'Say if I want to find you...
                                Where would I go?'
                        '... I don't know.'

        "Yes." He answers, at length. A leaf falls, disturbed from its rest by Anti's acrobatics. It's unnatural, in this place. Autumn never comes.

        "Because, I'm..." a kaiju, he almost says, before he remembers what Nidaime told him, about how humans feel about them.

        He blinks, and blinks the disclosure away.

        He settles on: "It doesn't bother me."

<Pose Tracker> Sousuke Sagara has posed.

These abilities...Such skill and grace. Such a powerful leap! This boy...he must be...

Sousuke nods to himself, chin cupped thoughtfully. "I can tell you are training regularly. That's good. It's easy to forget the importance of maintaining your body, amid other survival tasks."

...training aggressively!

'Because, I'm...' Anti says, and Sousuke supplies his own answer; a thing humans do quite often, when given the chance. A mission...yes, a mission that requires him to remain in the field for a long, long time. Sousuke knows precisely the kind.

"Good," Sousuke says, with a thoughtful nod. "The strength to persevere in adversity will help you greatly." ... "Still. Holding steady doesn't achieve your objective." Sousuke doesn't know what it is. But it...doesn't matter. Shouldn't matter?

"Once you have obtained stability, the next step is improving what you have."

<Pose Tracker> Anti has posed.

        Anti nods, when Sousuke supposes he's training regularly. It's entirely possible Anti has misunderstood the concept, because Anti thinks of all these lessons he's learning as training for his ultimate task.

        Or maybe he understands perfectly, from a kaiju's perspective. Who knows.

        "Stability." Anti echoes Sousuke, with a little puzzled scrunch of his lips. "Is that important?"

        Here, he thinks of a girl who can't decide whether she's happy to see him or annoyed he still exists. He wonders whether a fixed world is stable, and supposes, a breath later, it must be.

        Anti shakes his head, just a little, side to side. (The twig creaks, and falls to a ninety-degree angle.) "How do I improve?" He asks, regardless.

<Pose Tracker> Sousuke Sagara has posed.

Is stability important? Sousuke can't help but avert his gaze at that one. Is it? He knows, intellectually, that people value it. It is in many ways the greatest concern of civilization. But...

Is it important?

A school bell in his mind, and boys who can look at a magazine and see weapons for marvels of design, rather than engines of destruction.

"...more than you might think," he says. "But less than others would expect. Stability is what allows one to stop surviving, and begin improving themselves." Not quite how Kalinin said it. The stoic old man has a way with words that Sousuke lacks. But then, it took Sousuke a long time to grasp what he meant by 'living' vs 'surviving', that day.

"Find things that bother you, and change your situation so they don't," he says. "The canopy of the tree is a shelter against the rain, but a tarp or a tent keeps out rain, and wind, and a variety of other irritants. Balancing your belongings in the branches works, but a bag, or a box with a lock on it, would both protect them better and make them easier to move."

He tips his head, thoughtful. "These are examples, of course. Improvement is something people spend much of their time on, based on what it is they want to achieve."

<Pose Tracker> Anti has posed.

        Stop surviving, and begin improving...

        Surviving? Is that what she's doing, Anti thinks? Thinks of her, and doesn't look to himself.

        The first thing Anti thinks of, when it comes to things which bother him, barely merits belabouring. (It's Gridman, and how alive he is.) But Sousuke goes on to talk about things which have nothing to do with killing Gridman, aside from his -- comfort? Is that what this is?

        What does making Anti comfortable have to do with killing Gridman?

        And does being locked out bother him, anyway?

        But they're perfectly practical suggestions; it's hard to discount ideas like tarps and bags. Anti frowns, and straightens up, looking above to his cache.

        "What bothers me..."

