2022-04-14: Shell

• Log: Shell
• Cast: Renais Cardiff, Anti
• Where: Tsutsujidai
• Date: 2022-04-15 (0096)
• Summary: Before she burns, Anti has requests and questions for Renais.

---

<Pose Tracker> Renais Cardiff has posed.

Do you ever spot something out of the corner of your eye, just consistently enough that it's weird? Usually, it's just a shape, or a distinctive shadow...

But sometimes, it's an entire fucking restaurant, and Renais has finally managed to catch it in the act of existing.

She's standing in front of BLACK*STAR CRAB, hands in her pockets. Just... staring up at the sign. Like it might disappear if she stops, and when she opens the door it'll be a completely different restaurant.

There's little introspection to be found here--just a cyborg staring at a restaurant like a dog that finally managed to catch her tail.

<Pose Tracker> Anti has posed.

        Alexis drove past it, when Anti was born. He saw it for a moment, through the window -- and then it was gone.

        It hasn't been at the front of his mind; he's had so much else on there. But even kaiju get hungry, presuming, of course, that it's a kaiju designed to seem something like human. At a time like that --

        Beside BLACK*STAR CRAB --

        In the alleyway it's sidled in to fit beside --

        Bang! Clatter! Thud!

        There's a cat in the dumpster. Oh, wait, no, that's Anti. His top half has disappeared into the restaurant's trash, and empty boxes go flying as he scrounges through to try and find what he's looking for.

        It's just lucky his scarf is poking out, and his pants have such distinctive patterning, because otherwise it might be hard to tell just who is making a mess in there.

<Pose Tracker> Renais Cardiff has posed.

The sound kicks Ren's instincts into drive, and her eyes leave the sign, snapping toward the alley. Her hand dives into her coat, grabbing a hefty-looking pistol, and she slowly rounds the corner to the alley... only to find a certain kaiju digging around inside.

One might even call him a cat, if one were being particularly silly.

"Anti?" she asks, not putting her gun away. She does take her finger off the trigger, though, pointing it skyward. "What are you doing?"

<Pose Tracker> Anti has posed.

        Anti emerges from the dumpster, holding in his teeth:

        One (1) entire crab, which someone conveniently happened to throw out.

        It's a matter of disagreement between his jaw and his teeth, whether it fits in there; his chompers are sharp enough to hold fast to it, but the entire lower half of his face yawns to accommodate all that armour.

        ... but Akane never ordered Anti to be capable of eating crabs, so his mouth-parts are tragically poorly designed for this prospect.

        Anyway, that's the lower half of his face. As for the other half: his eyes narrow in just the opposite way his jaw gapes, brow knitting over them in a deep, closing frown.

        Half-open, half-closed.

        He spits the crab into his hands. Ptoo.

        "Eating." Anti explains, without decoration, as he tries taking another bite out of the crab, again. This goes as well as the first time. He gnaws at the outside of the crab. The crab fails to reveal its secrets or its flesh.

        He tries a third time. Chomp. Doesn't he see the gun in her hand?

        It still doesn't work.

        At this point, he looks up to Renais. She's hurt, Anti thinks. That's what Akane told him.

        "What are you doing?" He asks, and remembers the inflection.

<Pose Tracker> Renais Cardiff has posed.

Renais sighs, putting the gun back in her coat. "Here. Let me help you with that," she offers, holding her gauntleted hand out for the crab in Anti's. "You're eating... out of the garbage? Doesn't Akane feed you?" she asks, brow furrowed.

"And... would you believe me if I told you that this is the first time this restaurant hasn't disappeared when I looked directly at it?" she asks, tilting herself back enough to get a glance around the corner. The sign probably still says BLACK*STAR CRAB. It's hard to tell from here.

"People usually open these with tools," she explains. "A human's teeth aren't really built for getting inside... as I'm sure you've learned. --would you like to go inside? I think it may be a bit more... sanitary to order it fresh than out of the, uh. Garbage."

<Pose Tracker> Anti has posed.

        "Sometimes." That's Anti's answer to whether Akane feeds him, truncated as ever. "I'm independent."

        This, as before, is something Akane told him without quite saying those exact words.

        He looks up to the restaurant, which is tough, from the alleyway. "We drove past." Is that... an answer to the question of how it keeps disappearing?

        Anti looks down at his crab, and back to Renais's gauntlet. Crab, gauntlet. Crab... gauntlet.

        Finally, he steps forward. He hands the crab over to Renais. It has teeth marks.

        "No." Anti replies, looking out towards where the entryway must be. "... Akane's not here. She wanted crab."

        There is a beat of a pause, as Anti stares at Renais. Another. Now it's awkward. Now it's uncomfortable. Now: "Sanitary?" why does anti sound like he's never heard of that concept

<Pose Tracker> Renais Cardiff has posed.

Ah. She must be inside.