        It's not just Gridman. It's complicated. It shouldn't be complicated, really. If Anti kills Gridman, Akane will be kind to him. Won't she? Except, it's an exchange, it's transactional, and that's not kindness, not really --

        "I'm getting... distracted," Anti decides, at length. Distantly, he relates: "I'm learning more, but I can't explain these sensations. It hurts when I'm not fighting. It doesn't make sense."

        His hands tighten to fists, beside him.

        "... all I know is... I have to kill him. That's why I was born... if I destroy that man, I won't be bothered any more." Even though it's not Gridman, bothering him?

        Anti isn't entirely sure why he's telling Sousuke all this -- except that, perhaps, he thinks he'd understand.

<Pose Tracker> Sousuke Sagara has posed.

For humans, these things aren't just a matter of comfort, but truly matter to whether they live or die. But perhaps that's not obvious to a kaiju.

Anti begins to speak. Sousuke listens, partly because he is a weird rock of a human being who will accept nearly any input as long as it doesn't contain an apparent threat to his life or the lives of people he is charged with protecting, but also because...he's...not, sure.

'I have to kill him.'

A normal person would respond strongly to those words. Sousuke should, as well, really. But..

Maybe it's all that he recognizes the boy he sees in those eyes.

"A mission you must achieve," Sousuke says, echoing their last conversation. He ruminates on those thoughts. His eyes travel up to the trees; a human gesture. He is one, after all.

"...and then?" Sousuke asks. "On to the next mission?"

<Pose Tracker> Anti has posed.

        Anti nods. For all he's talking about killing someone -- and for all that clearly raises his aggression, judging by the way his nails are digging in to his palms -- he doesn't seem like he wishes any harm on /Sousuke./ He makes no move to strike, or even to raise his voice, though it does shake a little with the vibrancy of his statement.

        Then --

        His eyes widen; he looks back to Sousuke, stricken. "The next... mission." Those words ring empty, hollowed out, just the way he's meant to be.

        "Ah. There are more Vessels. She can ask me to kill them, too... that's not about self-respect." Anti doesn't quite get to explaining what self-respect has to do with murdering -- or not murdering -- people; being fair, it's something of a revelation.

        "Even when I beat him... there's more to beat."

        Anti doesn't say he doesn't relish the idea. Perhaps he doesn't need to, the tension in his brow and the pinprick of his eyes, all written with the question of how they can be simultaneously intruded on and aggressing.

        "But first -- first, I've got to kill him," Anti insists, turning away, hands plunging deep into his pockets. He can impose this much order on his tightening heart; it makes sense, to prioritise his tasks just so.

        "Then, I kill the rest."

        Maybe it just hurts because he's imagining how the fight will go.

        Maybe that's why he starts walking away.

<Pose Tracker> Sousuke Sagara has posed.

Vessels. A thing. 'She'. A person. 'Ask me'. A relationship. Is he gathering intelligence?

Or is he just talking to a maniac?

"A mission isn't always killing," Sousuke says, rather than ask the thousand questions Sayla's going to badger him with when he talks to her again.

Anti begins to walk away. Like before, something in the unbridgeable gap between them - a chasm, unimaginably deep and impossibly wide, that Sousuke can just barely detect - brings out in Sousuke something he doesn't know, recognize, or comprehend.

But it makes him say, "It can be to protect someone, instead."

<Pose Tracker> Anti has posed.

        "..." Anti doesn't quite get to saying, even though he's still listening, to Sousuke. Whether he's mad... it's a valid question.

        Maybe it's his world that is.

        Because Sousuke says that not every mission involves murder, but Anti knows it's what he was made for, all sculpted and shaped. The only reason Akane needs him... is to kill.

        Is that sad..? It doesn't matter. A kaiju like him doesn't know what sadness even is.

        What's plain is that Anti's shoulders hunch tighter, when Sousuke says he can protect someone -- he walks quicker. He heard it; it struck him.

        He knows he can protect Akane.

        He knows that's true, because he had to retrieve his scarf, back then.

        Even so, killing Vessels of Light...