Well... maybe it's nothing to worry about. He's a kaiju, after all. Who knows what their immune systems are like?

Do they even have immune systems?

Oh well. "... it's about cleanliness. I can explain later."

"... anyway, I suppose you could use some company," she admits, taking a seat against the wall. She grips the crab in her gloved hand, using the other to pull off a claw and peel away some of its armor and exposing the succulent white meat inside. She offers it to him. "Here. The legs are my favorite."

<Pose Tracker> Anti has posed.

        She isn't. Anti doesn't realise he has to explain that point, though.

        He doesn't. Anti doesn't realise he has to explain that point, either.

        "Oh." Anti says, on cleanliness, with all the dull realisation of someone who doesn't get it. That's probably why he can be sniffed out from here.

        He watches, as Renais rips the crab open. Not with mouth-parts, but with claws...

        Anti proceeds to take the crab, and shove the claw in towards his mouth. HOMPH nomph nomph, he tears the meat out with his teeth. It smells fishy, but crabs are a fish, so that's normal.

        He doesn't look any worse for wear, once he swallows. Anti is quiet, for a moment, looking to Renais; he lowers the empty claw, held loose in front of him. "... are you saying I need company because you do?"

        Anti blinks. His tone doesn't shift from its usual intensity, but he does offer an explanation, a moment later.

        "I think people offer things they want for themselves, but it's hard to tell."

<Pose Tracker> Renais Cardiff has posed.

Renais sits up a little straighter at the question, and the remark afterward, looking over at Anti with a sort of blank-surprised look as she yanks a couple more of the crab's legs off for him.

The look turns into a momentary, almost phantom smile. "Maybe. I think you might need more than you're being given... a kaiju as close to human as you would do well with some socialization, I think."

Two legs, partway peeled, are handed to him. "It's odd. Before I left Earth, I never thought I felt much need for things like this. But... I think I always did. I just never stopped long enough to realize it. So I think maybe you're right, in this case."

She glances down and pulls the rest of the legs off, setting them off to the side and pressing both thumbs down into the dome of the crab's shell.

CRACK.

<Pose Tracker> Anti has posed.

        A crab or the world; shells crack, either way.

        The corner of Anti's lip scrunches, slightly, as he considers what Renais is telling him. Socialisation..? It's not as important to him as what she says next, though. He wonders: has Akane ever stopped?

        He takes the legs. The empty claw clatters to the ground. Shortly, the legs fall, too, once he's viciously torn the meat from their -- well, it doesn't seem like they have bones. (Anti learned about bones the hard way.) Their... outside bones? Their outside bones.

        He's a kaiju, so he doesn't care about littering.

        "Akane gives me what I need," Anti says, finally. Whether that's what he wants or not -- well, that all depends on him, as far as he knows.

        He looks down, to the crab.

        "Aside from that, you're alike. I..."

        Anti is a very still sort of boy; he doesn't move when he doesn't mean to. In this way, he's like someone else in their life (it's me,), too (too). So it's notable, the way his body shifts, a little half-turn away from Renais. His hand falls to lead the motion, beside himself. His head's the last thing to turn.

        "...", he says. His lips part, and nothing comes out.

        He closes his lips. (There's still a bit of crab meat there, just off to the side. Messy eater.)

        "We're the bad guys." He speaks as abruptly as he doesn't. "That doesn't bother me. But..." His head shifts, chin leading; he returns his gaze to her, steely as it ever is. "Don't die, Renais." It's degrees more fervent; something of a drop in the bucket, considering the usual burning-ember intensity of his voice.

        He doesn't get to explaining just why it's important to him.

        Or, rather, he thinks he already has.

        If they're alike, and Renais can survive being helped, then...

<Pose Tracker> Renais Cardiff has posed.

Ren stops in the middle of splitting the shell, her brow furrowing a little. "Yes... I-- I see a lot of myself in her, I think. Too much of myself." And the only way she can help her is to get her to understand...

They're the bad guys.

It might bother her, if she weren't at peace with it already. Necessary evil...

A small smile comes to her lips, as she presents Anti with the sundered shell, the glistening bounty within only partially bared. Anti seems to her like the type who'd like it less if there weren't a bit of cracking, ripping, and tearing.

She nods once. "I promise you I won't."

To her, it's simply not an option.

<Pose Tracker> Anti has posed.

        Anti nods, when Renais says she sees a lot of herself in Akane. This, in his mind, is confirmation that there is. He doesn't quite realise it's more ambiguous than that.

        It doesn't bother Anti -- because if trying to kill Gridman is bad, then he must be bad, by definition. That's what Akane wanted for him. That's where the conversation ends.

        (He got it.)

        He gets a crab, too, and he turns back to take it, burying his face in the cracked shell without a moment's pause. He has no sense of self-restraint or politeness at all!

        In the end, he tears the crabshell fully in half, and just kind of -- mashes his face into it. GNOMPH gnomph gnomph.

        He is still listening, though. Between ripping into that shell and tearing out the crab, anyway. And once he's finished ripping and tearing, he lifts his face -- all shiny from crab, obviously -- and nods, sternly, once more.

        Promises are a human's way to say something with a high degree of certainty, he's pretty sure.

        Anti drops two empty husks of crab to the ground.

        He needs more than he's being given, he turns over in his head, again.

        What he's being given...

        "Hey." Anti starts, gruff as ever. If there's an edge of nervousness to it -- if he glances over his shoulder -- put it down to the other person he's copying his daily life skills from. "BioNet... what do they do to kaiju?"

<Pose Tracker> Renais Cardiff has posed.

That's.

There's a lot to unpack in that question.

But the whys and wherefores are... less material than the immediate reality.

"Well... nothing good. I'll say that much," Renais explains, solemn. "A BioNet asset's value is in its usefulness. Once an asset stops being useful... or proves to not be useful... they tend to be discarded."

"For example, you'd be unlikely to be seen as much more materially important than the other kaiju madamoiselle Akane has created, regardless of your intelligence. It would be an asset, but... well. I've seen enough to know that they're more than willing to use humans like they're nothing more than weapons. What do you think that would imply for you, someone questionably human to begin with?"

There's an empathy in her eyes as she explains--his question is one of fear, or at least worry. "Why do you ask?"

<Pose Tracker> Anti has posed.

        That first explanation -- well, it makes sense. Discarding assets is just an escalation of treating them as unwanted when they fail to perform.

        (Which means...)

        Anti doesn't get caught up in the logical implications, though, as he keeps listening. His eyes don't leave Renais. He never learned about appropriate levels of eye contact.

        He never learned to flinch, either.

        "They're the only ones," he says, and here the river parts and he too follows, "who'd help me." It comes from a position of mistrust, but Anti, too, is a player on the stage.

        And he is unaccustomed to the asking.

        "But it bothers me." He settles on, after a moment. "Even though it's not something I can change. It's better that I do it," compared to Akane, surely, "but I don't like involving them."

        Because it's dangerous for Akane?

        Or...

        "Akane made me to kill Gridman," Anti says, gravel-gruff. "I won't stop until I do. But now, there are people who know me... you tried to get Gridman to me, too. I don't know what to think about that happening to me when there's someone who wanted to find me."

        Self-preservation is a deeper concept, in the end, than just living until someone else dies. Anti's discomfort is subtle, but it's there, in his deepening frown and the way his chin ducks down over his neck.

        "I'm not human... I'm a kaiju. Socialisation doesn't matter to me. But those things matter... it doesn't make sense."

<Pose Tracker> Renais Cardiff has posed.

Renais presses her lips together. There's some anger rising up, but-- also, pity. A bit of sadness.

And a lot of pain.

She stands. "You need to get away from them. They're a danger to you," she explains, "... and to Akane. They'd lock her in a room to make kaiju until she withered away and died. And you can't let that happen."

It's not stated as an order, or a request--simply a fact.

"You're a kaiju, but you're a kaiju with the intelligence of a human... interacting with humans. You're growing in human-shaped ways."

She cants her head down, slightly, looking at him beneath her brows. There's a firm intensity in her eyes. "You don't want to die. And you don't want her to die, either. That means you care... and if you care, you won't let that sort of harm come to her."

<Pose Tracker> Anti has posed.

        Anti doesn't really understand any of those feelings. That's something of the problem.

        He listens to Renais's account of the problem, too, without looking away. They'd lock her in a room... would she notice, he wonders, with how often she stays in hers?

        (Anti knows how long she stays in there at a stretch because of all the times he's waited outside. He's not allowed in, of course.)

        But -- Renais says he's growing, and Anti frowns deeper, at that. Human-shaped growth..?

        "The Second... said I was kind, too." It's not quite caring, but it's uncomfortably close. "I don't understand, since all I care about is destroying Gridman." But if that's true, why did he say he'd come to the Second's side, back then?

        "That's all I should care about," he settles on, a moment later. That settles the unfactual aspects just fine.

        "... it's all for her."

        Anti's fingers tighten, around his sleeves.

        "This is... how I can protect her!"

        Something he wants to do more than killing the Vessels, in the end -- his voice raises, his eyes squeeze shut, a sudden flurry of movement as he turns his face away and grimaces.

        If that means he has to work with BioNet so she doesn't have to -- why would he try to figure out what he was up against, then?

        (He doesn't want to die. But is it just so he'll survive to destroy Gridman?)

        Half a person, Anti breathes through his teeth, slowly, painfully looking back to Renais. "I... won't let Akane be hurt," he says, and this, too, is slow. "I'll die before that happens."

        He shifts -- turns away. "I'd better go. ... I'll get in trouble." For talking about this? (For telling Renais too much.)

        He doesn't like it when that happens, either.